Apple announces 500 thousand iOS apps, 18 billion downloads

As part of a press release today touting 100 million Mac App Store downloads, Apple also revealed that they now have more than 500,000 iOS apps for iPhone and iPad, and collectively those apps have been downloaded more than 18 billion times -- over 1 billion a month now.

“In just three years the App Store changed how people get mobile apps, and now the Mac App Store is changing the traditional PC software industry,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With more than 100 million downloads in less than a year, the Mac App Store is the largest and fastest growing PC software store in the world.”

Anyone who ever had a Palm Treo or Windows Mobile phone prior to the iPhone knows how expensive, elaborate, and error-prone getting apps on mobile devices used to be. Since Apple made the idea of an on-ever-device, integrated-into-the-OS App Store mainstream in 2008 with iOS 2 (iPhone OS 2), it's become economical, convenient, and reliable, and standard on every other major platform.

There remain challenges, like the inability to handle demos or paid upgrades, but the numbers don't lie. Congrats, Apple.

Source: Apple PR