As of the 16th, Mobclix has reported that Apple has blown through the 300,000 barrier for the number of apps on the App Store. The number is pretty staggering, although Apple has not officially confirmed it. It is predicted that Apple may announce a 275,000 app figure at tomorrow’s Back to the Mac event. 148apps.biz have some interesting stats, namely:
- The total number of apps seen in the US App Store is 334,639, though they list the number of active apps actually at 278, 723 – so not quite the 300K we are reading about. Currently, Android is thought to have hit 100,000 and RIM is listed at 10,000 BlackBerry apps.
- Within those numbers, games are at 40,026, with books at 48,171, so books are overtaking games slightly.
- The number of inactive apps are at 55,916, which may account for the discrepancies in the figures.
- App submissions to Apple are on average 83 games and 568 non-games every day.
If we think of the numbers in real terms, and consider the number of apps we actually have on our devices, then we can put it into some kind of perspective. I think of myself as a pretty big app user (see image left for one of my game screens), and have over a thousand easily – a huge percentage of those are not worth the download, and I think this could be representative of the number of apps on the store. As it continues to grow, this may become a larger problem as good apps have to fight for a spot on the first few pages of the App Store. For me, the current means of navigation through what is on there isn’t good enough. I patiently wade through pages and pages of apps, but most people wouldn’t. Showing 180 apps at a time isn’t really working.
Whether there is currently 300,000 or not isn’t really that relevant. What is worth watching are the predictions of Apple selling as many as 45 million iPads in 2011. The more devices they sell, the greater the demand for apps will be. I hope the developers that are currently making awesome apps continue to do so. There are some real gems on the App Store.
How many apps do you keep on your device? Do you have any apps that you find yourself using a lot more than the others? How often are you getting new apps? Is 300,000 enough – or do you want more?
Article via iPodnn
