App Store Hits 100 Million Downloads, Developers Get Rich

The iPhone and iPod touch users have downloaded more than 100 million applications from Apple’s iTunes App Store since its launch on July 11, 2008. More than 3,000 applications are currently available on the App Store, with over 90 percent priced at less than $10 and more than 600 offered for free.

Applications can take advantage of iPhone’s large display, innovative Multi-Touch user interface, fast hardware-accelerated 3D graphics, built-in accelerometer and location-based technology to create mobile applications unlike any seen before.

“iPhone’s unique capabilities, easy SDK and the ability to reach an audience of millions via the App Store made this an easy development choice for us,” said John Pollard, Jott CEO. “To date, we’ve had hundreds of thousands of downloads of Jott for iPhone, which has been a major win for our company.”

“Because I already had a full-time job I used the iPhone SDK to create Trism in my spare time and in my wildest dreams I never expected this kind of result,” said Steve Demeter, founder of Demiforce. “Selling over 27,000 downloads in the first three weeks means I now have a significant new income stream and some exciting career choices that I didn’t have a couple of months ago.”

According to ArsTechnica estimates, the developer of 2 Across application- Eliza Block - is making about $2,000 a day. “Based on her iTunes Connect screenshots, Block has been earning almost $2,000 per day on the application, quite a bit more than she was expecting to make.”

“As an 18 year old iPhone Developer Program member I won an Apple WWDC student scholarship and used the opportunity to complete my app over the summer,” said Bryan Henry, developer of Equivalence. “It was a lot of fun to pull it together and certainly the most lucrative summer job I’ve ever had as I made over $8,000 in my first month of App Store sales.”

“Our new account registrations on the App Store are 300 percent better than all our other registration avenues combined,” said Chris MacAskill, SmugMug’s co-founder. “We’ve been able to do things with our iPhone app that we just couldn’t have dreamed of doing on any other mobile platform, so these are revolutionary times for us and for iPhone and iPod touch users.”