App Store about to celebrate 1 billion downloaded apps

The App Store is nearing a significant milestone. As I’m writing this post they are 36, 097,834 downloads from reaching 1 billion downloaded applications via App Store.

To celebrate, Apple is hosting a contest worth over $10,000 (yes, that’s not a typo, Apple is giving away prizes worth $13,746!!!) The prizes are: 17-inch MacBook Pro, 32 Gb iPod Touch, $10,000 iTunes gift certificate and an Apple Time Capsule.

To enter the contest all you have to do is visit the Apple 1 billion app countdown contest page and sign up or download an app from the App Store. You can make 25 entries per day.

At the same time Apple has revealed the 20 most popular paid and free apps. I’ll just give you a few seconds to guess the top 3 ones.

Crash Bandikoot, allRadio and Texas Hold’em are the top 3 paid apps, while Facebook, Labyrinth Lite Edition and Touch Hockey are the top 3 free apps at the time of writing.

For a service that has existed less than a year, this is a spectacular milestone. I guess I’ll write a similar post around February next year.

(While I’ve written this post there are “only” 36,055,610 downloads left, so you better hurry.)