The App Store

The App store is a short name for the Application Store. It is the place where all iPhone applications are hosted. It is the only official way of publishing applications for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad .

You have to be a developer to be able to release applications for the iPhone in this store. To become a developer you must pay $99, 70% of the application revenue you release goes to the developer while Apple gets 30%.

This Application Store is part of the iTunes Store which hosts many other stores from Apple. For example, there is a music store where you can buy and download music, an iTunes Video Store where you can download and watch movies, and TV shows. It also has podcasts in audio and video formats that you can subscribe to and sync with your Apple iPhones.

Just one year after its grand opening in July 11, the app store had over 55,000 applications, and 1 billion downloads. After 2 years of the App store opening, over 100,000 applications were available for the iPhone and over 2 billion downloads. Then the apps grew to 200,000 and are still growing very fast. Click here to read more.

This makes this Application Store the largest online application store available today.

When you start the App Store application on the iPhone, you will get the main screen which has buttons at the top and the bottom. The top buttons are about new and hot applications.


At the bottom you will see different options of navigating the store. Featured, categories, top 25, search, and updates.

As you can see I have 4 updates available. This means that 4 of my installed applications on my iPhone have new releases. If I click on the updates, I will be asked for my password and start downloading the new updates.

The search button allows you to search for a specific application, while the Categories button is probably the start for most people. You can find an app for almost anything you think of.

You can visit my best iPhone applications to get some ideas of what is available in this huge store.

The "top 25" button has 3 more options. Top paid shows you the best paid applications, while Top free shows the best free applications. Those applications are rated from people's reviews.

To install an application, You simply select the app you want to download, and then you will be asked for your login and password.

If the app is free, you will start the download, if it is not, then your iTunes account will be charged automatically. A green install button will appear that allows you to install the application.

An email from Apple will be sent to your email to confirm the transaction. The process is very simple and fast. The app will end up on your screen and a new icon will appear.

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