It's hard to keep away from Apple these days, as the iPhone continues to hog headlines for all sorts of reasons. But looking at facts and figures, it would seem that whilst the iPhone 4 antenna has been the focus of many over the last few weeks, it hasn't had much of an impact on the overall success of device, in terms of sales.
Overall sales of the iPhone, in all its variations, came to 8.4 million, an amazing 61% increase in year on year numbers. The iPhone 4 accounted for over 3 million of these, and most manufacturers can only dream of producing a handset that sells in such high numbers in such a short space of time. Without doubt the negative views in recent days will have had an impact on recent sales figures, and we can only wonder at how many more sales there would have been had the whole AntennaGate issue not erupted.
Another big success for Apple in recent months has been the iPad, and central to both the iPhone and iPad is the App Store. To be honest, without Apps the iPhone is a pretty average device, yet the amazing array of applications that can easily be downloaded and installed on the iPhone really bring the phone into its own. So Apple must have been pleased to read of a recent report that suggests application downloads are set to rocket from less than 2.6 billion in 2009 to more than 25 billion in 2015.
The report does warn operators and manufacturers that just setting up an application market is not a sure indicator of success, just as important is sufficient scale to entice developers to create applications for their platform. The vast array of varying platform types will also count negatively towards growth. The more established platforms, such as Google Android and the Apple iPhone, however, are set to see a significant rise in app sales.
Good news all round for Apple, then.