Hold the freaking iPhone! Wasn’t it just yesterday that Apple announced that their app store had reached the 1 billion app download mark?  Today they issued a press release stating that they’ve already achieved 1.5 billion.  I guess the iPhone 3GS really escalated the handset to that next level of popularity or perhaps the free apps are just getting that much more popular.  At this rate they’ll be at 2 billion before the end of October and probably sooner considering their growth rate.  Can someone chart this please?

Currently, the app store offers over 65,000 apps in 77 countries and has 100,000 developers in the iPhone Developer program.  That’s means we should expect many more apps very soon, right?

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Apple, which is known for rejecting certain iPhone apps for no reason, has once again struck, but this time it ain’t no small time developer.  A few weeks ago Slingmedia announced their Slingplayer app for the iPhone.  Apparently they dotted all their ‘I’s and crossed all their ‘T’s, but Apple still shot down the app.  Why?  If I’m to gander a guess, it’s because it directly competes with their iTunes store and might also lend itself to further congestion on the already heavily taxed AT&T 3G network.  According to BGR, Sling doesn’t even know why, but expect this story to develop in the coming days.

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