Apple Sells 1.5B iPhone Apps in First Year

App Store is the leading retailer of mobile programs
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 14, 2009 4:16 PM CDT
Apple Sells 1.5B iPhone Apps in First Year
In this Jan. 6 file photo, a poster touting applications available for Apple's iPhone and iPod touch hangs from a metal support at the Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco.   (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, file)

Apple’s App Store has had a pretty good year—since its inception, the store has sold 1.5 billion applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch, making it the leading retailer of mobile applications, CNet reports. Not only has the App Store done well, its success seems to be increasing: the store moved 1 billion applications in its first 9 months, but then sold 500 million in the next 3 months.

“The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality,” said Steve Jobs in a statement. Some developers have griped that Apple seems capricious in what applications it accepts or rejects, and doesn’t adequately explain rejections. But given the App Store’s overwhelming popularity, those developers have little choice but to play along. (More digital downloads stories.)

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