The App store of Apple is certainly far ahead of its competitors like RIM and Palm. It is now significant enough to draw a reaction from the CEO himself. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said “The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality,” The company has also said that more than 1.5 billion apps have been downloaded thus far.

The best part is the app store drives the sale volumes of iPhone and the iPod as well as the profits of the developers. So it is a win-win situation for both. App developers are in a wild rat race to ensure that their app is in the top 100. Mr Vijay Chattha, head of VSC Consulting, a San Francisco marketing firm said “If it appears in the top 100, then everybody will see it,”. The app is sure to sell well if it features in the 25 most downloaded apps. This also gives an entry for the app to appear on the first page of the store and thus is open to a much larger audience.

App makers have been trying various marketing strategies to ensure that their app features in the top 100. One such trick is to reduce the price for a limited period. PopCap Games reduced the price of Bejeweled puzzle game from $4.99 to 99 cents to make it to No 2 in ranking. Others try to appear in a lesser popular category so that the chances of the app getting noticed are better. Some apps have tried to introduce popular brand names to ensure they appear in the search results.

So the ticket to big money is quality coupled with volumes. However by no means a poor quality app can survive.