Apple has announced that total downloads from the App Store have now topped a billion. That means users have downloaded apps a total of 10 billion times. There are only about 300,000 iOS apps, so it’s not quite the same thing as saying users have downloaded a billion apps — there are surely some apps that have fared better than others. But a billion downloads is pretty impressive no matter how you cut it.

But to put things in perspective for a second:

  • The population of the earth? 6.9 billion.
  • There are just over a thousand people on the planet who have a net worth of a billion dollars or more.
  • The earth is about 4.5 billion years old.
  • The iTunes App Store launched in July, 2008.
  • iOS users have downloaded apps a billion times.

That’s a lot.

Brad Linder

Brad Linder is editor of Liliputing and Mobiputing. He's been tinkering with mobile tech for decades and writing about it since...