iPhone SDK downloaded more than 100,000 times in 1 week
Apple has announced that the iPhone SDK has been downloaded more than 100,000 times by developers since its release last week. This is huge for Apple as they try to capture the majority market of the cell phone market. As of January they sold more than 4 million iPhones which places them 2nd in smart phone sales.
From Bloomberg.com
March 12 (Bloomberg) — Apple Inc., striving to lure buyers away from the BlackBerry e-mail device, said more than 100,000 software kits have been downloaded since last week by outside developers interested in writing programs for the iPhone.
Apple released the development kit March 6 and today set up a preview of an online store to promote programs for the iPhone, which combines an e-mail-equipped handset with the iPod media player. Electronic Arts Inc. is among those already at work on applications, Apple said today in a statement.
Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, who plans to sell 10 million iPhones this year, opened the handset to developers to help broaden the device’s appeal with features such as games and business applications. Apple is embellishing the phone to compete with Research In Motion Ltd., whose BlackBerry dominates the U.S. market for e-mail handsets, with a 41 percent share.
“It’s an impressive number of folks who are interested in developing for the iPhone — I think 100,000 is huge,” said Rob Enderle, president of the San Jose, California-based research firm Enderle Group. “The iPhone is very popular and you would figure that it would pull a large number of people who want to make money writing programs for it.”
Last week, venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers announced plans to start a $100 million fund to back companies that develop iPhone applications.
Jobs, who began selling the device in June in the U.S., had sold 4 million iPhones as of Jan. 15. That gave Apple second place in the U.S. market for so-called smart phones, according to Reading, England-based researcher Canalys.
Asian Expansion
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, began selling the iPhone in the U.K., France and Germany in November, and plans to offer the device in new markets in Europe and Asia this year.
Apple, also maker of the Macintosh computer, fell $1.32 to $126.03 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have declined 36 percent this year.
Read more at Bloomberg.com