According to research from 24/7 Wall St., Apple rakes in anywhere between $60 and $110 million a quarter from App Store sales, of which between 13% and 21% of the over three billion downloads are paid apps. That said, Apple is certainly losing out on some money due to the over 100,000 apps available through other stores that commonly pirate legit applications. In fact, almost 40% of the content on these stores is pirated.

Ever since its release, the App Store has brought both good and bad PR to Apple and the iPhone. However, as a much anticipated update to the iPhone software, one would expect a lot of complaints if it wasn’t perfect the first go around. And it wasn’t. Despite that, Apple has managed to pull some magic and turn the App Store into the great piece of software that we know it as today. It can still be argued, though, that this store has both helped and hurt Apple in a few different ways. This article will discuss those up and downs.

After the break, we will discuss those up and downs.