Look at the apps on that
Just as it did with iTunes, Apple seems to have doubled the success of a popular piece of hardware by making an equally successful marketplace for content to download onto it.
Apple today announced the two billionth download from its App store, from which iPhone and iPod touch users can download over 85,000 apps, primarily written by third party developers. This comes just five months after the one billion announcement, which itself too nine months, so things are speeding up.
"The rate of App Store downloads continues to accelerate with users downloading a staggering two billion apps in just over a year, including more than half a billion apps this quarter alone," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "The App Store has reinvented what you can do with a mobile handheld device, and our users are clearly loving it."
While this is obviously good news for Apple, the significance of the success of the App Store is more far-reaching. Just as many people now download their media content from iTunes or one of the many other equivalent services, the popularity of the App Store is an indication that this channel is likely to become increasingly significant.
As smartphones continue to comprise a greater proportion of mobile handsets, more software will be developed for, and sold via, the app store route. This is why companies like Nokia, Vodafone, etc are also investing heavily in their app stores and Internet services platforms.
