How will the app store differ when it reaches 300,000 or say an unrealistic 1 biiiillion apps vs. the current 100,000? Will we see a large increase in the average number of apps being used per iPhone/iTouch? I don't think so. For every new app I download and plan to keep, I usually delete one I'm not using. Let's call this the LIGO method of app management or Latest In, Garbage Out. The average usage difference between the apps I use daily (5-10) and the remaining apps (50+) is huge. I'm guessing that's true for most people and won't change no matter how many apps become available.

(Photo credit: gnta's photostream)

My obsessive app prioritizing is probably not the norm - I'm sure there are many people who just keep accumulating apps until they reach the 9 screen max. Either way, your organization behavior with apps is most likely very similar to how you manage blog subscriptions, your desktop, people you follow on Twitter, etc. Let's not forget about the problems that start to arise when you have too many apps on your iPhone including: slower performance and freezing, too many app updates, low memory, and decreasing battery life (steady improvements to hardware/software may address some of these issues). On the other end, Apple will have to keep hiring more people to try and keep the app store clean. As long as the quality of apps increases and Apple continues to manage the app store effectively, I'm all for the rapid growth. And the rapid growth will continue as long as we keep seeing success stories from the developers themselves who are increasingly starting to reveal sales figures. I also wonder if Apple should phase out featured apps completely (but keep Top lists) similar to how Twitter hopes to abandon its suggested users list. In the future, I hope to see them make less "App Store breaks 200,000 apps" announcements and more announcements about improvements to the app store. The other major players like Google should also focus on designing a better app marketplace, then maybe people won't care as much about them always being behind in total number of available apps.

How are they changing the Web? The obvious is iPhone apps are increasingly allowing people to access online content during times when they didn't have access to it before, therefore continuing to speed up the rate of information sharing. Where apps are having trouble is keeping the users interested after a few uses or a short trial period. Social networking apps like the ones for Twitter and Facebook don't have this problem because they are allowing people who are connected on the web to continue their relationships away from their computers. The rising popularity of iPhone apps with location-based capabilities (and soon to come the iPhone version of Google Latitude) are creating useful ways for people to access relevant data about events, businesses, and even people that are nearby. How are they being used by brands? The smart brands are the ones that have already thought of ways to connect with a large base of current iPhone users (Kraft, Obama, Audi, to name a few). Most other major brands are most likely in the process of or just starting to think about developing an iPhone app because of the successes they are continuing to hear about. But only a select few out of the rapidly growing database of 20,000+ apps with be successful because they will either be really useful, linked to a well-liked brand, or very creative. Of course the longer it takes for the app to be released, the smaller the chance of it being successful. It's worthwhile to note that companies like Remember the Milk, Salesforce, Mint.com are creating iPhone apps to supplement their web services as an added benefit to offer to their customers. Some of the most impressive apps aren't just displaying content in a mobile-friendly manner, but also paying very close attention to creating a sleek user interface and coming up with unique ways to engage people using the iPhone's features. What about publishers? They need to recognize that besides an electronic reading device like the Kindle, people are already browsing their content frequently on the iPhone (and most likely not having the best experience if nothing has been developed for them). Even though it will take time, the iPhone will be a big advertising platform for publishers in the future. Besides newspapers, I think most major magazines will have iPhone apps soon. What they will need to figure out is a revenue model that makes sense because as of now the app store does not allow publishers the freedom of charging readers a recurring monthly fee to subscribe to the latest content downloads. The first successful magazine app will owe a lot of it's success from free PR and it looks like Lucky Magazine and People Magazine are very close to launching. Update: Apple has announced that the 3.0 software update will allow subscription based purchases to be made within the app. Great news for publishers. How are they affecting the gaming industry? The cost of the app plays a huge factor, but not as much as you might think. We are starting to see more findings that indicate increases in spending for apps on mobile devices. People are willing to spend $5-$10 on good game because it's an inexpensive alternative when compared to most video games that cost over $40. It's only a matter of time before more games that offer online play gain in popularity just as we saw happen for all the major gaming consoles over the past couple of years and the classis example of the iPhone game Tap Tap Revenge. While no one is sure yet if increasing sales of iPhone games are damaging the sales of the major players, it doesn't take a genius to realize that the iPhone's popularity is already hurting the sales of other handheld gaming devices. Some further reading: 8 reasons for building an iPhone Web application, Mobile ROI: You get what you pay for, and Apple iPhone controls over 66% of all mobile web use.