iPhone App Store

Apple is celebrating the one year anniversary of the App Store for iPhone and iPod Touch. Along with all of the fanfare and featured apps came a lot of impressive statistics. Apple has left the competition in the dust, with 65,000 mobile applications released to date.

Over 1.5 billion copies of these apps have been downloaded since the inception of the App Store one year ago. Apple CEO Steve Jobs remarked, "The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality."

Amazon's free iPhone Kindle application has received an update with several improvements to make the app more user-friendly. Many of the features were expected by users in the first release, as they are typical to many iPhone apps.

Here are the changes:

Users can read in portrait or landscape mode.
Gesture (pinch) to zoom images in books.
Select alternate background and text colors to improve reading comfort in low light conditions.
Tap on either side of the screen or flick to turn pages.

Anticipating one billion iPhone app downloads, Apple has announced the best selling iPhone applications of all time. Two lists show the top 20 paid and top 20 free apps downloaded since the AppStore opened in July 2008.

According to Apple, over 953 million apps have already been downloaded. The company is holding a Billion App Countdown Promotion, offering the chance to win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card, an iPod touch, a Time Capsule, and a MacBook Pro to those downloading apps before the total hits one billion.

The official CBS Sports Mobile NCAA® March Madness On Demand® application is available now from the Apple AppStore. For only $4.99 any college basketball lover with an iPhone or iPod Touch can view scores, news, schedules, brackets, and even live games.

When using a Wi-Fi connection free streaming video of ongoing games is available. The application also delivers live game audio over a 3G or EDGE data connection. All games from the first round until the NCAA® Championship are included, along with video highlights from each game.

Apple, in a bid to better compete with Nintendo DS and Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP), may be considering a separate section of its App Store devoted to games at $19.99. Part of the problem with the App store for major game publishers is the sheer number of games available makes it hard to stand out.

With all of the independent game developers out there the App Store boasts over 1500 games. They are the most popular category and represent roughly 25 percent of all applications available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The top 100 list naturally leans towards less expensive, popular games.