Apple moves 50b apps

APP-SOLUTELY MIND-BOGGLING: Apple's App Store moved its 50 billionth download on Wednesday, the company announced on Twitter, as the countdown timer on Apple's site and inside iTunes registered the benchmark. According to Apple, the 50-billionth app downloaded was the game Say the Same Thing by Space Inch, and the lucky customer was Brandon Ashmore of Mentor, OH, who received a $10,000 App Store gift card. The 50 people who downloaded apps right after that each will receive a $500 gift card. As the Wall Street Journal noted, Apple provided a handful of eye-popping stats to commemorate the milestone: App Store customers are downloading more than 800 apps a second, at a rate of over 2 billion-plus apps a month, and Apple has paid out more than $9 billion to app developers. The Store opened in July 2008 with 500 apps, and now has over 850k. iTunes Store manager Eddy Cue (whose actual title if SVP of Internet Software and Services said the company was "absolutely floored to cross this milestone in less than five years." In February, Apple paid out a 10,000-euro iTunes gift card for the 25th billion song sold on iTunes. Google recently announced that its Play store had reached 48 billion app downloads. (5/17a)