App Store Selling $1M a Day: Jobs

The iPhone’s new App Store has exceeded the company’s wildest expectations, tallying up average sales of $1 million per day, Steve Jobs said today in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Apple’s on pace to make $360 million from the store this year. “This thing's going to crest a half a billion, soon,” says Jobs. “I've never seen anything like this in my career for software.”

But stratospheric sales and revenue numbers won’t translate into much profit, since Apple takes just enough money from sales to cover costs—but Jobs thinks the store helps sell the iPhone in the same way iTunes boosted the iPod. Jobs also confirmed rumors that the phone has a controversial means of disabling undesirable programs, saying, "Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull." (More iPhone apps stories.)