Apple has hit another milestone with the iPad just 15 months since the device first launched in April 2010 with the number of iPad compatible apps swelling to 100,000+ in the App Store as first spotted by MacStories.
A quick check under “Release Date” in the App Store reveals the current exact number is 100,234 and counting. Strangely enough, both the US and Malaysia App Store have the same figures despite that some apps are only available to iPad users with the US Apple ID such as HBO GO and Vevo HD which are regionally restricted. Our guess is that the number of apps displayed reflects the correct quantity only for the US App Store.
Nevertheless, it is a huge achievement and yet another win against the naysayers who predicted the failure of the iPad. Looking back, this is a game that Apple has played before with the iPod as well as the iPhone and is continuing to play it well. Competitors are still digging around in the sandbox trying to catch-up. With the software/apps advantage that Apple has, other tablet platforms on the market such as Google’s Android Honeycomb and Palm’s WebOS have an enormous task ahead of them and that is just one factor that makes up the success of the iPad.
Apple is so far not making any fuss out of the 100,000 iPad app milestone and we’re not expecting them to. They did after all wait until the 10 ‘billionth’ App Store app download earlier this year in January to give someone a celebratory gift card and it was a whopping $10,000 (approx. RM30,000) one at that. More on that at Cult of Mac.
Talk about sweating the ‘small’ stuff.
