Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) launched its App Store today at 9 a.m., which was a day earlier than expected but on par with rumors that surfaced yesterday. With the App store, Apple will hold a near monopolistic distribution point for content, which is a rarity, if not entirely unheard of in the wireless space. Anticipation is high for the new storefront, which can be accessed on the phone, over Wi-Fi or online through iTunes. Analysts have predicted the App Store could make as much as $1 billion in 2009 and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers have their iFund, which will invest $100 million in companies developing for the iPhone’s 2.0 software update. Apple came out of the gates today with more than 500 native applications available at the App Store.

Handango CEO Bill Stone told us yesterday: “There’s two huge benefits of the iPhone from a mobile content perspective.” Now with a new opportunity for third-party developers (with Apple’s approval, of course) to distribute directly to iPhone users, you can be sure plenty of entertainment companies – big and small – will get on board, he said. But beyond that is “customer awareness.” Time will tell how much revenue developers stand to bring in from sales on the new platform. Plenty of big media and entertainment companies are likely working on ad-supported models for the iPhone, yet Stone said it’s tough to see the sustainable business model in that approach based on sheer current scale of the platform (with only 10 million phones estimated to be sold this year).

Here’s a peek at a few applications that launched this morning:

-- MySpace held a call early this morning to announce its new iPhone application that will have instant upload capabilities and take advantage of the iPhone’s features set. The app, which is available now, will be supported in 21 countries by the end of July. The 1 meg-sized application is “very natural and intuitive,” John Faith, MySpace’s general manager and VP of mobile, said during the call. Real-time friend status and mood updates and use of the iPhone camera’s API to directly upload photos are some of the highlights, he said, adding that it “provides the most robust feature set that any MySpace mobile product has offered to date.” MySpace expects about 50 percent of its traffic to be mobile in a few years time.

-- Namco Networks is selling Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man for $10 each. Again using the iPhone’s features, Namco developed the game to allow players to control the game using the device’s accelerometer. The games also feature a virtual d-pad control.

-- Limbo developed a free application for the App Store that one PR pitch described as an application that “amplifies your social life.” Who wouldn’t want that? The social gaming site has two million members.

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