Apple’s App Store unofficially passes 500,000 approved apps

Apple’s App Store, the mobile marketplace for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, has unofficially passed the 500,000 approved apps mark, reaching the figure within three years from when the platform launched.

Early Tuesday morning, the App Store approvals team gave the green light to a fresh batch of apps and pushed them live on the market, taking the number of approved apps over the half million figure. However, given that apps launch and are then taken off the market or even banned, the number of apps available for download is thought to be closer to 400,000.

In honour of the milestone, three app-centric companies combined to announce the news, creating a very detailed infographic in the process. Mobile app blog 148apps, search company Chomp and game developer Chillingo combined to create a timeline of the App Store’s growth over the years, list the top apps available on the store and combined costs of apps currently available on the store.

Back in January we reported that Apple had passed the 10 billion apps downloaded figure. As downloads continue to boom and move towards the next 10 billion, the infographic suggests that the App Store will have facilitated $15 billion in app transactions by January 2012.

We have embedded the infographic below, you can read more about it on the 500kapps Facebook page located here.