Tag Archives: App Store

App Store Hits 50 Billion Downloads: All Time Best Sellers for iPad

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50 Billion App Store Downloads

Apple announced yesterday that the App Store hit the much-anticipated 50 billion app downloads milestone:

Apple® today announced that customers have downloaded over 50 billion apps* from the revolutionary App Store℠. Customers are downloading more than 800 apps per second at a rate of over two billion apps per month on the App Store.

In iTunes on the desktop you can see a listing of the Top 25 All-Time Paid Apps and Free Apps, with separate listings for iPad apps and iPhone apps. There are no huge surprises in the iPad Top 25 list, but here’s a few things I find interesting:

– Skype for iPad is the Number 1 All-Time Free App. I think Skype’s iPad app is great, better than its desktop version – but I’m still a little surprised to see it right at the all-time chart.

– 10 of the Top 25 paid are not games, and 6 out of those 10 are Apple apps – Pages, Keynote, Numbers, GarageBand, iMovie, and iPhoto. Another reminder of the huge piles of money Microsoft is leaving on the table by not bringing Office to iOS.

– Facebook is Number 6 on the Top Free list – I’m a little surprised it’s not higher.

– Angry Birds HD and Angry Birds HD Free are the highest listed games in the Paid and Free lists.

Anyone want to start a pool on when downloads hit 100 billion?

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Age Ratings Now More Prominent in iPad App Store

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Age Ratings in iPad App Store

Last week Apple made some minor adjustments to the layout of iPad and iOS App Store pages. One of the more notable changes is in the way that age ratings for apps are presented – they’ve been made a little more prominent.

Age rating details are now displayed much higher up on the App Store window for individual apps – just below the app title and developer name. This follows closely on another recent update that made it easier to see which apps offer In-App purchases.

Now both of these bits of information – age rating and the indicator for apps with In-App purchase – are right up in the top section of the app window.

These changes should be good news for many iPad and iOS App Store users, and especially for parents.

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Looks Like iOS 6.1 Update Fixed the App Store Purchased Section Loading Issue

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iPad Purchased Not on This iPad

It looks like the iOS 6.1 update has fixed the longstanding problem with the App Store Purchased section not loading. As I posted about recently this issue was affecting numerous users and was a known issue that Apple’s engineering team has been working on.

After the iOS 6.1 update I can once again load the Purchased section in the App Store on my iPad 3 and iPad mini. I can get both tabs of the section to load too – the All tab and ‘Not on This iPad’.

It still takes quite a while to load each page (a minute or more) and sometimes switching between tabs will make the App Store app crash back to the home screen – but most of the time it is working OK for me.

For those of you who were seeing this problem before, what are your results when trying this after the iOS 6.1 update?

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Can’t Access Purchased Section in iPad App Store: Apple Says It’s a Known Issue with ‘Extensive Purchase History’

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iPad App Store Purchased section

Have you had problems getting the App Store Purchased section to load on your iPad? Spent time staring at a screen like the one shown above just saying ‘Loading’ for a long while and then the App Store app crashes back to the home screen? Me too. On both my iPad mini and my iPad 3 for at least several weeks now.

I’ve rebooted the iPads more than once, hard rebooted them, and signed out and back in to my Apple ID account in the App Store. I’ve also searched and noted that there are numerous threads on this issue – here’s just one example: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4313321?start=15&tstart=0.

So today I decided to call Apple Support about it. I’ll offer full details below, but the short story is that Apple’s Engineering team is aware of the issue and is working on a number of reported cases. Mine was ‘escalated’ and added to those cases this morning. The issue appears to be with those of us who have what an Apple senior advisor called an ‘extensive purchase history’ when it comes to iPad and iOS apps. My purchase history shows 1,212 iPad apps and 1,276 iPhone apps – so it looks like I qualify.

The only suggested workaround right now is to open up iTunes on a PC and sync any apps you previously purchased and want to get back onto your iPad or other iDevice.

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Apple Retreats on App Store Subscriptions Policy

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Just a couple weeks before its widely-criticized new subscription policies were due to take effect in the App Store, Apple has retreated and made the policy much more palatable for publishers like Amazon and many others. Apple has quietly changed its guidelines on the pricing of In-App Subscriptions on the App Store. There are no [...]

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Apple Not Happy with Game Publisher Over In-App Purchases?

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From a report at Apple Insider yesterday: Apple has reportedly had "strong words" with publisher Capcom about in-app purchases in the free iPhone and iPad children’s game "Smurfs’ Village," and is said to be considering adjusting iTunes account login times after receiving complaints from parents. Citing a "well placed source," PocketGamer.biz reported Wednesday that Apple [...]

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