App Store Earnings For Developers Exceed $70 Billion; App Downloads Up 70% YoY (macstories.net)

Apple announced today that since it launched in 2008, developers have earned over $70 billion from the App Store. From an article: "People everywhere love apps and our customers are downloading them in record numbers," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "Seventy billion dollars earned by developers is simply mind-blowing." According to Apple's press release, subscriptions saw a 58 percent increase year over year, fueled by their availability in all 25 app categories. Games and Entertainment are the App Store's top grossing categories, Lifestyle and Health and Fitness apps have experienced 70 percent growth, and the Photo and Video category is up over 90 percent.

Comments

This is why Blackberry lost the smartphone wars

[mykepredko]

When I was at RIM, the iPhone 4 came out with one of the benefits for buyers was the extensive library of apps that were available for download. The iPhone SDK was free or a very nominal cost. To develop an app for the Blackberry at the time required an expensive SDK as well as a costly testing process to make sure the app met their standards.

RIM at the time (and I talked about this with very senior executives) made it clear that the way Apple was doing would destroy Apple as professionals wouldn't want something which had unvetted and, to their eye, silly apps.

Re:This is why Blackberry lost the smartphone wars

[Gilgaron]

Interesting observation. They may have even been right for the professionals of the time, but the mass market is what won things for Apple.