Rich Fiscus
14 Jul 2008 10:54
Along with their announcement that they've already sold a million iPhones, Apple is making a big deal about the number of programs downloaded from their newly opened iTunes App Store. The App Store offers a variety of programs, most costing less than $10, for the iPhone 3G. There's also a free upgrade to the 2.0 version of the required iPhone 2.0 software for the first generation iPhone, as well as an update for iPod Touch owners that costs $9.95.
Before anyone starts counting the money Apple must have made from the App Store you should keep in mind that many of the programs available are actually free. In fact some are actually either translations of web apps that have been around for the iPhone for months or even programs originally written for unlocked iPhones before the SDK was even announced.
While there's no way to tell how many downloads can be attributed to these free programs, it's reasonable to assume they're among the most popular titles. This would seem to be backed up by the lack of any breakdown from Apple when they announced the numbers.
Who knows how much larger the number might be if not for the activation and upgrade problems they had during Friday's official launch.