Prediction: iTunes Will Obliterate Mozilla's Download Record on Friday [Update: Busted]

Well, Mozilla made a big deal out of serving up over 8 million downloads of Firefox 3 in a 24 hour period on June 17, 2008: and a big deal it was. In fact, I was one of the 8 million who downloaded Firefox 3 on that day, and I had been running the betas prior to that day.

However, I can't help but to think that Apple will obliterate that record on July 11, 2008, when it releases iTunes 7.7 to coincide with the iPhone 3G launch and the release of iPhone and iPod Touch firmware version 2.0.

According to Appleinsider, as of June, 2007, "Apple Inc.'s iTunes digital jukebox software is downloaded 1 million times per day and has an active user base of 500 million users." Read the full story here.

So, if my math is right, if a mere 1.7% of the active user base install the upgrade within the first 24 hours of availability, Apple will have served up at least 8,500,000 downloads.

Of course, iTunes' installed user base is likely to have grown to well over 500 million users in the year that has elapsed since the developers conference in June, 2007. That said, I predict that Apple will crush Mozilla's hard earned record - without even trying.

UPDATE: As Clevin pointed out at the MacRumors Forums, Asa Dotzler, of the Mozilla Corporation, clarified the terms of the record:

The record attempt was clearly defined by Mozilla and Guinness beforehand and intentionally made to not cover automatic software updates. Mozilla could easily serve out many times more automatic updates in a 24 hour period, but that's not something that gets our community and our users engaged and excited so that's not what this was about. This was about millions of people, from all over the world, coming together and taking a very specific collective action.

Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more.  Asa also pointed out that if automatic updates were to count, then patch-Tuesday from Microsoft would far outpace this effort.

Thanks, Clevin, for pointing this out. Truthfully, I looked around a bit for the standards for the record set by Guiness, but I was not able to find anything in the short period I looked.

UPDATE 2: Looks like iTunes 7.7 was released sometime between last night (7/9/08) and this morning (7/10/08), instead of tomorrow (7/11/08). I'll just keep my silly predictions to myself...

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