Apple today increased its promotion for the upcoming milestone of 50 billion downloads from the App Store, an event the company is marking with a contest in which the person who downloads the 50 billionth app will receives a $10,000 iTunes Store gift card while the next 50 downloaders will receive $500 gift cards each. The milestone is now being promoted as the main feature on Apple's front page, with an animated counter being accompanied by a rotating series of iPad mini app photos with associated facts to put the "50 billion" number in perspective: - "With 50 billion steps, you could walk around the earth more than 800 times." [Solar Walk] - "With 50 billion bricks, you could build 12 Great Walls of China." [ProCamera HD] - "Counting to 50 billion would take you 1600 years." [Intro to Math, by Montessorium] Apple announced the contest one week ago, and the counter stood at slightly over 49.2 billion downloads at the time. With the counter now registering a little over 49.6 billion downloads, it should take just under another week to reach the milestone. (Thanks, Ben!)    

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