Carl Sagan was known for the phrase “billions and billions”, which ironically he claims to have never actually said. And among those who know Apple’s history, he is also known as the “Butt-Head Astronomer“, due to an infamous legal clash he had with Apple. But let’s just ignore the facts and pretend the title of this article is completely appropriate, as Apple has announced today that their App Store has passed the 2 billion download mark. It took nine months for the App Store to pass 1 billion downloads and now has only taken about 5 months to do another billion.
What does this mean for the average consumer? Not much at this point, but what is important to keep an eye on is whether the Apple App Store will so completely dominate the market that it stifles development for other mobile platforms (similar to what Microsoft Windows did in the 90’s). Another important thing to keep an eye on is how news like this affects large corporations in their implementation of the iPhone. Many IT departments are still very resistant to supporting the iPhone in their companies and the battle between users and IT over this topic is interesting to keep an eye on. As I referenced in my earlier article regarding the control of technology in companies, the role of IT departments is changing and the iPhone is one of the defining moments in this trend.
