Instapaper creator, Marco Arment posted on his site that his own app crashed after installing, which led him to believe that there was another issue.

Twitter was the first place that many users went to complain and within hours, it became apparent that it wasn’t an issue with a specific app but with the App Store as a whole.

Arment’s post also mentioned that he believed that the corrupt update was being distributed across many regions and as a result, was affecting a number of apps and users. Some users also took to Twitter to complain that other apps such as Angry Birds Space were crashing as well. Marco Arment pinpointed some of the issues that the App Store was presenting with the corrupt downloads, and formed the following list:

• The app crashes immediately on launch, every time, even after a delete and reinstall as long as the corrupt file is being served by the App Store.
• It doesn’t even show the Default.png before crashing. Just a split-second of a partial fade to black, then back to Springboard.
• It may only affect customers in some regions.
• If updating from iTunes, some customers might get a dialog citing error 8324 or 8326.
• Mac apps might show this dialog:
• “[App] is damaged and can’t be opened. Delete [App] and download it again from the App Store.”
• The console might show:AppleFairplayTextCrypterSession::fairplayOpen() failed, error -42110

Hundreds of others apps were affected, including, but not all, MeetUp, Threadnote, RedShift, as well as a number of Mac Apps. Apple has not yet commented on what caused the issue, or issued a fix for the corrupted app downloads.

Apple was quick to respond to users complaint on its support forums and after identifying the issue fixed the bug causing the crash. The company also deleted all reviews of the “current version” since the error was caused due to Apple’s server.

{via Marco.org}

Apple purchased San-Francisco start-up, Chomp, in February in order to utilize its App Search service for their own App Store. However, Chomp retained its app search service for Android users, until late last week. Apple likely decided to pull support for Android in order to minimize the usage of the website and focus it on iOS applications. Chomp also has the possibility of being integrated into iTunes, so that the service can access the data directly from the application, as opposed to users going to the Chomp website.

Apple has surpassed 25 billion app downloads from the App Store, making it one of the most successful applications stores out there. Chomp would allow Apple to organize all of its applications, and let users find them more easily and efficiently. Searching for apps in the iTunes App Store can be quite the task, with limitations on sections of apps, and type of apps.

Chomp was purchased by Apple for $50 million, a substantial amount of money, when considering that Chomp would be integrated into Apple’s ecosystem and would become one of the many features in its operations.

As of right now, Apple has not released any plans as to what they intend to do with Chomp, but the Cupertino company has made it clear that they are no longer supporting Android.

{Image Credit – TUAW}

On Thursday of last week Rovio released its most recent installment in it’s mega hit game, Angry Birds. The game has been an instant hit, netting 10 million downloads over by Monday of this week. Insane numbers, even by Angry Birds standards. Angry Birds Space takes the fun out of the atmosphere utilizing new physics.

Angry Birds Space was release for Apple iOS, Android devices, PC and Mac. Specific details on the number of downloads were not released. I found it interesting that there was not a free version on iOS when released, iOS being one of Angry Birds’ most prominent platforms for the game.

Peter Farago, vice president of marketing at the mobile analytics firm Flurry said “The closest success story I can think of is OMGPOP’s Draw Something, which racked up 20 million total downloads in five weeks.” So 5 weeks compared to 4 days is the closest comparison. Whether you like the game or not you have to admit that is pretty amazing.

Overall, this installment of Angry Birds changes things by altering a world class physics machine. There is something to be said for the depth of Angry Birds. I admit, its a simple pick up and play game but how many clones have you seen that haven’t gotten it right? Certainly didn’t do 10 million downloads over a weekend. I’ll continue to play my Angry Birds and agree to disagree with the haters. Download it and try it out, $0.99 isn’t bad and 10 million downloads can’t be wrong.

Apple’s App Store was released to the public in 2008, and started off with only a handful of apps. The App Store has since grown to become one of the largest online services in the world, suppling millions of iOS users with fun and intuitive applications. On Friday, Apple’s App Store finally hit the 25 billion downloads mark, making it the highest number of apps ever downloaded.

The winner of the promotion, who has not yet been announced, will be awarded a $10,000 gift card valid for App Store, Mac App Store, or any other iTunes Store content. Apple has conducted similar promotions in the past, for the App Store and iTunes Store and offered a range of products from iPod touch to Macbook Pro. The prize for 25 billion downloads is a $10,000 giftcard for online purchases with no hardware.

Apple has approved a total of nearly three quarters of a million apps for the App Store, with over 550,000 of them currently available in the store.

After its introduction in 2008, it took roughly two and a half years to reach 10 Billion downloads, and another six months to 15 billion downloads. With the latest 25 billion milestone, the iTunes Store acheived over 10 billion of the 25 billion mark in only 8 months, the fastest downloading period ever for the App Store.

The winner of Apple’s App Store promotion is expected to announced in the coming week once the company has verified the results and contacted the winner.

{via Mac Rumors}

Apple has posted a new page on their website, counting down to a total of 25 billion App Store downloads since its introduction in 2008 with iOS 2. The user who downloads the 25 billionth app or who submits an entry form during that time will win a $10,000 Apple Gift Card which can be applied to any of Apple’s online media, including the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store.

As of today, nearly 25 billion apps have been downloaded worldwide. Which is almost as amazing as the apps themselves. So we want to say thanks. Download the 25 billionth app, and you could win a US$10,000 App Store Gift Card. Just visit the App Store and download your best app yet.

The winner must download the app after the 24,999,999,999th app download or submit the form, whichever comes first and will later be announced on the web page if they are the winner. Apple has done such promotions in the past, including ten billion App Store downloads taking place just over a year ago and another one for ten billion iTunes Music Store downloads, as well as one billion song and app marks and at the 100 million song milestone.

Apple changed the prize to a $10,000 gift card last year after giving away big time prizes including Macbook Pros, iPhones, and iPod Touches in the past. Apple’s countdowns have gained much attention over the past few years and have become a part of Apple’s massive success with their online stores and online sales. The 25 Billion App countdown is expected to end early tomorrow, with App downloads about 500,000 away from 25 Billion.

The holiday season sends iOS Developers scrambling each year in order to finish up their apps for submission before Apple stops accepting new submissions for the year. However, over the last three years, its become obvious that during this time, app developers experience much higher sales. This could be due to one of two things, either people are downloading more of the old apps because there is less to choose from during this time or because of Apple’s App Gifting service, accessible directly through the App Store.

During this time, popular game devlopers such as Gameloft and EA push out as many apps as they can to flood the market, in order to increase the number of downloads. EA and Gameloft apps often show up under the featured list, claiming #1 and #2 spots, and even App of the Week on many occasions.

Camera+[App Store] developer’s TapTapTap revealed their download numbers with MacRumors early Thursday, describing a significant increase in sales. Camera+ moved up and down the list between 4-8 and settled at position #8 in the Top 200 list during the holiday freeze. Camera+ typically experiences about 18,000 downloads on any given day, but jumped to over 73,808 sales on Christmas day.

Camera+ sells for $0.99 in the App Store, which means that after Apple’s 30% cut, TapTapTap received $51,665 in revenue only for the day of Christmas. That’s a significant increase, but not surprising considering the number of iPod Touches, iPhones, and iTunes gift cards being activated and given as presents on Christmas. The App Store is the basis for numerous success stories, about small developers making a hit with their apps and becoming millionaires overnight, some making anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 dollars in one day.

From their discussions with top grossing iPad developers, and some obsessive watching of the App Store placings of the three apps that make up the iWork suite (Pages, Numbers and Keynote). Business Insider has managed to work out some rough daily sales figures, and extrapolate from there.

The figures make interesting reading for those interested in where they should be aiming for stellar sales, regardless of your interest in Apple’s fortunes.

Basically a top ten app for the iPad, in the iTunes App Store should get about 7,500 downloads on each day of the weekend. And 2,500 downloads each week day. Or thereabouts. Those figures in themselves are interesting. It seems that online sales of apps follow the ingrained habit we have for hitting the Mall, virtual or otherwise, on days off.

In total, for the whole week, that makes around 27,500 downloads.

Even with one app, at $1.99 that would be a healthy sum. But for Apple that’s for three apps, each priced at a premium of $10. Which subsequently makes $825,000 per week in revenue for them.

Business Insider have made a few assumptions about all apps in the top ten selling at the same volume, but at that level of sales what’s a thousand here or there anyway, right?

Spread that out over a year, and not even allowing for a potential explosion of iPad sales globally, that puts Apple on track for over $40 Million in sales for iWork on the iPad alone.

Do you think Apple will make more or less from iWork this year? Do spreadsheets still sound boring to you? Let us know in the comments.