Apple's App Store passed the 10 billion mark with the download of a paper-airplane game that won its U.K. owner a $10,000 iTunes gift card.
The Apple App
Store has passed a new milestone: the download of its 10 billionth application.
Apple, which
has been counting down-or rather up-to the 11-figure mark, announced Jan. 22
that the application had been downloaded by a U.K. resident, Gail Davis, who
downloaded Paper Glider-a game testing one's paper-airplane-throwing skills-and
won a $10,000 iTunes gift card.
"With more
than 10 billion apps downloaded in just two and a half years-a staggering 7
billion apps in the last year alone-the App Store has surpassed our wildest
dreams," Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product
marketing, said in a statement. "The App Store has revolutionized how software
is created, distributed, discovered and sold."
Indeed, Apple
and its App Store started not so much a trend as a mobile lifestyle, making the
offer of an application store
de rigueur
for operating-system manufacturers and handset vendors. The ideal situation is
to control all three-hardware, OS and the application store-and to make each
part as appealing as the others, and Apple's lesson hasn't been lost on its
competitors.
BlackBerry
maker Research In Motion offers all three, but has struggled to stock its
application store and to offer handsets that are as alluring to U.S. consumers
as they've traditionally been to enterprise users.
Nokia, the
main backer of the Symbian OS, has also worked to balance such a trio. While it
too, has struggled in the high-end smartphone space in the United States, it
finished out 2010 with an application milestone of its own: passing the 1
million downloads mark in its Ovi Store, according to the
Philippine Star.
Hewlett-Packard,
with its $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm in July 2010 and its WebOS platform,
has also put itself in the position of controlling all three, and so has
Microsoft, though by Microsoft CEO
Steve Ballmer's account at the 2011 CES, its store
is only 5,000 applications strong, compared with Apple's 350,000.
Of Apple's
competitors, Google, which has released handsets under its own brand-first the
HTC-made Nexus One and more recently the
Samsung-made Nexus S-has been the most successful
in growing the popularity of its operating system and the number of applications
packing its store. During the third quarter of 2010, Android became the second-most-used
OS worldwide, according to Gartner, gaining 25.5 percent of the market to
Apple's 16.7 percent.
The number of
applications in the Android Market has been estimated at approximately
200,000, but a January report from Netherlands-based research firm Distimo
puts the figure at closer to 130,000. The report adds that while Apple's App
Store contains the most applications overall, doubling its offerings over the
course of 2010, its competitors' stores grew at still more furious rates.
While the RIM
BlackBerry App World and Nokia Ovi Store posted triple-digit growth in 2010, to
nearly 18,000 and 25,000 applications, respectively, Google's Android market
finished 2010 with six times the number it started the year with.
"There seems
to be a trend in the Apple App Store for iPhone toward more business-oriented
applications, reflecting the switch and indicating that increasingly more
consumers see the iPhone as a productivity tool," states the Distimo report.
"Despite [its] business reputation, BlackBerry App World attracts more
entertainment-focused applications. Google Android Market and Nokia Ovi Store
show a more balanced category growth."
According to
Apple, its applications are now available to iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users
in 90 countries, and more than 60,000 native applications for the iPad, which
is certainly helping with Apple's download figures, are now available.
"While others
try to copy the App Store," Apple's Schiller said in his statement, "it
continues to offer developers and customers the most innovative experience on
the planet."
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