The Art of the App Store: The Business of Apple Development

TIME IN A TABLE

Table 1-1 provides you with a concise view of the evolution of the App Store over the past few years.

TABLE 1-1: Evolution of the App Store

Chapters 3 and 4 take a look at the current non-linear trends, in addition to even more statistics.

To appreciate this phenomenal growth, it may be helpful to take a visual look at the general trend of apps downloaded versus apps available in the current App Store. Figure 1-1 shows data points taken from Wikipedia spread roughly over a three-year period. It is interesting to note that the trend of downloads versus available apps is roughly similar, which means that, overall, the market isn't getting too oversaturated with apps. Otherwise, the amount of downloads would not be keeping pace. It may also be that Apple's approval controls are working.

FIGURE 1-1: The trend from the first three years of apps downloaded versus apps available shows that apps and demand are keeping pace

Now let's look at the evolution of the modern App Store ...