Apple's App Store Set To Hit 25 Billion Downloads; Will You Get Lucky?

Ever since the dawn of smartphones and Tablets, we have witnessed the 'rise of the applications'. And when we say apps, they include everything from books, music and audio, health and fitness, entertainment, utilities, medical, social, shopping and many more. Even regular e-commerce players (like Amazon. Flipkart etc) and content media companies (like Times of India, Hindustan times etc) have realised that it is not enough to simply have a mobile site; hence they have all either come out or are in the process of coming out with their own personalised apps for smartphones and Tablets.

In the wake of all this, Apple has announced that their App store is set to hit the 25 billion downloads mark. The company had first launched its App store back in July, 2008 and it took them little over three and a half years to reach this mark, an impressive feat in itself. To mark the occasion, Apple has put a countdown on its website that is showing the current rate of app downloads from the store. A message on the site reads, "As of today, nearly 25 billion apps have been downloaded worldwide. Which is almost as amazing as the apps themselves. So we want to say thanks."

Also, to celebrate reaching the milestone, Apple is giving away a '$10,000 App Store Gift Card' to the lucky user who downloads the 25 billionth app. Users don't have to necessarily download or purchase an app to become a winner, they can also do so by filling an alternate entry form here, but the limit is 25 entries per day.

So try your luck, and who knows maybe one of you will get lucky. Last we checked, the counter had already reached 24,957,052,741, but considering the lightning pace at which it is progressing, don't be surprised if by the time you finish reading this article, the counter has well crossed that number. Apple had run a similar promotional campaign when they were about to reach the 10 billion download mark early last year. At the time, the company was offering a $10,000 iTunes gift card to the lucky winner.

The other big player in the apps sector is Google that had first announced the Android Market back in August, 2008, and then made it available to users in the same year in October.

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