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Apple Announces First-Year App Store Success: 1.5 Billion Downloads, 65,000 Apps
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I don't get it, why are you making this graph up? When one sees a graph they expect it to be real. 0 apps in July, and 400 at its peak? Ripping on Zune is one thing, but a phony graph? We don't need that.
No it is a bit like a Apple Apt or Yum repository. While there are some commercial applications at the App Store does anyone really doubt that a very significant fraction of the overall number of apps downloaded are the free ones? And as mentioned in other responses how many of those end up in the trash can.
The high rates on these apps is because they are "throw away" class in expense. If a $0.99 app is crap, you are out the price of a pack of gum.
Is this the future of App distribution? ..... For very inexpensive ones yes. (it is where free, as in beer, apps have been at for the last 9-10 years. )
The primary difference is that Apple does some amount of scrubbing of apps for folks doing "bad" things.
Wow. Just wow.
I've probably downloaded somewhere between 100 and 200 of them in the past year. Very few of them continue to get regular use after more than a few days, but it's amazing to think about the breadth, depth and variety of apps that are available. It's really come a long way in a short time.
I've probably downloaded somewhere between 100 and 200 of them in the past year. Very few of them continue to get regular use after more than a few days, but it's amazing to think about the breadth, depth and variety of apps that are available. It's really come a long way in a short time.
An average of more than 23000 downloads per app.
According to various estimates, somewhere between 80% and 98% of all downloads are for free apps. So the numbers could be something more like free apps averaging 25k downloads, plus an average of only 2k sales per paid app, total to date. If the average paid app is priced around $1.99, that means the average paid app has grossed about $1400 in sales revenue (e.g. barely enough to pay for a MacBook and the first years developer enrollment fee.)
Of course, the average in meaningless. If the distribution looks anything like a power law curve, this indicates that a few dozen apps are gold strikes, with the vast majority of paid apps earning maybe enough to pay for a cup of coffee.
Why does it seem that some people just don't know what they're talking about?
The chance of you bricking an iPhone through a jailbreak is almost impossible (if not completely impossible) because of how the iPhone restore works in iTunes.
If you really mess things up you just have to hold the home and power button while connected to iTunes and a restore can be made. I can jailbreak a device, restore it to factory settings and take it to the store tomorrow without leaving any trace of having jailbroken it.
I have my iPhone running 3.0 jailbroken. For that I have only one simple reason: SBSettings. Most iPhone users have no idea the joy that is toggling Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G, Keyboard Auto Correction, Manage and Kill running processes, Adjust Brightness and a bunch of other options from a drop-down menu anywhere on the phone.
You just slide your finger left to right on the upper part of the screen and voila, drop-down settings on whatever app you're using. This alone is a huge time-saver for me (I'm always adjusting these options to get the maximum battery time I can).
Image:
http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs43/i/2009/092/1/7/SBSettings_v1_66_Deep_HUD_by_dingsda.png
It even lets you enable the numeric battery on the 3G (looks 100% accurate so far).
But enough of this rant... just stop spreading FUD. I see no problem with people jailbreaking their iPhones and I haven't had a bad experience with it (yet).
Anyway, I agree that the AppStore really needs some filtering options, I always browse the apps inside iTunes and rarely do it on my iPhone because of that.
Still, it's always good to know that Apple redeemed themselves of the "let's use web apps" crap and that the AppStore is still growing.
You have a Mac? Look up duplicitous in the Dictionary application. Or one of the online dictionaries or go retro in a physical dictionary. Duplicitous means being deceitful. You state shouldn't believe what the folks say. What part of being deceitful is that not the state of?
Marketing doesn't have to consist of spin/half-truths/FUD. The bigger problem is that many folks give folks in marketing and sales a free pass to engage in that activity. "Their lips are moving... they are suppose to lie... your suppose to ferret out the truth in their statements." What is wrong with applying the adjective if they do engage in that activity?
Marketing's job is to find out how the company can best match up with the customer needs. (solutions with value to the customer ) The cheesy approach to that is to create an illusion that there is a match. Use misdirection ( 'buy our product and sexy women may choose to chase you"). "We are successful, you should buy from us primarily because we are". That's the path of a spinmeister not really a pro marketer.
Apple simply DOMINATES the smartphone market, just like it already does with media players and digital music. The App Store is BY FAR the best, easiest and most successful infrastructure of its kind, what else can be said?
Just this:
MS IS DEAD. RIM IS DEAD.
without the standard deviation, the average is incomplete; not quite meaningless. The median is really the construct folks would be looking for if just want one number. Average is what settle for because not given enough information. ( would be looking for average price of app sold, plus the std. deviation. )
If more than 50% of the apps at the store are free then the median price is $0.00 . Which is extremely likely to result in less than a cup of coffee in net income.
Really needs to be split into two separate populations: free and for pay to get any good insight into income earned for the latter. Mixing two significantly different demographics into the same sampling.... that would make it hard to figure anything out about just one of them.
A download is a download, right? Look at the Storm8 type strategy games. Even if you only play one (Vampires, Zombies, Racing, Mobster, War, Legend) every couple of days you're given an incentive to DL one of the others just to get a free weapon, car, ability, ect. So you DL the free app, get your incentive, then delete it. I liken it to pop-up ads, even if you don't buy anything, they still get a "hit".
I myself am only interested in the Racing game, but have since downloaded at least 12 other versions in the past month. So that's not only 12 more for the App Store stats, but 12 for Storm8 as well. Stack on the 40 or so other "LITE" versions of games and free utility apps I've tried out and now you have 60+ downloads from a single user who's only owned an iPhone for 3 weeks.
Meanwhile, I've only spent about $8 total. Zen Bound and Enviro-Bear were just too awesome to pass up!
I myself am only interested in the Racing game, but have since downloaded at least 12 other versions in the past month. So that's not only 12 more for the App Store stats, but 12 for Storm8 as well. Stack on the 40 or so other "LITE" versions of games and free utility apps I've tried out and now you have 60+ downloads from a single user who's only owned an iPhone for 3 weeks.
Meanwhile, I've only spent about $8 total. Zen Bound and Enviro-Bear were just too awesome to pass up!
and about 200+ of that 1.5 billion is just me. I thinks apple's next venture need to be app store addiction counseling. I can't keep my credit card tied to my account any more for fear of temptation.
the weather channel app... that is a useful free app.
There are about 20 apps that I use frequently... all of them free.
I wonder. . .
if the ratio of apps purchased to free apps is improving to favor the developers.
Initially, I would only download free apps, but as I started wanting better quality, I've started purchasing apps. I wonder if I am typical.
I once heard a developer complain about the proliferation of fart apps and bikini apps, then I had an epiphany: I'm writing an app of girls in bikinis farting!
Y'all can come over and party at my mansion when I become a multimillionaire from this!
if the ratio of apps purchased to free apps is improving to favor the developers.
Initially, I would only download free apps, but as I started wanting better quality, I've started purchasing apps. I wonder if I am typical.
I once heard a developer complain about the proliferation of fart apps and bikini apps, then I had an epiphany: I'm writing an app of girls in bikinis farting!
Y'all can come over and party at my mansion when I become a multimillionaire from this!
It is crazy how those type apps are downloaded so often...make sure to donate to macrumors when you get those millions
dude... what is wrong with you? Are you a troll?
The original post says 'downloads', who cares what the heck these are? Apparently you do, in which case, do you care to elaborate how this makes a difference?
Incidentally, I have 'downloaded' the same app more than once... in three different iphones! So, yes, even if it is the same downloaded app, it counts because most of the time those extra downloads are in other folk's iphones (family, friends, acquaintances) that may not have an apple account, so you use yours to do them a favor.
You do realize that the apps are almost 99.9% third party apps, right? Have you contacted them?
Thanks, but don't hold your breath. The initial phase of development is not going as planned. I've been walking around the pool asking girls if I could video their butts while they farted into my handheld mike. It turns out that this is very unpopular. When I offer them money, they actually seem to get madder. Maybe they don't like how I have the mike stashed in my pants.
No CG here, no sir, the people demand authenticity.
What is wrong with you people? The guy asked a simple question. That's not trolling, that's trying to understand the data Apple is putting out there on a deeper level. I think it would be interesting to know the difference between total downloads and unique app downloads. I don't hate Apple and I'm not criticizing them for anything. It's just curiosity combined with a little common sense that would tell anyone that the official line from them is going to paint things in the most favorable light rather than the most statistically relevant. But whatever, I guess we're supposed to just marvel at the greatness that is Apple and not care about anything that hasn't been officially vetted and released by their marketing department.
So I guess I shouldn't be trusting them when they report 40 million iPhones or touches being sold or 29 billion in the bank, someone report Apple, they are commiting securities fraud.
Well actually I do!
It's all well and good to accept statistics that are offered to you but you should also do yourself the credit to question those statistics and what they truly mean.
Downloaded about 40 apps, 20% of which now have been trashed.
So thats 8 apps that were total rubbish, although in fairness, a few of them I just never used...
So thats 8 apps that were total rubbish, although in fairness, a few of them I just never used...