Apple hits 10 billion app downloads, winner nearly blows $10 000 prize

On Saturday, Apple hit the landmark that everyone had been anticipating, registering the 10 billionth download from the App Store, which offers more than 300 000 free and paid apps, for gadgets such as Apple’s popular iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

“Thank you. Ten billion times. The App Store has reached 10 billion downloads. Thanks for getting us there,” Apple said in a message on its website.

In typical Apple-style, the company announced that the person who makes the 10 billionth download would be the winner of a US$10 000 gift card. But when an Apple rep phoned Gail Davis, whose daughter had just downloaded the “Paper Glider” app, she mistook them for telemarketers and hung up the phone angrily.

Chaos ensued. Gizmodo reports that frantic phone calls to Apple went unanswered, until finally, “Eddy Cue, the VP of iTunes, somehow learned of all this and called the Davis household himself to sort everything out”. From this day forward, it seems unlikely that the family will never have to buy music again.

Apple reported a record quarterly net profit of US$6 billion on Tuesday, a day after the company’s iconic chief executive, Steve Jobs, announced he is going on medical leave.