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Sep. 29, 2009

Apple is saying that its iPhone App Store has over 2 billion downloads in the last quarter.

Apple underscored this milestone in a press release along with a fresh batch of new apps for its popular store.

According to the press release, the App Store now offers more than 85,000 downloadable apps, which it says are available to 50 million iPhone and iPod touch customers worldwide.

Additionally, Apple says there are now more than 125,000 mobile application developers in the iPhone Developer Program.

Apple's App Store has set a very high standard for emerging OEMs and wireless carrier-branded mobile application stores. According to most app analytics sources, the Android Market comes in at a distant second, with an app catalog of just about 10,000.

But overall, developer interest in Google's Andoid platform has increased significantly over the past few months, providing the first indications of real competition for the App Store. But there is still a lot of ground to cover if Android wants to really compete against Apple's App Store.

Taking into account the number of free apps at the App Store, critics now say that Apple's data is marginally misleading. Nevertheless, the App Store remains the envy of many OEMs and wireless carriers.

And at the same time, Apple has had to contend with criticism over the App Store's approval process, as well as an FCC inquiry into its handling of the Google Voice app.

In response to the FCC's inquiry, Apple stated that it had not rejected the app, but rather was still reviewing Google Voice. But Google again last week refuted that claim, saying Apple flatly rejected the app. The FCC is still looking into the matter.

Analytics from Flurry, a mobile app analytics company, reveal that the Android platform saw about 200 new applications begin development in July.

That's up from less than fifty in March. And while the iPhone might have seen 800 new application starts in July, Android supporters can be encouraged by growth on several fronts, including new summer handsets and promises of more to come early next year.

Analytics firm Pinch Media also recently released data that found incredibly low retention rates for iPhone applications.

For example, only about twenty percent of overall users return to use a free app 24 hours after its download.

On average, about 30 days after download, only about 5.2 percent of those who downloaded the app are still using it.

Both Apple and Google said they are trying to correct that problem however.

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    This article was featured on Business 5.0 and on Tech Blog.

Source: Apple.