Let’s put things into perspective. If you sat down and counted from 1 to 1 billion, you would take about 95 years to complete. And if you were to find a fishbowl big enough to fit 1 billion goldfishes, you would need a stadium to fit them all. Now double that.

Apple announced last Monday that the app store has surpassed 2 billion downloads from 50 million iPhone and iPod Touch users worldwide. That’s an average of 40 apps per device and according to Steve Jobs, half a billion was downloaded in this quarter alone. The calculators here in iHeartApple don’t have enough room to display enough zeros, so while we buy new ones, AppleInsider has kindly done all the maths for us. In the last 80 days alone, 6.3 million apps were downloaded per day, up from 4.1 million per day in the first 365 days of the app store launch.

That’s a staggering amount considering Singapore’s population barely tipped 4.99 million, as of June 2009.

What does this all mean for us? Well, I think a mobile device is only as useful as what it can do for you. With 85,000 apps to choose from, your iPhone and iPod Touch will give you far better mileage than other mobile devices currently in the market, all packed in a sleek and intuitive user interface Apple is famous for.

This 2 billion downloads is only the beginning. With numbers like this, Apple’s app store is by far the best solution for developers who are looking for a robust distribution infrastructure and this only means we will soon see more and more apps come through as software makers choose this app store over others.

So if you already own an iPhone or iPod Touch, I think we’re on the right boat with this one. If not, you can pick up a new iPod Touch from Apple SG Store and an iPhone from SingTel.

Just a filler before we get back to hopefully more-regular postings…

This was self-written and recorded live in the NYC Apple Store by Ray William Johnson of Fatty Spins. Not the first and definitely not the last to record stuff in those funky Apple Stores in the US. Have a look at the raw footage if you thought it was green-screened.

Doubt you can try it here in town as most only provide restricted access to the Macs on display in Apple resellers.

Apple has quietly reduced the price of “Apple TV”: down to S$369 for the 160GB version. At the same time, they removed the 40GB version from the inventory. You can get your hand on one of the 160GB at the Apple Online Store.

To get more from your Apple TV, you can look at some hacks or you can just get your hand on the aTV Flash to increase the functionalities of your Apple TV.

One of the most important but least featured improvement of the iPhone 3.1 software are the advancements done to improve accessibility on the iPhone 3.1 OS. These new improvements allow visually impaired or even the fully blind can use the iPhone 3GS.

Some of these includes the addition of VoiceOver, world’s first gesture-based screen reader, Zooming of the screen – up to 5 times, white on black to increase screen contrast, Speaking Auto-text that will speak out the suggestions when you type and a few others which you can read more here. Some other enhancements are listed here at the Mac-cessibility Network

You can also view a video demonstration on the same page of all these new improvements.

It's only rock and roll, but we like it.

9 September – 090909 – nice date for Apple’s next music related event with a keynote address being held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. To start at 10 a.m. Pacific Time, which means 1am Singapore Time at the wee hours of Thursday morning.

updated Here are some places you can go to follow the event live on the web:

• Ars Technica
• iLounge
• Macworld Live Coverage
• Gizmodo Liveblog
• Engadget

Whichever new product Apple announce, if you want to be the first to get your hands on them – pop over to the Apple Singapore Online Store – if you order it via the Online Store, you are sure to get it – even before the retail shops in town!

Will it be new iPod touch, iPods, new iTunes version – wait – 9.0, or maybe the appearance of the Yellow Submarine – aka The Beatles discography finally hitting the iTunes Music Store…we will know tomorrow.

Yahoo released the official Flickr iPhone app (iTunes link) and baring some crashes and my one and only video not playing, the app is a well designed app that matches the website many of us use.

You can basically do most of what other Flickr-related iPhone apps that are already out in the market but the well designed interface makes it a pretty pleasant experience. Try it out – it is at a low price of $0.

Main page shows Ken-Burns style zoom and pan of your contacts' photos

Thumbnails of my photos