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Apple Launches ITunes App Store With 500+ Apps

Posted by timothy on from the first-one's-free-except-not-really dept.

L. Miriam writes "Apple launched the iTunes App store for the iPhone and iPod Touch today, following the earlier launch of iTunes 7.7. There are over 500 applications available for download, with prices ranging from free to around $35. Both MySpace and Facebook apps are there, as well as a mix of games, utilities and ebooks. You can download applications now, but you can't do anything with them until the iPhone/iPod 2.0 firmware is released. The App Store can't be accessed directly through iTunes, but Mobile Computer explains how to get to it, and has a few screenshots, too."

12 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. "500" by samkass · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The 500+ figure includes each e-book as a separate "app", but still there's a pretty good showing with much more to come. A lot of it is free or very cheap.

    Still, if people thought FairPlay DRM was a lock-in factor for iPods, they haven't seen anything yet. Android is going to be about 6 months too late to intercept the wave of lock-in happening right now with the app store. I'll bet Stallman is firing up a good rant as we speak...

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    E pluribus unum
    1. Re:"500" by EastCoastSurfer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      An app for the iPhone seems similar to the lockin one gets buying a game for the DS or PSP. Sure, Apple is controlling all distribution, but free apps are fine and I haven't seen anything that prevents you from releasing the source code of your app on your own website.

      Overall, the iPhone ecosystem is one that other phone makers are going to try and copy because it's easy for the users and appears to just work.

    2. Re:"500" by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You could easily put some kind of super-easy scripting app on the iPhone and destroy 99% of the shit apps out there that will appear on the service. This is the great fear of the cellphone companies which currently make a ludicrous amount of money selling you shit which should be free. Did you know for example that if you have internet access on your GSM phone you can typically configure it to send SMS via that instead of SMS, and you don't have to pay to send them? Just to receive. Of course they count against your data allotment, but I personally don't see much point in having internet access unless it's unlimited anyway. I got a trial and used up a third of the trial checking the weather once. I got it turned off right away so I wouldn't go over and end up paying overage.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. where's the remote desktop or vnc app? or hell, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    why not even a ssh/telnet client of any kind. WTF apple?

    1. Re:where's the remote desktop or vnc app? or hell, by Dekortage · · Score: 3, Insightful

      why not even a ssh/telnet client of any kind. WTF apple?

      Well, barring anything in the SDK that might prevent an SSH/telnet client from being developed, I suspect it's because none of the the currently-ready iPhone developers thought the market needed it badly enough to develop it now. Don't like it? Write one yourself.

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      $nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
    2. Re:where's the remote desktop or vnc app? or hell, by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And yet, they think the market badly needs more stupid phone based games and animated emoticons. And in an even more depressing thought, they'd probably make more money off them than a ssh client. People who want ssh clients, are probably the kind of people that don't want to pay for ssh clients. If its not free, they'll probably hack the firmware to install a free one.

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      Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
  3. iPhone Developer Program by tipo159 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    By current guesses, Apple had about 25k developers sign up for the iPhone Developer Program and only let 5k in. I am sure that the 20k developers who are (still) locked out are pleased as punch that the 5k got first opportunity to get their apps into the App Store.

    Apple has been giving away the SDK, but you need to be in the developer program to run your code on an actual device (or to get your app into the App Store). They say that the Simulator in the SDK should be good enough even if it can't simulate one of the more interesting features of the iPhone/iPod touch, the accelerometer.

    The iPhone and iPod touch are so cool that we just put up with everything that Apple does and be happy little developers until Apple thinks we deserve to be let in, right?

    1. Re:iPhone Developer Program by 2nd+Post! · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, the iPhone and iPod touch will sell so many units that developers are salivating at the idea of selling on it.

      Just like developers are now jumping onto the Wii bandwagon.

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      GPL Deconstructed
    2. Re:iPhone Developer Program by Macman408 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Apple has been giving away the SDK, but you need to be in the developer program to run your code on an actual device (or to get your app into the App Store). They say that the Simulator in the SDK should be good enough even if it can't simulate one of the more interesting features of the iPhone/iPod touch, the accelerometer.

      I'm still furious that Apple released the Macintosh before I had a chance to write $APPLICATION, and now it's been about 24 years since anybody has written anything for the Mac, because the first 500 applications written covered everybody's needs.

      OK, seriously - yeah, it sucks that not everybody gets to be one of the first 500 applications. But, if you blow us away with your application, it doesn't matter. Make it so intuitive, pretty, and powerful that we can't resist. Find an application that meets the needs that I don't even know I have yet, then show me how much better my life would be with your application. That's what Apple does with its products (they were not the first to market with an MP3 player, but they effectively cleared the market of everybody else), and that's what you'll have to do to sell your software to the same users.

    3. Re:iPhone Developer Program by quadelirus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem is getting found as the great blow you away Sudoku app when there are already 25 poorly written ones in the App store that have already been downloaded and so (maybe) show up higher in search results, only because you couldn't enter the market on the ground floor. (BTW I'm not saying that the sudoku apps in the store are bad, haven't actually looked at them myself--just using them as an example).

      Of course, it may very well be (and hopefully is) that Apple has a better algorithm for bringing up new apps to users than that.

      If you spend 5.99 on a sudoku app in the next week are you really going to buy a much better one in a month? Probably not, you probably won't even be looking for one. Not that sudoku is the killer app for the iphone but the app that is already available is going to have a HUGE leg up on the app that isn't yet in the store.

    4. Re:iPhone Developer Program by Admiral+Ag · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You mean like that Moo Cow Music guy with the "Band" app? IIRC he's an indie developer and Apple liked his app so much that they let him demo it at WWDC.

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      "by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
  4. testing by lbane · · Score: 2, Insightful

    testing