The Apple App Store Turns Four Today: See How Far We've Come

On July 10, 2008, the App Store was born. Four years later, customers have downloaded nearly 30 billion apps, with approximately 630,000 individual apps currently available for free or sale in Apple’s store. On the day the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the arrival of the App Store, it contained 500 third-party apps for the iPhone and iPod touch, 25 percent of which were free. During its first weekend, the App Store saw initial downloads totaling 10 million. As Jobs said at the time:

The App Store is a grand slam, with a staggering 10 million applications downloaded in just three days. Developers have created some extraordinary applications, and the App Store can wirelessly deliver them to every iPhone and iPod touch user instantly.

In March of this year, Chunli Fu of Qingdao, China download the store’s 25 billionth download app, Where’s My Water? Free. In April 2010, the App Store’s reach extended to the iPad. By December of that year, there were over 50,000 apps for the tablet device. By November of last year, there were more than 140,000 iPad apps available. Today, that number stands at almost 250,000. Remember that, before the App Store arrived, the only apps available for the iPhone were native apps like Calendar, Contacts, and Mail. We recently profiled this fact when Apple celebrated the fifth birthday of the original iPhone last month. Check out the first Apple commercial that featured the App Store:

See how far we've come, app addicts? The most popular apps of all time, as of March 2012 when Apple announced the 25 billionth download:

iPhone – Paid

• Angry Birds
• Fruit Ninja
• Doodle Jump
• Cut the Rope
• Angry Birds Seasons

iPhone – Free

• Facebook
• Pandora Radio
• Words With Friends Free
• Skype
• The Weather Channel

iPad – Paid

• Pages
• Angry Birds HD
• Angry Birds Seasons HD
• Penultimate
• Scrabble for iPad

iPad – Free

• Angry Birds HD Free
• The Weather Channel for iPad
• Netflix
• Skype for iPad
• Kindle

What is the first app you downloaded?

To celebrate the App Store today — not that we at AppAdvice ever need a reason to celebrate apps — we decided to get nostalgic and talk about, well, our apps. We shared with each other what our first apps were: Cat Piano, Explore 9/11, Pastebot, Remote, Tip Calculator, Abble Dabble, and Paper Toss. We then asked some folks on Twitter what their first app was. There were a lot of Facebook and Remote answers, but there were also some very amusing ones. So be sure to check out our Storify story filled with everyone's App Store firsts here. Now, it's your turn. What was your very first iOS app purchased from the App Store? To find out: Go into iTunes (on a PC or Mac), click "Purchased," and then select "Apps." Be sure you have your list sorted by "most recent." From there, scroll to the bottom of the screen. Your first app will be the last one listed. Happy birthday, App Store! We wouldn't be here without you.

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