Are App Developers The New Rock Stars?

With the iTunes App Store fast approaching 10 billion downloads, some really interesting research has been done by Horace Dediu.

By his predictions Apps will have overtaken songs downloaded by March. When you start to consider that the App Store has existed for less than half the time iTunes has been selling music, that is a staggering figure.

Even more staggering is the rate at which it is growing, to quote Horace:

“The amazing story of this chart is not that apps are running at above 30 million download per day, but that the figure is growing. Growth like this is hard to get one’s mind around. Not only are downloads increasing, but the rate of increase is increasing.”

“The number of apps downloaded for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch is running at more than 60..”

It should be noted that many of these apps are free, but a very large percentage aren’t. Looking closely, you’ll also notice that among the top grossing apps 1/3 of them are free (yes, you read that correctly).

Can’t play guitar or sing very well? You aren’t the only one, but you can still be bigger than The Beetles.