How many is that per person?

http://www.apple.com/itunes/10-billion-app-countdown/


Anyone know?

I guess it it iPhone, iPad and iPod touch combined. Anyone know how many iOS devices there are out there?

Ah, sorry.

Have now answered my own question. It took just a bit more google fu.

It seems that I was not the first person to ask the question.

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-medi ... s-on-every

So 60 Apps per device.

That surprises me.

:CC:

10 billion downloads, not 10 billion apps.. cuh. Cats, no head for details .

According to the internets, there have been roughly 41 million iphones sold, somewhat more than that ipod touches and probably around 5 million iPads.

To make life easier, let's just say there have been 100 million 'iOS devices' sold, so that's about 100 apps per device. Which doesn't seem too bad to me, given a lot of apps are free and you can download them then just throw them away if you want to.

Course in fact that's way out, because a lot of people have had more than one device over time. I've had an ipod touch (nicked), and iPhone 3G (sold) and currently own an iPhone 4 and an iPad. So on average it's probably more than that per person.

Jon

That is a large number.. the 10 billion!!!
I have six apps I actually use on a regular basis with a total of 39 apps on the device. Of these 8 were paid for, the rest were free.

Well I guess so, though free apps are not the majority (except on Android)

It is a lot of app downloads. It clearly sets the limit very high for other app stores.

Court case pending

The ratio of free apps. on Android compared to other app. stores is interesting. I wonder if that has anything to do with revenues from advertising?

Maybe the iAds is a factor? Maybe the quality of apps within the Apple App store is sufficient to give people confidence to buy?

Are the other stores all curated?

If so it may be due to a higher proportion of apps that are "early beta" versions. Versions that would not make it into one of the curated stores.

Hard to know really.

I've moved my iPhone between different computers and have reset it twice and had it replaced 3 times, so that is a heck of a lot of extra downloads.

Plus the dozens of updates to the apps every month...

There are two factors I'm thinking about:

• Is Google's/Android's Ad technology superior to its competitors?
• Does Google afford its developers a higher share of revenue than its competitors (hence more apps. can be free)?

As to your second point, the graph signifies the availability of free & paid apps., not the downloaded ratios. That said, I find the Apple checkout process to be a lot more rigid than Google Checkout, and I find them about equal in terms of "trustworthiness".


I'm not sure TBH, but it's interesting to note, for example, that Angry Birds - a highly sought-after app. on all platforms - is chargeable on the iPhone, but is completely free on Android. I'll also be watching the pricing for Flight Control for Android (when it is released) with great interest.

It's £2.50 for the PS3

Moving, resetting and replacement does not require any extra downloads does it?

I thought that they all stayed in your iTunes Library and were re-synced when you bought a new phone etc.

Resyncing the phone with iTunes wouldn't require a second download no. However, I haven't heard anything either way as to whether an upgrade counts as a new download or not. It's certainly technically feasible to be able to tell the two apart but I haven't seen any indication as to whether they do. If they don't, you could probably halve the number of estimates apps per user because of that.


Google's ad technology is probably easier to use as a developer than Apple's. iAds aren't really available in the EU yet so I don't have any direct experience of them but in both cases you're not actually making the ad yourself, you're making a 'space' in your app's GUI and including some code that will then go off and download the ad into it (you have no absolute control over which ads get shown, although you can specify if your app is likely to be used by minors for example). The difference is only really where the ad is coming from. To me, Google's ad system seems much better integrated into the basic process of making an App than Apple's is - iAds still feel like a bit of an afterthought tbh. Note this is from reading the API's and doing a bit of playing around - I don't have an 'ad supported' apps either on iOS or Android. I suppose you could look at it this way - Google make their money from advertising, so it's in their interest to make showing ads on Android easy, and has been from the start.

I don't know what the revenue split is - in fact, nobody does. if you use Google's ad supply, Google will tell you what the ratio is with you, but they won't tell you what it is with anyone else. Commercially sensitive information & all that. Nobody knows if Google's revenue ratios are very broad reaching or very micromanaged. I believe the same is true of iAds - the ratio is very much up to the contract you sign with the iAd 'supplier'. if you're going with a 3rd party, they may have a blanket rate or they may not.


There are a couple of factors to this - firstly, Google's system for actually charging for apps is still behind Apple's. It's available in less places (i.e. you can buy an App in iTunes in countries where Google's system simply doesn't work yet) and it's clunkier. the only thing it really has going for it is you can use more 'sources' of payment than Apple will. So generally speaking it's 'harder' for customer to buy your app on Android than it is on iOS.
Secondly, and this is mainly anecdotal but I've heard it in several places - Android users pirate more. A LOT more. An ad-supported app can't be 'pirated' by definition.
Plus on the 'business plan' level if someone buys your app, that's it, they've given you all the money they have to. if you want more money off them, you've got to think up something new to sell them be it a new app or an add-on of some sort. An ad-supported app is effectively 'rented' by viewing the ads, it's a continual revenue stream as long as the user is using the app.

Jon