25 Billion App Countdown

The following charts have been created with data scrapped from Apple's countdown page.

Note: Times listed in the source data and charts are given as UTC-0700 (or PST+0100, EST-0200), convert to your local time as appropriate.
Updates are delayed by as much as three hours by Apple.
Each chart also links to a larger, detailed version.

Please send any questions, comments, and banter to arno AT alum DOT wpi DOT edu

This countdown is also being tracked at countdown.webshoptogo.com and test.roniknows.com/apple/ with independent estimates.

source data

The source data is generated by running the following in a directory containing any data records.

$ cat countdown-*.inc | sort -u | sed "s/ /_/;s/|/ /g" > countdown.dat

countdown.gplot

$ gnuplot countdown.gplot

countdown-prep.gplot

Pre-calculate a few variables necessary for calculating the trend line. The variables (m and b as part of f(x)=m*x+b) are calculated based on the first and last available records. It is necessary to run this before countdown2.gplot in order to achieve (semi-)accurate trend predictions.

$ gnuplot countdown-prep.gplot 2> countdown-prep.txt

countdown2.gplot

The green trend line is estimated using the available datapoints and then tuned using the gnuplot fit command. It approximates, but does not accurately display, the time of the 25 billionth sale.

$ gnuplot countdown2.gplot