I've been keeping an eye on the number of iPhone apps that have been downloaded because, frankly, the growth has been amazing. (See 1, 2 and 3.) When Apple got close to selling its billionth app in April of 2009, it held a contest. Its home page counted the apps downloaded, and the lucky person to download app number 1,000,000,000, got a
$10,000 iTunes gift card, an iPod Touch, a Time Capsule, and a MacBook
Pro. The winner was Connor Mulcahey, age 13, of Weston, CT and the app that he downloaded on April 23, 2009 was Bump.
Yesterday, Apple announced that more than 1.5 billion apps have been downloaded and that there are now over 65,000 apps available to customers in 77 countries. There was no similar contest or fanfare this time, but Apple did issue a press release to spread the good news in which Steve Jobs is quoted as saying: "With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up," an obvious swipe at everyone and their brother who seems to be opening up a new app store almost every day. (The latest: Verizon announced yesterday that it has an app store and that all of its phones will be required to include the Verizon app store, and only the Verizon apps store, although customers will be able to install additional stores if they choose.) Of course, other companies copying Apple is nothing new. I remember the late 1990s when Apple released the iMac with translucent, colored plastic and before long everyone was selling products with translucent, colored plastic, even George Foreman grills.
Congratulations, Apple, and here's looking forward to the 2 billionth app, which at this rate I'm guessing will be downloaded around October 1st.
