App Store Reaches 10 Billion Downloads

Since Apple launched its App Store in July 2008, users have now downloaded over 10 billion apps, the company announced. The 10 billionth app was Neon Play's free paper plane game Paper Glider, and the UK woman who downloaded it received a $10,000 App Store gift card as a reward. "With more than 10 billion apps downloaded in just two and a half years, a staggering seven billion apps in the last year alone, the App Store has surpassed our wildest dreams," says Apple senior VP of worldwide marketing Philip Schiller. Those stats mean about 70 percent of the growth has taken place in the last year. The iOS platform, which includes Apple's iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices, now has a collective 160 million users, and 350,000 apps are available on the store. Games were the most popular type of purchase on the App Store in the last year at 16.6 percent, just ahead of books at 16.3 percent. About two thirds of all downloads are paid, versus one third free, and the past year's top ten paid apps on the store are all games. The British woman who downloaded the 10 billionth app told the BBC News that it was her daughter, not her, who was the one to make the Paper Glider download, and that when Apple called to inform her of her prize, she thought it was a joke. "I had no idea, when Apple called me," said Orpington, Kent resident Gail Davis. "I thought it was a prank call and I declined to take it.... I had a moment of blind panic, but thankfully Apple called me back."