Apple to give $10,000 gift card to user who downloads 50 billionth app

To say Apple is excited about reaching 50 billion downloads would be an understatement.

The Cupertino, Calif., tech giant has put up a countdown ticker online to track the 50 billionth app, and whoever the lucky person is to download that app will win $10,000 in an App Store gift card.

“As of today, nearly 50 billion apps have been downloaded worldwide. And we couldn’t have done it without you. So we want to say thanks,� Apple says on a Web page showing the App Store open on an iPad mini along with a tracker that currently shows about 49.25 billion apps have been downloaded.

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If you’re not lucky enough to download the 50 billionth app, you still have a chance to win a smaller prize. Apple will give users who download one of the first 50 apps after its 50 billionth download gift cards worth $500.

The App Store has grown enormously since launching one year after the iPhone in 2008. Just this January it reached the 40 billionth download mark, and now, four months later, more than 9 billion more apps have been downloaded.

However, contests like these are not a rare thing for Apple. The tech giant tends to give out gift cards of this size whenever one of its digital stores hits a milestone. In February, Apple sent a gift card worth 10,000 euros, or about $13,000, to Phillip Lüpke of Germany, the person who downloaded the 25 billionth song from iTunes.

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