Apple announced today that iPhone and iPod touch users have downloaded more than 2 billion apps from its iTunes App Store since it was launched a little over a year ago. All told, Apple’s App Store sports more than 85,000 applications for its portable devices—many of which, admittedly, are utter tripe—but perhaps more importantly the company boasts more than 125,000 developers in its iPhone Developer Program, meaning the concept has serious momentum and more and better apps are on the way.
“The rate of App Store downloads continues to accelerate with users downloading a staggering two billion apps in just over a year, including more than half a billion apps this quarter alone,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in a statement. “The App Store has reinvented what you can do with a mobile handheld device, and our users are clearly loving it.”
As the iPhone continues to spread throughout the consumer marketplace, the pace of downloads from the iTunes App Store is accelerating: it took Apple about 10 months for iPhone and iPod touch users to download a billion apps, but three months later (last July) the App Store hit 1.5 billion downloads.
Although Apple kicks back 70 percent of the revenue from an application’s sale to the developer, the company did not offer any information on how many of the downloaded apps were paid downloads rather than free releases.
Apple says it has sold more than 50 million iPhones and iPod touch devices in almost 80 countries since the iPhone’s introduction.
