With shareholders and fans still absorbing big news — first, superstar CEO Steve Jobs' medical leave and, then, reports of a "phenomenal" fourth quarter — Apple made yet another disclosure, announcing on Saturday that the number of iPhone and iPad apps that have been downloaded since the 2008 launch of its App Store had reached a major milestone. "With more than 10 billion apps downloaded in just two and a half years — a staggering 7 billion apps in the last year alone — the App Store has surpassed our wildest dreams," said Apple marketing SVP Phil Schiller, in a statement. Here's a brief guide, by the numbers:
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Nearly 10
Years it took the iTunes Music Store to reach 10 billion downloads
3
Number of games that rank, as of Saturday, among the top five free apps: Bubble Ball, Paper Glider, and Angry Birds (free version). The other two apps that fill out the top five are Google Places and iFace Fat, a novelty app that can make someone's face appear portly in a photo.
$.99
Cost of each of the top five paid apps, all of which are games: Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Cut the Rope, Burn the Rope, and Angry Birds Seasons
$10,000
Value of the iTunes gift card Gail Davis of Great Britain won by downloading the 10 billionth app (Paper Glider)
160 million
Number of iPhone and iPad customers
62.5
Number of apps each has downloaded, on average
206
Apps per second that have been downloaded, on average, since the App Store opened on July 10, 2008 — the equivalent of 18 million apps per day
350,000
14.45
Percentage of those apps that are games
16.64
Percentage that are books or book-related
130,000
Apps available in the Android Market
4,000
Apps available in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, which was launched last fall. That's a "respectable start," but Microsoft obviously "still [has] a long way to go," says Suzanne Choney at MSNBC.
500
Apps with which Apple's store launched in July 2008
Sources: MSNBC, San Francisco Chronicle, CNET, 148Apps.biz
