Apple Tops 100,000 Titles at App Store

Apple's iPhone and iPod touch App Store topped 100,000 available applications on Wednesday. The App Store is Apple's online service for third party iPhone and iPod touch applications, and has hosted over two billion app downloads so far.

"The App Store, now with over 100,000 applications available, is clearly a major differentiator for millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers around the world," commented Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.

The App Store is available to customers in 77 countries and recently added new features such as App Store Essentials, and Genius for Apps.

In addition to offering developers a centralized location for their iPhone and iPod touch applications, the App Store is changing how consumers look at the portable gaming market.

"The App Store has forever changed the mobile gaming industry and continues to improve," said EA Mobile Vice President Travis Boatman. "The App Store has allowed us to develop high quality EA games that have been a huge success with customers."

Despite the App Store's success, the iTunes-based service has suffered from growing pains. Some developers have had issues getting their products approved, and others have seen their apps pulled from the store with little or no explanation. Apple is, however, telling developers that it is working to improve the app screening process.

Even though there have been some issues with the application approval process developers are still submitting titles for approval. With over 50 million iPhone and iPod touch owners and over two billion app downloads so far, it's likely developers will continue writing applications faster than Apple can approve them.