Appy Birthday, App Store

July 11th marked the one-year anniversary for the opening of Apple’s App Store, the software distribution platform for iPhone and iPod Touch.

To (belatedly) celebrate, we’ve put togetherthreefeatures looking at how Mac firm has changed software development and risen to power in the games industry.

To begin with, we offer a comprehensive history of the platform, plus facts and figures about its growth to an App Store that includes 60,000+ apps and has seen over a billion downloads.

Our second feature touches on the ups and downs of the App Store – including Apple’s decision to introduce the SDK after battles with jailbreakers, plus concerns over the approval policy – in a piece collating key quotes from developers, industry execs and spectators.

And lastly we talk to someone else celebrating their first birthday – iPhone-dedicated publisher Ngmoco. We talk to the company’s vice president, artist & repertoire Alan Yu about its philosophy, how iPhone changed games development, and also why an open distribution platform still needs publishers.

And if that’s not enough, you can click here to see all our articles related to iPhone.