500 Million iPhone Apps Downloaded

Last week, Softpedia learned that the App Store was getting a little heavy, adding some 5,000 new apps to the 10,000 already confirmed by Apple. According to trackers, on January 12, 2009 the iTunes App Store was holding well over 15,000 applications.

Reporting the figures, we went as far as speculating that the App Store was coming close to achieving yet another milestone in application downloads. Comparing the 10,000 apps coupled with the 300 million downloads officially announced by Apple, it was only logical to assume that exponentially increasing downloads coupled with 5,000 more apps would rack up half a billion app downloads on the popular venue.

As Apple officially confirmed it this weekend, it did! The App Store currently offers over 15K applications of all kinds, including games. “There are more than 15,000 apps in the App Store, and so far iPhone users have downloaded an incredible 500 million, in every category, from games to business,” Apple says.

“Applications designed for iPhone are nothing short of amazing,” the company continues, “That’s because they leverage the groundbreaking technology in iPhone — like the Multi-Touch interface, the accelerometer, GPS, real-time 3D graphics, and 3D positional audio. Just tap into the App Store and choose from thousands of applications ready to download now.”

The App Store works over cellular networks and Wi-Fi, so iPhone users can wirelessly download applications directly onto their devices and start using them immediately. Applications are sometimes free to download and use, or charged to the user’s iTunes account. Users are notified when updates are available for one or more apps stored on their device. The App Store is also available via iTunes on their Mac or PC. Browsing the venue form the comfort of their desk, they can download and sync applications to the iPhone or iPod touch, using the USB cable provided to them with the purchase of the device.