Apple Apps

Introduction
The App Store is a service for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad created by Apple Inc. which allows users to browse and download applications from the iTunes Store that were developed with the iPhone SDK and published through Apple. Depending on the application, they are available either free, or at a cost. The applications can be downloaded directly to target device, or downloaded onto a computer via iTunes.

A large range of apps exist in many catagories such as Games, Education, Business, Reference, Medical, Utilites and Productivity.

When the App store opened on July 11th 2008, there were an initial 500 apps available to download. Within three days, over 10,0000 apps had been downloaded. As at June 7th 2010, the app store has grown to host over 225,000 apps with total downloads surpassing 5 billion.

This tremendous growth has put Apple's App Store as the most successful application marketplace ever.

Overview
To develop IOS apps the developer needs to be running Mac OS X 10.5.4 or higher on an Intel Mac. Applications are created using Xcode that will natively run on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. The SDK (Software Development Kit) that is used in conjunction with is also required, as this is how the user interface is created.

To publish an app on the apple app store and run it on an IOS device, the application needs to be signed. This signed certificate is only granted by Apple after the developer has first developed the software through either the US$99/year Standard package or the US$299/year Enterprise package.

Statistics

 * More than 4 billion apps have been downloaded from the Apple App Store.
 * Surveys show the average iPhone users spends $80USD on apps.
 * Apple also takes 30% commission on the total amount of money you make by people downloading your apps.
 * In May 2010: 1,334 game apps were added to the app store alone, 8,369 non-game apps were also added which equal to a total of 9,703 apps just in that month.
 * In May 2010: there were 42,403 active publishers in the App store. An average of five apps per developer.
 * To develop an iPhone application, developers must pay a fee of $99 per year. Where as for Android, the fee is $25 and Windows Marketplace charge $99 per year and $99 per app.
 * 90% of app developers do not make a sustainable return on investments.

-Motherchina 18:50, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Resources

 * iPad http://www.apple.com/nz/ipad/sdk/
 * iPhone Developer Program http://developer.apple.com/programs/iphone/
 * App Store Wikipedia Page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store
 * App statistics http://www.onlinemba.com/blog/apps-apps-apps/