Even as the polish seems to have dulled on the Apple corporation's once blindingly shiny brand image, the company still has massive and impressive
numbers with which to dazzle us. The Apple App Store is counting down to its 50 billionth download in the coming days, and the company is marking the occasion with an updated set of lists around the
top 25-all-time app downloads.
On the iPhone, the free category is dominated by third-party brands that have seen enormous migrations of their user base to the smartphone, or in the case of Instagram have pretty much been invented by the phone. In the paid category, it's no surprise to see gaming fully dominate, with the legendary Angry Birds franchise leading the way.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the top app list is how person-to-person connections, via social networks and calling/messaging tools, remain the leading function that people pursue.
On the iPad, utility and entertainment dominate the top tiers, led by Skype for iPad and followed by The Weather Channel app as well as Netflix, Angry Birds, and Kindle from Amazon. On the paid content side, Apple itself occupies several of the top slots, with its word processor Pages as the number one paid app on the tablet, with GarageBand in the seventh position and Keynote the 10th.
In addition to the utilities from Apple that are among the iPad bestsellers, we can see how the tablet has emerged as a replacement for the laptop among many users as well, as it has emerged as an entertainment and newsgathering hub. When we move down into the bottom end of the top downloads list, we start seeing the ABC Player, YouTube, eBay and CNN. Likewise, we see utilities aimed at moving content and viewing content across screens, such as Dropbox and Adobe Reader. The full lists are reproduced below.
Top 25 All Time Paid Apps - iPad
Top 25 All-Time Free Apps for IPad
Top 25 All-Time Paid Apps for IPhone
Top 25 All-Time Free Apps for IPhone