Apple App Store nears 1 billion downloads

An online counter indicates how quickly the popular Apple App store is ticking towards 1 billion total application downloads through, with the company expecting to reach the impressive milestone within 10 days.

At the time this article was published on CDFreaks, Apple has sold around 942 million products — the app store first launched last July, and instantly became a hit among consumers.

The person who downloads the billionth app will win an impressive gift package courtesy of Apple:  "Join the celebration.  Download any app and you automatically get the chance to win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card, an iPod Touch, a Time Capsule, and a MacBook Pro," the company recently said.

On average, according to the numbers, there are around 8.6 million apps being downloaded per day, which makes Apple’s online store clearly the most dominant store available to consumers.

Research group comScore previously reported Tap Tap Revenge was the top app sold through the store, but Apple said its top paid app so far has been the Vivendi Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D video game available for $5.99.  The top free app supported, not surprisingly, is Facebook, with Google Earth and Pandora rounding out the top three.

The success of the Apple app store has forced companies such as Research in Motion (RIM) to create its own app store for BlackBerry smartphone users.  Despite the popularity of the BlackBerry product line, the availability of apps through Apple has led to more developers flocking to the rival company.