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Apple updated their message board yesterday which warned App Store Developers who try manipulating their iOS App Store chart rankings or reviews will result in termination of their developer program membership:

Once you build a great app, you want everyone to know about it. However, when you promote your app, you should avoid using services that advertise or guarantee top placement in App Store charts. Even if you are not personally engaged in manipulating App Store chart rankings or user reviews, employing services that do so on your behalf may result in the loss of your Apple Developer Program membership.

PocketGamer earlier reported that Apple cracked down on at least 59 developer by removing their questionable applications.

As a consequence of Apple’s clampdown on those who ape the names and mechanics of existing titles, Temple Jump developer Anton Sinelnikov has had his library of 68 apps, including Tiny Birds and Numbers With Friends, pruned to a meager nine.

Source – PocketGamer

Just a while back Apple announced that 15 Billion downloads mark has been achieved by App Store. Apple says the more than 200 million iOS device users around the globe have downloaded 75 apps each on average, making Apple’s App Store the most popular such offering by a staggering margin:

“In just three years, the revolutionary App Store has grown to become the most exciting and successful software marketplace the world has ever seen,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, in a statement. “Thank you to all of our amazing developers who have filled it with over 425,000 of the coolest apps and to our over 200 million iOS users for surpassing 15 billion downloads.”

Click read more to view Apple’s full press release:

Read more… »

iOS App Store revenues will continue to destroy all competition for years to come. By the time its 2014, the App Store will still account for around 50% of all Apps sold in the market, according to the latest study of mobile app marketplaces by IHS. But Apple’s growth is slowing down. The chart below prove that the App Store is sporting a 131.9% year-over-year growth, unlike Google’s platform that’s steadily growing at a 861.5% rate.

“In terms of mobile application stores, Apple remains far ahead of the competition, with the other stores so far unable to replicate Apple’s success in generating revenue from users,” Jack Kent, an IHS mobile media analyst, said in a statement. “Apple, in contrast, has been able to maintain advantage by leveraging its tightly controlled ecosystem–combining compelling hardware and content with the capability to offer consumers a trusted, integrated, and simple billing service via iTunes.”

Looking forward, IHS expects the global market for mobile apps to rise by another 81.5 percent this year, reaching $3.9 billion in total sales. The Android Market and other rival stores are likely to further slice away at Apple’s leading share, but the iPhone maker will still take home at least half of all sales generated from the app store market through 2014.

[via - CNET, Engadget]

Apple has posted the all time top iPhone and iPad app downloads as a part of the countdown to the 10 billion app download. This time Apple has 4 categories – Top Free iPhone Apps, Top Paid iPhones Apps, Top Free iPad Apps, and Top Paid iPad Apps. Found this list on TechCrunch:

All-Time Top Paid iPhone Apps

1. Doodle Jump
2. Tap Tap Revenge 3
3. Pocket God
4. Angry Birds
5. Tap Tap Revenge 2.6
6. Bejeweled 2 + Blitz
7. Traffic Rush
8. Tap Tap Revenge Classic
9. AppBox Pro Alarm
10. Flight Control

All-Time Top Free iPhone Apps

1. Facebook
2. Pandora
3. Google Mobile App
4. Shazam
5. Movies by Flixster
6. The Weather Channel
7. Google Earth
8. Bump
9. Skype
10. Paper Toss

All-Time Top Paid iPad Apps

1. SoundHound
2. StickWars
3. FlightTrack
4. Backbreaker Football
5. Calorie Tracker
6. BlocksClassic
7. iFart Mobile
8. GoodReader for iPad
9. Cro-Mag Rally
10. Ambiance

All-Time Top Free iPad Apps

1. Pandora
2. Google Mobile App
3. Movies by Flixster
4. Google Earth
5. Yelp
6. Fandango Movies
7. Remote
8. iBooks
9. Bible
10. Solitaire

[via - TechCrunch]

Macrumors is also following this App Store hacking attempt by some hackers who have pushed quite a few books to top list by cheating App Store rankings method. Clayton Morris has shared some details about the App Store ranking fraud reported over the weekend. Macrumors goes on to say that, developer Thuat Nguyen’s apps had been removed from the App Store after it became apparent that he was manipulating the App Store rankings by using compromised iTunes accounts to purchase his own apps.

Morris received confirmation from Apple that approximately 400 iTunes accounts were affected and that iTunes servers were not hacked in any way. The total number of iTunes users number about 150 million according to Morris. Apple is said to be increasing security to help minimize this fraud by asking users to enter their credit card security code more often. If not compromised at iTunes, itself, then users likely revealed the passwords inadvertently through phishing attempts, keyloggers, or easy to guess passwords.

[via - Macrumors]

Yesterday Apple added App Store support to 9 more countries.  App Store developers can now update their offerings to more countries now on. This was announced via Apple’s iTunes Connect service.

You can now distribute your apps to more customers with the addition of App Store support in Armenia, Botswana, Bulgaria, Jordan, Kenya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia, and Uganda. Log in to iTunes Connect to view and update the countries where your applications are available.

[via - Apple]

Did you know that once you jailbreak your iPhone, you invariably end up using it as a piracy tools. A report estimates the total cost of pirated apps to be at around $450 million. This report was shared by 24/7 Wall St. Their estimate is based on a slightly older report from Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi, which estimated lost revenue at between $60 million and $110 million, figures that are believed now to be low.

There have been over 3 billion applications downloaded since the App program began.  Bernstein analyst, Toni Sacconaghi, estimated that between 13% and 21% of those downloads are from paid applications. According to this analysis, the average price of an application purchased at the App Store is $3.  Sacconaghi estimated that Apple’s revenue from the App Store is between $60 million and $110 million per quarter.  That amount has certainly increased since this research report was published because of the rapid growth of the number of applications.

TUAW goes on to say that their analysis is based on several assumptions, however, any one of which could easily be wide of the mark. They argue that with three billion downloads on the App Store (not an assumption), 17% of those are paid apps (assumption), with a piracy rate of 75% (assumption), and the number of pirate downloads at 1.53 billion. If the average price of a paid app is $3 (assumption), then there’s $4.59 billion in losses. Assuming that only about 10% of the pirates who downloaded apps would have actually bought them, that makes the total $459 million. Still with us?

[via 24/7 Wall St.]

iTunes app pages have started looking more like the iPhone App Store app pages. The new app page in iTunes has changed to accommodate side-scrolling screenshots of the app. So from now on, you wont have to click those dots to see rest of the screenshots, you need to just scroll. Cool stuff. Other changes include, much larger icons, moving ‘whats new in this version’ to the top, a shorter app description, more info about the developer and recommendations for related apps that you would find interesting.

But it might take a day or two for the changes to show up in your iTunes. Keep checking.

Click image for larger view. [image from TechCrunch]

Looks like Microsoft is going the Verizon way too, try to gain popularity by ridiculing the best smartphone in the market.Verizon had launched an ad campaign last week called ‘Everything iPhone Doesn’t, Droid Does’ which aimed at promoting soon to be launched Motorola Droid as a better alternative to iPhone. Check this video:

And just a day after Apple posted its results as the most profitable quarter ever, Microsoft’s mobile development team released humorous video making fun of Apple App Store.

Apple might be pretty happy with these kinds of ad campaigns, simply because these ads basically accept the fact that iPhone and App Store are a run away success stories.

Apple has banned an app developer named Khalid Shaikh from App Store and removed all of his 800+ apps that were being sold for around $4.99 in App Store. TechCrunch has shared this information and has shared Apple’s “Notice of Termination” e-mail describing that third-party intellectual property complaints are the impetus behind the banning:

Pursuant to Section 3.2(d) of the iDP Agreement, you agreed that “to the best of Your knowledge and belief, Your Application and Licensed Application Information do not and will not violate, misappropriate, or infringe any Apple or third party copyrights, trademarks, rights of privacy and publicity, trade secrets, patents, or other proprietary or legal rights (e.g. musical composition or performance rights, video rights, photography or image rights, logo rights, third party data rights, etc. for content and materials that may be included in Your Application).” Apple has informed you of numerous third party intellectual property complaints concerning over 100 of your Applications and reminded you of your obligations to obtain the necessary rights prior to submission of your Applications. Nevertheless, we continue to receive the same or similar types of complaints regarding your Applications despite our repeated notices to you. The persistent nature of such complaints has led us to conclude that you are entering into the representations and warranties in the iDP Agreement in bad faith by misrepresenting that you have all the necessary rights for your submissions.

In less than 9 months, Khalid and his 26 member team have published 943 apps. WOW!!! What is strange from Apples point of view is how come these 943 apps surpassed Apples stringent review process everytime. TechCrunch says that Khalid was banned without any advance notice or forewaring of such an action.

[via - TechCrunch]

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App Store crossed 1 billion app downloads in just 9 months and now Apple has announced that iPhone users have downloaded over 1.5 billion apps from App Store in its first year.

Here is that report from Apple. App Store has beaten all market expectations in last one year and now have over 65,000 apps.

Apple’s App Store Downloads Top 1.5 Billion in First Year. More Than 65,000 Apps; Over 100,000 Developers – Apple today announced that customers have downloaded more than 1.5 billion applications in just one year from its revolutionary App Store, the largest applications store in the world. The App Store is also growing at an incredible pace with more than 65,000 apps and more than 100,000 developers in the iPhone Developer Program.

“The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up.”