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Apple Announces Countdown to 25 Billion App Store Downloads with $10,000 Gift Card Prize

Timzer said:
Wow, can you be any cheaper? You can win more money on a scratch ticket with better odds. Even talk shows like Oprah give more to their audiences. For a company that is considered the most valuable in the world, $10Gs is absolute joke. And it's not even cash money that their giving you, their giving you credits to their own product. Costing them absolutely next to nothing. Keep up the great public image of being so giving and generous Apple. :rolleyes:
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Or they don't have to do it at all? Better odds winning 10K+ on a scratchy....? Yeah right..
 
From my rough calculation, given the current counter, my guess is between 7 and 8 days. So, tune in next Friday, or Thursday to be safe to see it hit 25B.
 
Mlrollin91 said:
Or they don't have to do it at all? Better odds winning 10K+ on a scratchy....? Yeah right..
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I'm not so sure, considering the sheer number of downloads that are bound to occur once the 25 billion mark draws closer. I wouldn't be surprised if the scratch-and-win card is slightly easier to win!
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/9A405)

In other words, there were more downloads last year (15 mil) than the previous 2.5 years combined since the App Store has been open.
 
Mlrollin91 said:
Or they don't have to do it at all? Better odds winning 10K+ on a scratchy....? Yeah right..
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I would prefer they don't do it at all. It's an insult to anyone with a pulse.
10Gs? Seriously look at the worth of this company. Yeah, just shows how valuable they think their customers are. As I said, it's not CASH MONEY. It's CREDIT to buy from THEIR store. Apple is not GIVING anything at their loss. It's not being generous in anyway. It's a complete image scam and a complete fail to anyone with half a brain. Disgusting.
 
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Four oF NINE said:
Also.. How can anyone possibly spend $10,000.00 USD on apps? Couldn't it be used at an Apple store instead?
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This is from the official rules:

Prizes. One (1) winner will receive one (1) App Store Gift Card for credit in an amount equal to USD $10,000, redeemable in the iTunes Store, App Store, and iBook Store, as available in the country in which the winner is located. Total US Retail Value of all prizes is $10,000.00.
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This may be a case where less is more. In other words a $1000 gift card (and resultant $150-$350 tax bill) is more palatable than a $10,000 gift card with a $1500-$3500 tax bill.

I wonder if Apple will let the winner donate a portion? I could see donating bookstore downloads to a school.

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Timzer said:
I would prefer they don't do it at all. It's an insult to anyone with a pulse.
10Gs? Seriously look at the worth of this company. Yeah, just shows how valuable they think their customers are. As I said, it's not CASH MONEY. It's CREDIT to buy from THEIR store. Apple is not GIVING anything to there loss. It's not being generous in anyway. It's a complete image scam and a complete fail to anyone with half a brain. Disgusting.
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The developers/authors will still get their 70% cut.

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gnasher729 said:
Don't think "instant gratification". Take the long term view. Never again in your life paying for music.
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I think the tax bill may be due right away, however. That is, unless the IRS is willing to accept an argument that all Apple is doing is offering a discount on future purchases. That's how airlines treat frequent flier miles, for instance. However, I have heard that at least one major credit card company is or is considering sending 1099s to people who receive "bonus miles" for opening accounts, etc. (not miles "earned" while spending).
 
Laco said:
My guess would be more like about a month.

If it is going to take about 4 years to reach 25 billion then

25 billion divided by 4 years divided by 365 days in a year = 17 123 287 downloads per day.

Since there are about 700 million downloads remaining then 700 divided by 17 million per day is about 45 days. However, since the rate of downloading is probably increasing the number will probably be closer to 30 days.
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Calculate projection with linear extrapolation. Oh wait, it's not linear. Multiply by random fudge factor. Profit :D
 
It's not quite so ridiculous when you consider apps like Final Cut Pro X and Logic Pro.
 
I bet Chuck Norris win this contest without downloading any App (or even without filling the form on Apple website).

Anyway It would take me years, maybe I wont even spend that money in my life for the apps on App store, who knows. I'm not playing any games...
 
So Apple again has shown just how (1)greedy and (2)controlling they are. Greedy because $10,000 worth of credit is an absolute joke for company of it's worth to show it's appreciation to it's customers. Controlling because they are telling just how you can spend that credit....only at their store.
The key here is that they are attempting to show their appreciation to their customers, so basically to Apple it's $10,000 worth of credit with their stores. This would literally be the same (in terms of cost to me) as me owning a store and giving the nth customer that walks through the door a credit of 1 cent, and acting like I'm doing something worth talking about, and then telling that customer, don't spend that cent anywhere but in my store. Wow!
 
I am not sure if the countdown on Apple's site is legit or in real time.... but at the rate it is moving now, it will take 16 days to get to 25 million.
 
So where can we see the actual countdown ?

Do you really think it will take about 7 days ?
 
DanteMann said:
So Apple again has shown just how (1)greedy and (2)controlling they are. Greedy because $10,000 worth of credit is an absolute joke for company of it's worth to show it's appreciation to it's customers.
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I really wonder who the greedy people are...
 
phillipduran said:
Isn't $13,000 the threshold for paying taxes on gifts/winnings?
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In the United States, in theory, you even get taxed on winning $1. Anything over $600 is reported to the IRS.

I think what you're thinking about is a GIFT, for example given to you by a family member. They can give you up to $13,000 tax free per year. But that's not how winnings work.

(Unless you lived in Canada, where lotteries even of millions of dollars are 100% tax free)
 
Money Machine

Just watch the counter for a couple of seconds and imagine getting 30% of each of the paid apps - WOW!!!!!
 
mw360 said:
I really wonder who the greedy people are...
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Comparing Apple to the everyday person? Really? But since your wondering...
I can say I've had total strangers buy me a coffee more than a few times just to be nice. These are complete strangers that don't need to show me any appreciation, the way a corporation should do to it's loyal customers. That being said, the everyday person isn't worth hundreds of billions of dollars. So you can bet the cost of coffee is a bigger deal to the average person than $10,000 worth of credit is to Apple. Lets just call it what it is, a complete joke.
 
troop231 said:
The dev has no way of knowing what individual it was. It would be up to Apple to say your app was the 25th Billion download...
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Which is what Apple has done in the past (the name of the app was even posted here on macrumors).

Not sure how that fits with their privacy policy, but they give the developer that huge free marketing boost anyway...
 
I'd rather have a $10k Mervyn's gift card. Seriously. I don't have any use for $10 App card, why would I want $10k? :apple: sucks now.
 
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