Apple has done it again. Recently the company announced that it has become the number one distributor of flashlight and calculator applications through the App Store. Scott Forstall, Senior Vice President of iPhone software said that 20 million flashlight and calculator applications were downloaded in October, 2008. He termed this as a rare feat for the Company. He asserted:

We are glad that flashlight and calculator applications for the iPhone and iPod touch have done really good. Now I think we (Apple) know where we are heading and the future of the App Store has become so clear.

Of the 20 million downloads almost 55% were flashlight applications. The same source also revealed that among the flashlight applications, iPhone users have more preference for the paid ones. Apple earned estimated revenue of a quarter million from the 30% cut from flashlight applications alone.

Jim Sommers who works with Colarado Division of Wildlife (DOW) said that he use flashlight applications to scare away wild animals while taking the usual rounds at night. Jim has a bunch of flashlight applications on his iPhone. He said that flashlights are more powerful than most of the equipment supplied by his department as the device is new to the techno ignorant animals. Jim also added that animals after a point in time become familiar with the source and types of lights. He hopes that developers will deploy more flashlight apps so the stock will not run out for him.

LightPad, Flashlight, Rave Light and Pulsar are some of the applications that Jim said are really good. All these applications were on his iPhone.

What about the calculators? Many poll predictors for the 2008 US Presidential Election used iPhone calculator applications. For many pollster and election analysts some of the calculator apps turn out really handy. We heard that Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com whose polls prediction was the most accurate this year used one of the calculators to make out the figure.

Vice-President Elect, Joe Biden was holding an iPhone on the day the Election Results was declared. We got a confirmation from sources close to the Vice President elect that, he does have a bunch of flashlight and calculator apps on his iPhone. It is probable that all the candidates were aware of the importance of iPhone calculator for predicting and counting their voters.

Paid calculator apps priced $4.99 and higher did really well according to the announcement. Though the download is lesser here compared to flashlight applications, the revenue Apple earned from the 30% cut comes close to the figure for flashlights. This is obvious as users downloaded more of those calculators retailed higher than $4.99. Among the calculator apps, PCalc RPN Calculator, 12 C Classic Full RPN Calculator, Love Calculator, HiCalc Winner of Best Calculator topped the download list.

When Steve Jobs was contacted on this new achievement of Apple, he said:

I am happy that my dream to make App Store the largest flashlight and calculator applications repository has come true. We will see more of these applications to make sure that no company ever breaks our record.

Industry sources are speculating that Tony Fadell is leaving Apple to start a new iPhone app development team to bring out more innovative flashlight and calculator applications. That really is a personal and family reason for leaving Apple. Amazon.com on the other hand are also reportedly pushing publishers to release more books with the words, “flashlight” and “calculator.” Flashlights and calculators have finally become blockbusters.

(via iphonefootprint FAKE NEWS.)