Appceleration
Apple has announced that the total number of apps downloaded from its app store has now topped 15 billion.
The announcement comes less than six months after the ten billion mark was reached and a month after it hit 14 billion, so we're looking at growth of around a billion a month. It took the app store nine months to download its first billion and two years to get to five billion, so the rate is accelerating rapidly.
Apple also revealed there are over 200 million iOS users worldwide, 425,000 apps in total, and already over 100,000 iPad apps. Developers have apparently made $2.5 billion from these apps so far.
"In just three years, the revolutionary App Store has grown to become the most exciting and successful software marketplace the world has ever seen," said Philip Schiller, Apple SVP of worldwide product marketing, with classic Apple understatement. "Thank you to all of our amazing developers who have filled it with over 425,000 of the coolest apps and to our over 200 million iOS users for surpassing 15 billion downloads."
There were also a bunch of other supporting quotes from app developers saying how great the iPad is, specifically, so the point of this press release seems mainly to be a piece of iPad promotion. It does come just days after a court denied Apple a preliminary injunction against Amazon for daring to use the term ‘app store' itself.
