Apple’s App Store has had a pretty good year—since its inception, the store has sold 1.5 billion applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch, making it the leading retailer of mobile applications, CNet reports. Not only has the App Store done well, its success seems to be increasing: the store moved 1 billion applications in its first 9 months, but then sold 500 million in the next 3 months.
“The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality,” said Steve Jobs in a statement. Some developers have griped that Apple seems capricious in what applications it accepts or rejects, and doesn’t adequately explain rejections. But given the App Store’s overwhelming popularity, those developers have little choice but to play along. (More digital downloads stories.)