The App Store Turns One

On Friday, July 10th, the iTunes App Store turned one year old. Yes, it was only shortly over a year ago that Apple launched the iPhone 3G, an SDK, and the App Store to hold the (currently more than 50,000 apps).

Naturally, when you go to iTunes, you get a promotional announcement:
Light a candle and cue the music. OK, forgive us for sounding like doting parents, but we're just so proud--having watched the App Store go from promising newcomer to full-fledged revolutionary. To celebrate its first birthday, we've gathered some of our favorite games and apps. Part fun. Part function. Entirely amazing.
And this is still the biggest advantage the iPhone has over the Palm Pre: the sheer number of apps in their online store. When Palm's App Catalog includes an app from the Vatican, then we'll know it's made it.



It's not to say, however, that the App Store hasn't had missteps. Examples include approving an application like "Baby Shaker," which was a "game" that asked the user to shake an iPhone to "quiet" a crying baby.

The App Store also rejected applications for seemingly nonsensical reasons, only to relent later. It's led to the App Store approval process being called draconian, in fact.

Still, there's no denying the success. And when it hits 100K apps, we'll see another Apple promotion. Now if the App Catalog could just hit 1,000.