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Apple announced today that over 2 billion apps had been downloaded – quite an amazing feat in little over one year.  Since I started using an iPhone, I realize that my favorite part is the App Store.  The touch screen and slim profile are nice, but it’s really the store that makes me love the device.  Perhaps I’m unique.  As a kid, I used to love getting the Sunday newspaper, especially on a snowy day, when the newspaper was cold and crisp.  After perusing the sports section and the comics, I loved leafing through the CompUSA and Circuit City flyers, especially the clearance and sales sections.  I could never buy enough cheap peripherals or hard drives.

The app store has taken over my previous excitement that I felt about the flyers.  Now I download Waze or buy Snapture rather than a trackball mouse or screen cleanser.  Instead of waiting for Sunday, I can just load up the store on a whim and see if there are any cool apps.  I wish there was more turnover in top apps, but the fact is that it’s far and away better than Blackberry’s App World (and I hear also Android’s and Palm’s, though I have limited first-hand experience).  It has the instant gratification element.  I wish that the iPhone allowed developers more flexibility, but as long as people keep releasing great apps, I will be interested.  And that’s the key – the moment another platform’s app store gets more traction, and their apps become more innovative than the iPhone’s apps in terms of quality and quantity, I will most likely switch over.

UPDATE: As I was loading up my blog to post this, I saw a very relevant argument that Blackberry needs to step up their efforts in the app store.  Worth a read…

I gave a guest lecture 1.5 years ago to some juniors/seniors at MIT about career management.  It’s something I’ve spent some time on, so I thought I would attach the presentation below.  None of the information is ground-breaking, but I found it useful just to have it in one place, and it did help me land my current VC  job at Opus Capital.  I’m an especially big believer in the learning curve:

Essentially, after 9-18 months doing the same thing (whether it’s a specific job, function, etc.), our learning begins to taper off logarithmically.  That doesn’t mean we stop learning, it just means we slow down.  The lesson is that we should look for new challenges to keep ourselves learning in an exponential fashion.  Here’s the full preso, feel free to comment or send me your thoughts:

Career Management Rohit Gupta 04142008 Final

In the spirit of the playoff stretch, I thought I would briefly mention how awesome the MLB app on the iPhone is.  The MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM) group has done a great job over the past several years.  Since I’ve moved to the Bay area in 2005, I have been able to watch or listen to nearly any Red Sox game through my computer with MLB.tv (though I barely take advantage).   The limitation is you can’t watch in-market games (so if you are in the Bay area you can’t watch the Giants/Athletics) or nationally televised games.  But the quality is superb.  MLB was clearly ahead of the pack, but now Hulu has made the internet TV watching experience more mainstream.  This year, the service cost $79.95 for the season (you can sign up now for the remainder for $14.95).

What is extremely interesting is their iPhone app.  The app costs $9.99 (slightly steep, but worth it if you are a baseball fan), and has game tracking, video highlights, live audio, etc.  But if you are an MLB.tv subscriber, it lets you watch games live, on your phone.  And it works on the 3G network (which is huge), without much choppiness.  In fact, here’s an image of a Sox game via 3G:

Anyways, I thought I would mention it on my blog because I love showing it off.  It looks like they are running a promotion, so if you download the app, you can buy individual games for $.99 (without being an MLB.tv subscriber).  It’s definitely my favorite app on the iPhone, just wish I had time to use it more!