IOS application developers are scrambling to meet a Thursday deadline to submit apps and have them available in the App Store on Christmas morning when all those the iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches will be unwrapped. The New  York Times quotes Marc Edwards, lead designer at  Australian app maker Bjango, as saying:

There’s a mad scramble for developers. In terms of money, it can be a really big deal.

Since Apple tightly controls the available apps, each year it sets a cutoff for apps to go through its review process before Christmas.  That doesn't apply to apps written for Android and other operating systems that are sold at multiple third-party outlets. Mobile-analytics firm Flurry estimated that 240 million apps were downloaded to Apple devices between Dec. 23-26 last year. That was 20 percent of the total for the month. This post at Tapscape runs through Apple's picks for the year's best applications and games. And here's another nifty stat from Flurry: The average smartphone user has 65 apps installed. With more than 500,000 apps available for iPhone and more than 300,000 for Android devices, it's a wonder that new apps can gain the attention of prospective buyers. But Sarah Perez at TechCrunch points to another problem: being able to effectively search through the apps you already have. Though entire businesses have sprung up to solve that problem, she says, storage limits and lack of effective search means some users won't be looking for new apps.