App Store Celebrates its 5th Birthday this week and YOU get the presents. If you’ve been holding off on buying that pricey app for your iPhone or iPad, today could be your lucky day.
As noted on The Verge website, many of the App Store’s most popular apps are free or highly discounted in what may be a gesture by Apple to celebrate the marketplace’s fifth birthday this week. There is no banner or other indication in the store (at least not yet) to celebrate the milestone.
In some cases, the discounts are steep. Games such as the popular “Infinity Blade II” ($6.99), “Tiny Wings HD” ($2.99) and “Badland” ($3.99) are among the apps currently available for free. The most notable price cut comes for “Traktor DJ,” a popular app for aspiring and professional DJs that is normally $19.99.
You can see a list of all of the apps that are currently marked down to free over at Among Tech. It’s unclear if these apps will be the first of more to temporarily be available for free in the App Store. Apple has not promoted anything in the marketplace to call attention to the anniversary and the app makers currently offering a free download have also been mum on the move.
Since its introduction back on July 10, 2008, one year after the debut of the first iPhone, the App Store has serviced 50 billion downloads, 900,000 apps and hosts 575 million store accounts. The marketplace’s much-lauded “ecosystem” of smartphone programs has spawned more than its fair share of multimillion-dollar companies that got their start exclusively on iOS, such as instagram and Snapchat. Apple has paid developers over 15 Billion on App purchases.
On a side note, Apple is still trying to stop Amazon from using the “App Store” name in its own competing software.
