Apple’s App Store is getting ever closer to hitting the 1 Billion download milestone, check out http://www.apple.com/itunes/billion-app-countdown/ (in fact it is counting up). By my calculation it should reach its goal in the next few days or so and to be sure we will hear about it in the press!

Seriously though, think about it, this feat is outstanding when you realize that the iTunes store took about 3 years to get to 1 Billion downloads and towards the end of 2008 the App Store was only just over 0.5 Billion. So where was the turning point? As far as I can tell, after the iPhone 3G appeared and the native SDK became available to the ever growing throng of developers, application submissions increased and downloads along with the amount of apps available. This increase in developers and applications, has in turn fed the interest and uptake even more in a self perpetuating cycle.

The next questions are…
1. How will they get to 2 Billion?
2. When enterprise applications will become as ubiquitous as gaming applications for the iPhone?

Out of that 1 Billion approximately 25% (my ‘guestimate’) have been games and it leaves this business developer wanting the next milestone set by Apple to be met with adding more business-like applications. This is where companies like Sybase can step in, with enterprise adoption enabling applications such as mobile office and development tools/software the Sybase Unwired Platform, Mobile Office and MobiLink/Ultralite.

Check out my iPhone and Sybase related blog posts…

Sybase knows how to make the iPhone Enterprise-ready!
Securing and Delivering Business Data on the iPhone
i(Phone) have my data here, now I want it there…What's the problem?

I am also wondering about the difficulty around downloading business applications from the App Store. Companies, especially large enterprises, will not want to download individual applications for each employee using an iPhone. I believe Apple will need to change the downloading model/option for enterprise applications to experience significant growth in this area.

STOP PRESS - Even Industry Analysts Forrester Research are now suggesting that companies look towards the iPhone as a key platform for their Enterprise. Check out these other articles below…

AppleInsider: “We find the BlackBerry better for email and calendaring and the iPhone better for everything else,” he notes.

Computerworld: However, not everything was rosy with iPhone deployments, Schadler noted. Combining iPhone and ActiveSync for calendaring functions is still the “single biggest end user problem,” he said.

Fortune: There are the top four iPhone “challenges,” including the dearth of management tools, the lack of full support for VPN and the “usual litany” of “annoying” early-generation glitches (e.g., lack of cut-and-paste and click-to-call).

• One Billion iPhone App Store Downloads Milestone Has Been Passed
• Will the iPhone Soon Be Available from Verizon Wireless?
• iPhone into Business Does Go