Apple raked in $500 million from apps in one week
聽announced Thursday that the first week of 2015 brought in a record $500 million from apps and in-app purchases. Though the company did not list specific numbers, it said New Year鈥檚 Day was the biggest sales day to date for the App Store.
The tech giant reported the news after a record-breaking year in 2014, where it saw a 50 percent growth in billings, fetching $10 billion for app developers. This implies that Apple customers spent around $15 billion in the App Store in 2014, making Apple鈥檚 cut somewhere around $4.5 billion. Apple collects 30 cents on the dollar for every purchase made in the App Store.
Apple credited this leap in sales to the introduction of iOS 8 and the creative flexibility it gave developers.
鈥淭his year is off to a tremendous start after a record-breaking year for the App Store and our developer community,鈥� said Eddy Cue, Apple鈥檚 senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, in a statement. 鈥淲e're so proud of the creativity and innovation developers bring to the apps they create for iOS users and that the developer community has now earned over $25 billion.鈥澛�
The App Store now offers more than 1.4 million apps for its devices, including more than 725,000 designed for the iPad.
This record number of app sales has been good for the US economy, as well, according to Apple. claims to have generated more than 1 million US jobs. Since the creation of the App Store in 2008, more than 672,000 developer jobs have been formed in what Apple refers to as 鈥渢he iOS ecosystem.鈥� Apple also has around 66,000 US-based employees and roughly 334,000 jobs opportunities have come, it says, as a direct result of Apple鈥檚 growth.
However, some are questioning the way Apple does business. Citing what it referred to as 鈥渙utrageous鈥� terms in聽聽and digital-rights-management requirements, 聽(EFF), a nonprofit organization that defends civil liberties in the digital world, reported Wednesday that it would not be releasing its new app for Apple products. The app was designed to send alerts relating to breaking news about digital rights and any EFF campaigns.
The organization strongly opposes developer agreements and sees them as 鈥渂ad for developers and users alike.鈥�
罢丑别听聽of the EFF were Apple's ban on public statements about the terms of the agreement and its prohibition on reverse engineering or tinkering with Apple鈥檚 software or technology, commonly referred to as 鈥渏ail-breaking.鈥� The EFF also raised concerns about Apple's 鈥渒ill switch鈥� that can delete an app from existence.
Apple is a private company that can manage its content as it wishes, points out 聽Sarah Perez. And in the case of the 鈥渒ill switch,鈥� it is more of a safety net to protect against malicious code or malware, she says. Apple founder Steve Jobs was quoted as saying that he hoped that metaphoric lever would never have to be pulled, but it would be 鈥渋rresponsible鈥� not to have one.
Though Ms. Perez has her critiques of the EFF鈥檚 鈥渂lack-and-white鈥� stances on digital rights, she admits they are important to the constantly developing industry and that the group raises questions that companies should take to heart.
