App Store Passes 100 Billion App Downloads, $30 Billion Paid to Developers: Apple

Apple at the 26th annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco made some major announcements including the all new Apple Music service, native apps for the Apple Watch, and new versions of iOS and OS X. In a traditional style, Apple CEO Tim Cook started the keynote with an update on platform numbers since last year.
(Also see: WWDC 2015: Apple Unveils iOS 9, Apple Music, Native Watch Apps, OS X El Capitan)

Cook revealed that the App Store passed 100 billion app downloads since its launch in 2008, while further noting that the App Store till date has paid out more than $30 billion to developers. The Cupertino-based company stressed that it "continues to be the most profitable app marketplace in the industry."

To give some context, a data-tracking firm earlier this year claimed that Google Play had outpaced Apple's App Store in app download numbers, with 60 percent more app downloads than the App Store in 2014.

The Apple CEO also announced that there are 1.5 million apps in the App Store, which might mean it is now past the number of Android apps in Google Play. An app ranking and analytics firm had claimed earlier this year that Google's Play store in 2014 jumped ahead of Apple's App Store in terms of the total number of apps for the first time, with over 1.43 million apps compared to 1.21 million.

Some of the other numbers shared by Cook during the WWDC keynote noted that there were 83 percent users now running iOS 8; WWDC had attendees from 70 countries, and 80 percent were first time attendees.

The company also claimed that 55 percent of Mac users are now running Yosemite stressing that "OS X Yosemite had the fastest adoption rate of any PC operating system in history."

(Also see: iOS 9 Will Bring True Multitasking to iPad, Improved Siri and Search, a Lot More)

Apple also announced that the new OS X El Capitan will be available as a developer beta starting Monday and free for worldwide download starting this fall while the iOS 9 developer beta is also available on Monday, and the public beta will be available in July.