Apple App Store

The App Store has only been online for five quarters, yet it continues to impress with a staggering number of offerings and purchases. Apple has announced there are now 85,000 iPhone and iPod Touch applications available via iTunes.

50 million people own a compatible Apple device and 125,000 software developers are participating in the Apple iPhone Developer Program. 1.5 billion individual downloads were clocked on the App Store within the first year of its operation.

Now that the number of iPhone applications is quickly approaching six digits, finding useful software seems to get more difficult every day. You may have heard that Apple is working on ways to improve the search for iPhone apps in the App Store and iTunes.

Now Microsoft is getting into the game with their Bing search engine. They've added a visual search gallery for top iPhone apps based on the company's Silverlight technology.

Vonage is looking for a boost from iPhone users amid sagging sales of its Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service. The company has submitted an iPhone application to Apple for approval.

The first version Apple reviewed came back due to a technical issue involving an icon label. The app was resubmitted by Vonage after correcting the problem and is currently under review.

Now iPhone users can get even more free apps. There's a new way to keep track of developers that run promotions. Many companies will temporarily drop the price of an app for a limited time, or even offer the application for free.

FreeAppAlert organizes all of these deals into a central location. Every day tens of paid iPhone apps are listed that have dropped their price to FREE for a limited time.

Maybe the conflict between two giants was brewing in the background the whole time. The partnership between Apple and Google looks to be on edge ever since Google decided to get into the mobile phone business, launching the open source platform Android.

Apple, as we know from countless reports of application bans, rescinded approvals, and the rejection of Google Voice, keeps strict and inconsistent control of their iPhone OS. In fact, previous Google apps appearing in the App Store have had the privilege of using tools hidden from the average developer.