Newsbrief: The release of new Apple hardware tends to cause a spike in app downloads, and October 2014 continued the trend. With the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus released in late September, downloads were up 42 percent over September, and 39 percent year-over-year in the U.S., analyst firm Fiksu says. The company tracks the downloads of the 200 most popular free apps to generate its data, and that includes more than games. But games are a large segment of iOS downloads, and it’s a notable leap over last year, which also saw new hardware introduced at roughly the same time: The iPhone 5S and 5C were sent to market in September 2013. App downloads reached 7.8 million per day in the U.S. according to Fiksu’s metrics. You can see that growth charted below. For more info on the iOS market in October, read Fiksu’s blog post. 