It's a stretch to suggest that Barack Obama's iPhone application was a major factor in getting him elected, even with half a million downloads. The Obama '08 app organized iPhone contacts by the battleground states in which they lived so backers could target calls. Supporters also could find local offices and events.
But Tim Westergren, founder of the Pandora Internet radio service, doesn't question the impact of the iTunes App Store. With 15,000 new downloads a day, Pandora is the top free downloaded iPhone program at Apple's online store.
"It's hard to overstate how important the iPhone has been," Westergren said in an e-mail. "(We) nearly doubled our growth rate and, perhaps more important, changed the discussion around Internet radio. People are realizing it could really replace broadcast radio, in the car, home audio, on the go."
Westergren said users are listening an astounding 90 minutes a day, on average. The overall growth of the iTunes App Store has been phenomenal. More than 10,000 apps are available for the iPhone or the iPod Touch, up from about 800 when Apple opened its virtual doors in July. People have downloaded more than 300 million programs, from games to business.
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