Apple has just noted the 25th billionth app download – that’s quite a feat. In celebration of this download, Apple has released a list of the top downloaded apps of all time. Whether or not you’re an Apple fan, you have to respect that fact that so many apps have been downloaded from the App Store, right? In addition to Apple, there’s another company that also deserves your respect: Rovio. That’s right, the makers of the popular Angry Birds game have been put in the limelight – Angry Birds tops both the unpaid and paid app list. To put it all into perspective, here are the top five (free and paid) downloaded Apple iPhone apps of all time.

Top Five Paid Apple Apps

1.\tAngry Birds
2.\tFruit Ninja
3.\tWhatsApp Messenger
4.\tCut The Rope
5.\tAngry Birds Seasons

As you can see, two of Rovio’s games made this list. Sandwiched between the Angry Birds games are Fruit Ninja (a game where players hack away at juicy fruits); WhatsApp Messenger (a messenger app that allows cross-platform messaging for free); and Cut the Rope (an interesting game that involves cutting candy from a rope to feed a monster). Also of note is the fact that almost all of these popular apps are mobile games.

Top Free Apps

1.\tFacebook
2.\tSkype
3.\tWeather Network
4.\tShazam
5.\tGoogle Earth

Ninth on this list was another Angry Birds game, but the really interesting thing here is that none of these apps are mobile games. In fact, the top free apps that have been downloaded from the App Store are all practical apps that have to do with networking, weather forecasts, maps, and music. Of course, this list would look (slightly) different if you live in a country outside of the US (for example, the WhatsApp app is number one in various other countries). In fact, if you head to the Apple App Store right now in order to view the list, you’ll be redirected to another list if you live in a different country – let me know what’s unique about your list if you try this experiment!

Deductively, people are willing to pay for games but not so willing to pay for practical apps. It’s hard not to wonder what would happen to a site like, for example, Facebook were the company to start pricing the popular app. Would consumers pay for a Facebook app? Right now, it seems highly unlikely!

If you’re wondering where Netflix is in all of this, you might be surprised to learn that the streaming company is number ten on the list. I’ll also point out that almost all of the Top 20 paid apps are mobile games (a few non-games snuck in there, but that number is around 1). If you’re a marketer and you’re wondering what people spend their time doing, this list should give you a pretty good idea.

The mobile gaming market is huge, and the next Rovio out there will do very well, indeed. Will we see gold standard gaming companies like Nintendo and PlayStation amp up the mobile game offerings? There’s no doubt that many gaming companies are taking a good and hard look at the latest Apple stats today. Those companies that don’t have a mobile division might do well to consider starting one. It certainly looks like consumers can’t get enough games!