One of the more interesting statistics from this morning's keynote speech was that Apple has already paid one billion dollars to application developers. With upwards of 100 million iOS devices in the wild, there's no doubt that the AppStore has been a resounding success; the $1bn earned by developers is but further proof. The concept of an application store was an Apple invention and everyone now is trying to copy the idea. The problem is that Apple and the AppStore have a tremendous start and it is going to be really difficult for third parties to beat them at their own game.