At this point, customers in 77 countries have downloaded well over two billion apps, continuing to make it the world’s most popular software store.

“The App Store has forever changed the mobile gaming industry and continues to improve,” said Travis Boatman, vice president of Worldwide Studios, EA Mobile.

A Brief History of the iPhone App Store
When the original iPhone was announced in early 2007, Apple said it would not allow other companies to release native software for this smartphone. Instead, they could only make Web apps that ran in the browser.

For the entire first year this device was on the market, native third-party applications were blocked. This lead to a significant percentage of devices being “jail-broken” — modified to remove this restriction.

Only tremendous demand from users forced Apple to change course, and the App Store debuted with the launch of the second-generation iPhone.

Lots of Competition
When Apple launched its software store, the idea of an on-device application store was hardly a new one — companies like Handango have offered them for years –but the early ones met with limited success.  The popularity of the iPhone version has breathed new life into this concept, and virtually all of Apple’s competitors are seeking to imitate this accomplishment.

Read a ReviewBoth Google’s Android OS and Palm’s webOS debuted with a software store part of their basic feature set, RIM has launched the BlackBerry App World, while Nokia has the Ovi Store. In addition, Microsoft introduced an application store for Windows Mobile devices last month.

Still, none of these have been able to match the App Store. In second place is the Android Market, which has around 12,000 apps.

Via: Brighthand.com

Startups can create “freemium” versions of their apps, for example, that only let users access a limited number of features as a trial, and require a paid upgrade for full service. Game developers that may have been wary of charging $5.99 for a title can now offer it for free with on-going subscription charges, or even monetize through virtual goods sales.

Even enterprise-facing apps can benefit; restaurants and hotels, for example, could create free apps that let users pay for reservations or prix fixe events in advance. “This announcement changes the landscape of the App Store as we know it,” said Colin Smith, co-founder and vice president of Freeverse, which offers a number of popular iPhone games and augmented reality apps.

The news also has potential benefits for online publishers that are trying to figure out how to get users to pay for their content. While media companies like The Journal, CNN and Hachette Filippachi have launched premium apps, others can give readers access to some of their content for free, and then charge for special reports and articles.

Via: MocoNews.net

Apple announced on Sept. 28 that its App Store now features 85,000 apps for its iPhone and iPod Touch devices, and that more than 2 billion apps have been downloaded since the service’s launch in July 2008.

In a press release, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that users had downloaded “more than half a billion apps this quarter alone.” However, Apple did not provide a breakdown of how many of those apps were free and how many had a price tag. The release also mentioned that some 120,000 developers are now part of Apple’s iPhone Developer Program, and that the iPod Touch and the iPhone have some 50 million customers worldwide in 77 countries.

The App Store passed the 1-billion-download mark in April 2009. Its success has led other players within the mobile space, including Microsoft and Research In Motion, to attempt their own application stores. In a bid to present a viable alternative to Apple’s offerings, those companies have also opened their stores to contributions by independent developers.

Seeking to create an ecosystem of 600 applications before the October launch of Windows Mobile 6.5, Microsoft opened its Windows Marketplace to developers over the summer. In order to appeal to those developers seeking a higher profit margin than they might obtain with Apple’s App Store, where many feel pressure to sell their programs for around 99 cents, Microsoft has been encouraging those who submit programs for Windows Marketplace to charge higher prices.

Microsoft has also claimed that applications available through Marketplace will come with a “money-back guarantee.” A Microsoft spokesperson contacted by eWEEK suggested that applications for the store could conceivably be priced anywhere in the $0.99 to $2.99 price range, in addition to any made available for free.

“We would definitely want to promote that you make more money selling applications than selling your application in a dollar store,” Loke Uei, senior technical product manager for Microsoft’s Mobile Developer Experience Team, told mobile application developers in Redmond, Wash., on Aug. 19. “Ninety-nine cents. Come on, I think your app is worth more than that.”

Other companies are likewise attempting to play catch-up in the mobile application space with Apple, although they may have something of an uphill climb. Palm’s App Catalogue, for its WebOS mobile operating system, passed the 1 million downloads mark on June 24, while Google’s Android Market and Nokia’s Ovi Store are still very much in their early stages of growth.

According to Juniper Research, there will be some 20 billion mobile application downloads per year by 2014. “The increasing deployment of app stores targeted at mass market handsets, allied to enhancements in storefront interfaces and an ever-increasing array of titles appealing to wider demographics have been the main factors driving this market,” the research firm said in a July 14 statement accompanying their report on the issue.

Via: eWeek