The lucky person who downloaded app number 50 billion will be given $10,000 in the form of a gift card
May 16, 2013 – The first app that was downloaded from the Apple iPhone App store is unknown, but the total downloaded since the date it opened on July 11, 2008 has now passed 50 billion in less than 5 years.
This is just another example of how the business of apps has exploded due to the huge number of smartphone and other electronic devices have been sold during the last five years.
The lucky person who downloaded app number 50 billion will be given $10,000 in the form of a gift card. That amount is practically nothing compared to what Apple has paid out to developers of the apps since it opened the store in 2008.
During April, Apple announced it had paid developers more than $9 billion during that period, which pointed to a new huge economy that has even made teenagers millionaires and created entirely new giants in the business world.
Apple has earned over $3.85 billion from the store since its agreement gives it 30% of the app revenues.
Rovio, a company based in Finland, which first introduced the Angry Birds game in December of 2009 to the app store, has had nearly 2 billion downloads to date worldwide on tablets and smartphones.
Nick D’Aloisio, a Londoner who is just 17 years old, sold a company he established that is the maker of the Summly app to Yahoo last March for over $28 million.
Apps have been used as well to create new forms of publicity by athletes and musicians as well. Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest man, has an app that has been downloaded more than a million times.
However, for developers, problems have been created by the growth in Apple’s App Store. The number of apps that are available means getting one noticed has become the essential part to hitting it big. Therefore making the big money is not evenly distributed.
