According to Apple chief executive Tim Cook, his company has now paid out $8bn to iOS app developers. That’s up from the $7bn milestone that Apple announced on 7 January, indicating a billion-dollar month for App Store payouts. To put that another way, once you add in Apple’s 30% cut that’s the same as 1.4bn sales of Angry Birds – or for younger readers, 1.4bn wagons of virtual Smurfberries. Or, indeed, enough to fund Bjork’s Kickstarter campaign to port her Biophilia app to the Android and Windows 8 platforms 3,809 times over. Not that this is high on Apple’s priorities, obviously. More seriously, if you want one statistic to explain why so many important and/or innovative apps still come out first (or only) on iOS, it’s the $8bn total payouts figure.
About Shelly Palmer
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named LinkedIn’s “Top Voice in Technology,” he covers tech and business for Good Day New York, is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular daily business blog. He's a bestselling author, and the creator of the popular, free online course, Generative AI for Execs. Follow @shellypalmer or visit shellypalmer.com.