The App Store hits a milestone: 10,000 apps

The App Store, the aisle of Apple's iTunes Store devoted to selling software, reached a big milestone some time over the Thanksgiving weekend (here is the U.S.) adding its 10,000th application.

That's a far cry from the 552 apps that were available when the App Store launched in June 2008.

In an impressive piece of coding, 148 Apps created a labor-intensive tribute page that shows the icon of every application available in the store. Although the collage is one large image (a small piece is pictured), every icon is clickable courtesy of an invisible imagemap. I hope that they automated it!

The 148Apps tribute page also lists a ton of fun stats about the App Store:

• 10,098 apps total (and counting)
• 24% are free
• 35% cost $.99
• most expensive: a $900 surveillance application
• average cost is $3.12 (including free apps)
• largest category: games and entertainment (3,454 combined)
• second largest category: utilities (1,013)

My current "page 1" apps are: PCalc (replaces Apple's Calculator), Tweetsville, Notebook, Google, Briefcase and Sonos.

My favorite Web apps are: AccuWeather mobile which replaces Apple's lame weather app, Netflix mobile, and a couple local surf reports.

What about you?

(Tip: TechCrunch, 148Apps)