Apple launched its App Store on July 11, 2008. Over the first weekend, users had downloaded ten million iPhone apps. Additionally, the Wall Street Journal reported on August 11, 2008, a month after the launch of the iPhone App Store, that Apple had been earning around $1 million per day from the site. Apple CEO Steve Jobs himself called the site a “big coup” and said that in the first thirty days, developers had already made $9 million.

By September 9, 2008, VentureBeat reported 100 million iPhone app downloads. Will the trend slow down in the short term? Probably not: the iPhone App Store is projected to hit 1 billion downloads sometime in 2009, which means it will have reached the 1 billion download mark faster than the iTunes site.

iPhone apps make iPhones a joy

When the iPhone was first revealed, it was undoubtedly a breakthrough in mobile phone technology. But aside from looking cool and showing the photo of the person who was calling you, it didn’t do much good. The iPhone app market has changed all this. In the first days of the launch of the App Store, more than 900 new applications were added. Suddenly, the iPhone became a digital playground for its users.

New iPhone apps will change the way we do business

Online banking was viewed with some suspicion when it first appeared on the scene, as bank customers wondered if online banking could really be trusted to pay their bills on time. But gradually, online banking became second nature and almost ubiquitous as all the major banks embraced it. iPhone apps, like the Bank of America iPhone app, may even make online banking obsolete as we slowly but surely start banking from our cell phones.

Retailers are starting to get in on the iPhone action, too. The Gap and Target are two of the first retailers to release their own iPhone apps that allow customers to shop on their iPhones, and dot-coms like Amazon are also letting iPhone users shop on their phones. Just as online shopping was once considered innovative and weird, but is now a common activity that millions of consumers engage in every day, iPhone apps from retail giants will become more commonplace and “normal.”

The iPhone app is the new music video

Similarly, when MTV started showing music videos in 1980, pundits wondered if they wouldn’t bother to see the musicians on their television screens. Twenty-eight years later, generations have grown up on MTV culture and expect more and more from its pop stars. Today’s pop stars don’t just need music videos, they also need a website, a Facebook page, and a MySpace page. Will the next thing pop stars need to keep up with the trend is an iPhone app?

Nine Inch Nails, Weezer, Moby, The Chemical Brothers and others have already been involved in the popular Tap Tap games created by iPhone app developer Tapulous. Meanwhile, Pink and Snow Patrol have their own iPhone apps. These artists could become the trendsetters as more and more stars rush to get a piece of the iPhone app pie.

success will only grow

The beauty of capitalism is the innovation it inspires. As companies gradually try to outdo each other in the new frontier of iPhone apps, the consumer will benefit. The amazing success of the iPhone App Store means that we will see more and more iPhone apps with increasingly innovative features as consumers demand more and businesses try to meet these demands. Move over, ‘world wide web’ here comes the iPhone app.