iPhone expected to have 300,000 apps this time next year

Frank Gens of analyst IDC has put out a prediction looking at the rate of growth on the App Store, which points toward an immense 300,000 games and applications for the iPhone by this time next year.

"2010 will be a watershed year in the ascension of mobile devices as strategic platforms for commercial and enterprise developers," Gens explains. "[The] last time we had such a platform shift was when the PC itself first arrived - and those players that didn't respond to the new platform soon went extinct."

The report also looks at the way in which people will be accessing the internet, with an expected 1 billion mobile, smartphone and handheld users connecting not through computersbut through portable devices.

Android will be the "most potent" competitor, with an estimated 75,000 applications around the time Apple clocks up a third of a billion.