App Store meets 25 billion downloads: Today in Apple History

March 5, 2012: Apple reaches an amazing milestone with 25 billion apps that have been downloaded from the iOS App Store. The company celebrates with an giveaway entitled “25 billion app countdown”.

The happy 25 -billion -PPAL -Downloader wins an iTunes gift card worth 10,000 US dollars.

Apple's 25 -billion -App Countdown

Only four years after Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had given up and opened the iPhone app store, the genius of enabling developers of third-party providers to create iOS apps was undeniable. In such a short time on the 25 -billion downloads, the move showed how clever -and lucrative -was the step.

Developers have come up with apps that made the iPhone more useful and more entertaining. The developers made apps that became hits, and Apple took the turnover. The App Store became an important profit center for Apple.

“We would like to thank our customers and developers to help us reach this historic milestone of 25 billion apps that have been downloaded,” said Eddy Cue, Senior Vice President for Internet software and services from Apple. “When we launched the App Store less than four years ago, we never imagined that mobile apps would become the phenomenon they have or that developers would create such an incredible selection of apps for iOS users.”

At this point, the App Store offered more than 550,000 apps for download. Apple had distributed more than 4 billion US dollars for their sales share of 70% by paid downloads.

The winner of the gift card in the 25 billion -App Countdown from Apple is Chunli Fu from China. The app is Disney's Where is my water?A free puzzle game released last September.

App Store continues to grow

For comparison: Today, the iOS App Store has almost 2 million apps and clocks more than 35 billion downloads a year. The range and influence of the App Store continue to grow, although Apple Management of the Business is increasingly being checked by international anticlecting authorities.

“Apps and games have become the essential source of the most innovative and timely entertainment of the world,” said Apple in a press release from 2022. “The efforts, innovations and creativity of the developers who use the Apple technology to build these incredible experiences in connection with the power of the global platform of the App Store to connect companies with over 600 million people per week in 175 countries, has led to developers of digital goods and services earn more than 260 US dollars since the App Store started in 2008 in 2008. ”

Apple continuously advertises the advantages of the App Store for consumers and third -party providers. However, apple landed in hot water the strict control of the company via the app marketplace and the entire -IOS ecosystem. IOS 17.4 opened the iPhone for side and app stores of third-party providers in the European Union (although some developers described the new rules of Apple as “malicious conformity”). The European Union Apple also met with a fine of 2 billion US dollars for its supposedly abusive treatment of streaming music competitors Spotify.

Apple loved the milestones

A few years ago, Apple liked to celebrate milestone events with advertising campaigns such as the 25 billion -App Countdown. A 2004 competition with 100 million iTunes -song downloads has the 2012 -App -Download competition.

The winner of the 2004 competition received a personal call from Steve Jobs, a 17-inch power book, a 40 GB IPOD and a gift voucher for 10,000 iTunes songs.

Nowadays, Apple mainly avoids a big matter of this type of landmark. When Apple passed the 1 billionth iPhone milestone, the company did little to commemorate this occasion. The same applies when Apple's market capitalization exceeded the rating of 1 trillion US dollar. And $ 2 trillion. And $ 3 trillion.

Similarly, Apple is avoided to share too many details about the use of services such as Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade and Apple Fitness+. The company also revealed the number of iPhones sold that were sold every quarter.

While I understand the logic behind this less bombastic strategy, I miss the excitement of such old Apple events. It was fun when Apple eagerly (and publicly) counted with events such as the 25 billion -App Countdown on his next gigantic sales record.