Apple celebrates App Store birthday on 11 July, 56,000+ apps in 1 year
As a guy who has been writing about and following the mobile phone/PDA space since 1997 I have to say the first time I used the original iPhone I was completely blown away that a phone could respond so quickly and transition so fluidly. Then when the App Store was launched I was again blown away by how fast developers embraced the iPhone and rolled out high quality applications at a significantly lower price than I have ever paid for mobile apps before. As MacRumors.com points out, Apple will be celebrating the App Store's first anniversary (has it really only been a year?) this Saturday, 11 July. and they have started the festivities with an App Store birthday page (iTunes link) that highlights some of the most popular games and applications available.
There are now something over 56,000 apps in the App Store. Apple passed the 1 billion download mark back in April when there were about 32,000+ apps available. These numbers are absolutely incredible for a mobile platform that is so young and specialized (single form factor device). Even though arguments can be made that the iPhone doesn't have all the features of even the cheapest feature phones, you cannot argue that it is extremely user friendly and popular with the masses. While I keep bouncing back to other platforms to use some of these features, I go back to my new iPhone 3GS quite a bit to use some of the great applications available.
Here are some of my personal favorite applications:
- Evernote
- Kindle ebook reader
- Twitterfon
- Pandora
- Documents To Go
- Quickoffice
- OliveTree Bible Reader
- AT&T Navigator
- Google Maps
And games:
- Rolando
- Price Is Right
- Star Wars Force Unleashed
- Crash Kart
What are your favorite games and applications?