App Store Difficulties: Some Perspective

We're as guilty as many other sites of pointing out small issues (and some larger issues) that have cropped up on the app store over the last few months. The app store has become so ubiquitous in TV ads, Apple coverage, and iPhone discussions, that it can be easy to forget on this date last year, the app store didn't even exist. There was even a time when it looked like there would never be an app store to begin with ("webapps are fine," anyone?)

Here we are less than a year later, and an incredible billion plus apps have been downloaded. Making it possibly second only to the iTunes music store in terms of online content downloads. While Apple may not have been thrilled with initially opening the phone up to outside developers, it's hard to imagine what iPhone ads may have looked like over the last 12 months without it. Apple has spent far more time promoting the apps and what they add to the phone, than the phone itself.

Kudos Apple, and especially kudos to the hard-working developers who have essentially carried the iPhone over the last year.