Speaking in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Apple CEO Steve Jobs revealed that the App Store saw more than 60 million downloads in its first month, with an average of $1 million in sales per day, for a monthly total of around $30 million. That puts Apple on pace for $360 million a year in new revenue from the App Store. “This thing’s going to crest a half a billion, soon,” Jobs said. “Who knows, maybe it will be a $1 billion marketplace at some point in time.” “I’ve never seen anything like this in my career for software,” he added. Jobs pointed out that Apple isn’t likely to make much of a direct profit off the store, but is instead hoping to use the App Store to sell more iPhones and iPod touch devices. “Phone differentiation used to be about radios and antennas and things like that,” he said. “We think, going forward, the phone of the future will be differentiated by software.” Finally, Jobs confirmed that Apple has the capability to remotely disable any software purchased from the App Store, but argued that Apple needs it in case it inadvertently allows a malicious program, such as one that stole users’ personal data, to be distributed to iPhones through the App Store. “Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull,” Jobs said.
Charles Starrett was a senior editor at iLounge. He's been covering the iPod, iPhone, and iPad since their inception. He has written numerous articles and reviews, and his work has been featured in multiple publications.