pple’s App Store for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch reached the 25 billion download mark Friday night and winning one lucky shopper a US$10,000 iTunes gift card. The company is giving away the gift card as part of its promotional countdown to 25 billion app downloads.

Apple's App Store: Over 25 billion downloadsApple’s App Store: Over 25 billion downloads

Apple launched the App Store on July 10, 2008, and less than a year later hit its first billion download mark in April 2009. Only about five months later, that number jumped to 2 billion in September 2009, and hit 3 billion in January 2010.

Only a year later in January 2011, Apple announced 10 billion apps had been downloaded, and by July was announcing the 15 billion download mark had been hit.

Based on the App Store’s explosive growth rate, and the popularity of Apple’s iOS device lineup, Apple is probably already making plans for its next multi-billion download milestone.

Apple hasn’t yet announced the 25 billion download contest winner.

Awesome. I'm excited to see who won that gift card. I don't know what I would do with $10,000 on iTunes.

Lol...

Originally Posted by iBenji

Awesome. I'm excited to see who won that gift card. I don't know what I would do with $10,000 on iTunes.

When you can purchase directly from your iTunes account like it was a credit card, the possibilities open up pretty dramatically... Speculation that this will come along with NFC technology leads some to believe we will see a wider application of payment using iTunes in the near future.