60 Million Apps Sold at iTunes Store, There is a Kill Switch, Says Steve Jobs

It’s been a month since the iTunes App Store went live, and in an interview with the Wall St Journal, Steve Jobs has put the apps downloads figure at over 60 million. With the mix of free and paid apps, that brought Apple around US$30 million. That’s obviously encouraged Steve: He’s enthusiastic that maybe “it will be a US$1 billion marketplace at some point in time” adding that he’s “never seen anything like this in my career for software.”

And in a slightly unusual candid comment, for Steve anyway, he’s admitted that the apps won’t be making Apple much profit—instead future sales hopes are pinned on the applications tempting people to buy more iPhones and iPod touches. “Phone differentiation used to be about radios and antennas and things like that,” he argues, suggesting that now the differentiation is about software.

Clearly the app store has been a success so far for Apple and the developers: The top 10 made close to US$9 million in one month. What about the infamous “I Am Rich” app? Apple decided to pull it as the result of a “judgment call.”

Steve also confirmed the existence of the kill switch for malicious apps, despite last week’s news to the contrary. “Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull.” And you can’t argue with that logic. [WSJ]