With 250,000 iPhone apps, can you find the one you want?

Apple‘s App Store now has more than 250,000 apps, just two years and a couple of months after it opened. The 148Apps.biz web site now counts 252,227 active apps for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

That’s an extraordinary achievement. It means that for every day the App Store has been open, developers have uploaded 323.7 apps, on average. There are another 49,696 inactive apps, which are no longer available for download. So it actually means that 301,923 apps have been uploaded by more than 50,545 active publishers. This month, 2,347 games have been submitted and 15,077 non-game apps have been submitted. Books are 17 percent of the apps; games are 14 percent, and entertainment is 11 percent. About 70 percent of them are paid apps.

It shows that Apple has created a vibrant ecosystem. The App Store economy is going strong, but the abundance of apps highlights the problem of discovery. How can you find what you want in the App Store? You can look at the top 100 lists by categories. You can look for familiar brands among the apps. You can also click on the ads that recommend an app. Or you can ask your friends for recommendations. But other than that, finding a new app you like can be a pretty time-consuming endurance test. The problem is only getting worse as more app stores come online, from Google’s Android Market to Intel’s AppUp Center.

That’s why we’re doing our DiscoveryBeat 2010 conference on Oct. 18 in San Francisco at the Mission Bay conference center. We hope you can check it out and learn about the tricks and tips related to getting your content noticed.