According to Macworld, this week marked the first anniversary of Apple’s online App Store for iPhone and iPod touch apps. The App Store opened for business on July 10, 2008 with 552 applications. Today here are 58,000 apps available for download, indicative of the rapidly increasing pace of app development. In terms of downloads, the store surpassed the 1 billion mark in April. Other smartphone retailers are trying to follow Apple’s lead and have opened mobile application stores, including Google, Palm and Nokia, but they have a long way to go to catch up to Apple.

If you’d like a portable email device but don’t want to buy a BlackBerry or iPhone, the Peek Pronto may be the gadget for you. It’s a portable email device with a full QWERTY keyboard. There is no Internet or phone capability, but the price is only $80, with contract-free service costing $20 per month. The Peek Pronto supports unlimited text messages for the same service fee. Amol Sarva, the CEO of Peek, says the first version of the device sold better than expected, leading to this second version. The target customer is an older or less tech savvy person who isn’t quite ready for a smartphone.