iPhone App Store: 10,000 apps, 300-million downloads. And counting!

Through full-page print ads in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal on Friday, December 5, 2008, Apple announced that its App Store currently has over 10,000 applications and has experienced more than 300 million downloads since it’s launch on July 11, 2008.

While the sheer number of applications and downloads is impressive, it is the pace at which apps are added to and downloaded from the App Store that is even more remarkable.

At the launch of the App Store in July 2008, there were approximately 500 applications available. Now, almost four months later, there are over 10,000 applications available for immediate download.

When Apple reported their quarterly earnings on October 21st, Steve Jobs said the following:

“Customers will download the 200 millionth application from the App Store tomorrow, only 102 days since its launch on July 11th—the 200 millionth app. We’ve never seen anything like this in our careers.”

Within a period of six weeks following this statement, approximately 100 million more applications had been downloaded from the App Store.  Apple has not disclosed the breakdown pricing information for the downloaded applications, therefore determining revenue from such downloads is difficult.

It is important to note that Apple’s primary goal for the App Store is to fuel more sales of the iPhone.

Due to the ease of acquiring applications and the voracious appetite of iPhone and iPod Touch users to continually enhance their devices, the App Store will serve to expand the already rich user experience that Apple provides through the iTunes store.

It will create an irresistible mobile platform that will attract more users and developers, while making it difficult for others to duplicate.

Already, Blackberry, Nokia and Google have scrambled to put forth new handsets and services similar to Apple’s App Store, in an attempt to compete with the iPhone phenomenon.

Most reviews of the competitor hardware and software offerings have not been favorable when compared to the reviews of the iPhone.

Just as the iTunes Store was intended to encourage the purchase of iPods when Apple first launched the service, so too is the App Store meant to stimulate the same effect for the iPhone and iPod Touch devices.

The essence of Apple is to create products that transform technology from complex hardware specifications to an unparalleled pleasurable user experience that lets you improve yourself and the world around you.

More and more people are coming to realize this through the iPhone everyday.