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Apple App Store reaches 25bn downloads

The App Store has hit 25 billion downloads, and handed out a $10,000 gift card for the lucky 25 billionth downloader.

Joe Svetlik Reporter
Joe has been writing about consumer tech for nearly seven years now, but his liking for all things shiny goes back to the Gameboy he received aged eight (and that he still plays on at family gatherings, much to the annoyance of his parents). His pride and joy is an Infocus projector, whose 80-inch picture elevates movie nights to a whole new level.
Joe Svetlik
2 min read

A whopping 25 billion apps have been downloaded from Apple's App Store, the company has announced.

Head to its homepage and you'll be greeted with a message of thanks, assuming you're one of those to have downloaded, that is. It's quite an achievement, especially considering the store only launched in 2008.

Just as it did for the 1 billionth and 10 billionth downloads, Apple handed out a $10,000 (£6,315) App Store voucher for the lucky person who downloaded the 25 billionth app. That'll buy you more apps than you could possibly fit on your iDevice.

Apple hasn't given out details of the lucky winner yet, but promises to reveal all if you check back on the page later. Hang on a little while longer and you'll be to see who the lucky so and so is.

Back in January last year, the App Store was nearing its 10 billionth download, so that's quite a rate of progress in just over a year. The App Store took nine months to reach its first billion downloads. Then in October 2010, Apple announced it had reached 7 billion.

With the iPad 3 set for launch next week, that number is only going to increase. It could be even better news if you're in the apps business too, as a smaller iPad is rumoured to be launching in the autumn, and it should be cheaper than other models to cut off competition from the Amazon Kindle Fire. Despite having a 7.85-inch screen, it should be the same resolution as the iPad 2, if the rumours are to be believed, so apps should work as they are, without having to be altered in any way. It looks like we should expect 50 billion downloads sometime soon.

Do you use the App Store? Or is Android Market better? What about Windows Marketplace? Let me know in the comments below, or on our Facebook page.