Sort of a good day, bad day situation for Apple this morning. The good news: Apple has announced that the Apple App Store has sold 15 billion apps to over 200 million customers. That's a whole lot of "Angry Birds," and in turn, a whole lot of iOS devices floating around the market. The bad news, for Apple, is that a judge has sided against Jobs and company in regards to their protests against Amazon's use of the name "Appstore."
Back in March, Apple filed a lawsuit against online retailer Amazon, stating that the similarities in names between Apple's own App Store and Amazon's Appstore could "confuse and mislead customers." The case has sort of dragged on in the background since then, but the judge has now issued his ruling, dismissing Apple's claim.
"There is also evidence that the term 'app store' is used by other companies as a descriptive term for a place to obtain software applications for mobile devices," the judge ruled (via CNET). "Apple has not established that its 'App Store' mark is famous, in the sense of being 'prominent' and 'renowned'."
Ouch, on that last bit. 15 billion apps and Apple's App Store is still some unknown, small-town mom and pop, apparently. Honestly, Apple's claims were a bit ludicrous; the idea that no other company has referred to their applications as "apps" is a bit ludicrous, let alone the fact that Amazon only sells Android apps. I mean, the Amazon Appstore is only one word -- clearly different (I'm kidding).
As far as those 15 billion apps, there's no telling how many of them are games, but I have to imagine it's a significant amount. With each milestone, it's becoming harder and harder to deny that iOS is a strong contender in the gaming market.