Mousetrap weblog: The super-capacity virtual iPod

More than 60 million software programs have been downloaded from Apple's online store - iTunes - in the month since the iPhone was launched, earning the company about $30 million.

At that rate, Apple could expect a new revenue stream of about $360 million per year from related software, as owners of its iPhone and iPod Touch discover that they can enhance their devices by downloading programs from the web.

"This thing is going to crest half a billion soon," Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal."Who knows, maybe it will be a $1 billion marketplace at some point in time."

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Mr Jobs said that mobile handsets were moving from an era when they were distinguished by hardware features such as radios and antennas to where they were set apart by the programs they could run. "The phone of the future will be differentiated by software," he said.

Apple is unlikely to profit from sales of its software from iTunes, however. The company keeps only 30 per cent of revenues from its App Store, which are understood to cover expenses such as credit card transactions, as well as other running costs.

Third-party software developers - who write the programs and then upload them to the store - kept about $21 million from the first month's sales, Mr Jobs said. Of that, $9 million was shared by the ten highest earning developers.

Among the more successful developers in the App Store's first month has been Sega, which in the 20 days after launch sold 300,000 copies of Super Monkeyball, a game that costs $9.99 and requires players to guide a ball around an obstacle course by tilting their phones.

"That's a substantial business," said Simon Jeffery, president of Sega's US division, was quoted as saying. "It gives the iPhone a justifiable claim to being a viable gaming platform."

Other indicators suggest that while downloads of apps, the majority of which are free, have been popular, it remains to be seen whether such apps will be widely used by iPhone owners.

According to Pinch Media, a New York-based company which measures the use of some iPhone apps, downloads are already slowing after the initial rush, and fewer than 20 per cent of those who download apps use them every day.

Those who do use their apps do so for less than five minutes per day, an executive from Pinch was quoted as saying.

Apple has also had to contend with "rogue" applications that have raised the ire of some iPhone owners. On Friday, the company was forced to take down an app called I Am Rich, which cost $999 and did nothing other than display a glowing red gemstone on the device's screen.

Two sales have since been reversed - the program's German creator, who regarded the app as an artwork, said he did not mind that the money was returned - and Apple has said it has the capability of erasing every copy of an app that has been downloaded to its devices.

"Hope we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull," Mr Jobs said.

Today it also emerged that Apple was forced to take down a controversial knifing app called Thrasher, which when downloaded displayed a blade on iPhone's screen and played music from the Hitchcock thriller Psycho when the owner made a stabbing gesture.

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