Count one second. Good. In that time, 800 apps were downloaded from Apple’s App Store. That pace means that every month, Apple now sees more that 2 billion app downloads.

“Apple would like to thank our incredible customers and developers for topping 50 billion apps downloaded,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “The App Store completely transformed how people use their mobile devices and created a thriving app ecosystem that has paid out over nine billion dollars to developers. We’re absolutely floored to cross this milestone in less than five years.”

In honor of this milestone, Apple gave away a prize for the lucky person who just happened to download number 50,000,000,000. His name is Brandon Ashmore from Mentor, Ohio, and the lucky app was Say the Same Thing, a word game that lets you and a friend bridge word gaps to find common ground. Today, he’s the proud owner of a $10,000 App Store gift card.

This isn’t the first time Apple has done this sort of promotion for a big milestone. Back in March of 2012, when Apple hit 25 billion app downloads, they gave away another $10,000 gift card to a Chinese man who downloaded the popular puzzle game Where’s My Water.

Apple says that the App Store currently boasts over 850,000 apps. They’ve come a long way from the 500 that they started out with way back in 2008.

If you were wondering, the most popular apps of all time out of those 50 billion downloaded are Angry Birds (paid) and Facebook (free).

Apple hit 40 billion app downloads back in January, so that means that they tacked on 10 billion downloads in around four months. If that rate hold with a bit of acceleration (which it currently is), Apple will hit 100 billion app downloads by the end of next year or sooner. It’s a truly impressive figure.

But it’s not that far out ahead of Google’s Android. Today, at the Google I/O conference, Google announced that Google Play has seen 48 billion app installs, with 2.5 billion installs in the last month alone.

That part about the “grand prize winner” mentioned above? Well, that references the fact that Apple is giving out a big prize in celebration of hitting 50 billion. The person who was lucky enough to download the 50 billionth app will receive a $10,000 App Store gift card.

This isn’t the first time that Apple has offered such a prize. In March of 2012, when Apple hit 25 million downloaded apps, they gave away another $10,000 App Store gift card. The winner was a man from China who downloaded the puzzle game Where’s My Water.

This time, it’s 50 billion App Store downloads that’s fast approaching, and the person who puts them over the top is going to win a $10,000 App Store gift card.

“As of today, nearly 50 billion apps have been downloaded worldwide. And we couldn’t have done it without you. So we want to say thanks. Download the 50 billionth app, and you could win a US$10,000 App Store Gift Card. Or download one of the first 50 apps after that, and you could win a US$500 App Store Gift Card,” says Apple.

In order to be eligible for the prize, you have to be at least 13 years old. And you can only be “entered” 25 times per day, which means that you only have 25 chances that the app you’re downloading is going to be the 50,000,000,000th. It’s like winning the lottery, but hey – you’re going to download apps anyway, might as well give yourself a chance to win a ton of iTunes money.

This isn’t the first time that Apple has offered such a prize for an App Store milestone. A little over a year ago, in March of 2012, Apple hit 25 billion App Store downloads. And they gave away a $10,000 App Store gift card then as well – to a Chinese man who downloaded the popular puzzle game Where’s My Water.

Starting now, users will be given an option to download purchased content later.

When you purchase something, let’s say a TV season, you’ll be prompted with a “Download Now?” dialogue box. From there, you’ll be given the option to download now or save it for later. if you choose “later,” the content will be accessible to download any time in the future via the cloud.

The new download option will affect purchases of TV seasons, Season Pass, movie bundles, music box sets, or individual movies or TV episodes using iTunes 11 or iOS 6 or later.

It’s not a huge update, but it’s significant. Let’s say you think of something that you want to buy, you buy it, but then you don’t really have the connection to attempt a massive download. This feature could be incredibly useful for those who make a habit of downloading big packages.

Of course, the new download later option is only available for users who live in places where Apple supports iTunes in the cloud.

[Apple Support via MacWorld]

But people are still downloading it and trying it out. As of today, Facebook Home on Google Play has surpassed 500,000 installs.

We don’t know the exact number of installs, as Google Play only gives us an unspecific snapshot of the numbers. Right now, it says that the number of installs is somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million. The Next Web noticed that Twitter users noticed the jump from “100,000 to 500,000″ to “500,000 to 1 million” some time on Sunday.

500,000 may seem like a small number of installs, considering that Facebook has over a billion monthly active users and that something like the Facebook app has between 100 million and 500 million installs. But in a week’s time, to be working its way to a million installs, is pretty good for Facebook Home considering it’s only available on a handful of Android devices.

Still, the news isn’t nearly all positive for Facebook. Facebook Home is still suffering from poor user reviews. Last week, we told you that after just 3 days on the market, Facebook Home had sunk to an average rating of 2.4 out of 5 in the Google Play Store. At that time, 47% of all reviews awarded the app 1 star.

Now, at Facebook Home surpassed 500,000 installs, the negativity is growing. The average rating has fallen to 2.2 and 1-star reviews now account for nearly 52% of all reviews.

Those who have already downloaded music, can of course still listen to their downloads, and those who have unused credits may still use them. They’re just not allowing new ones.

On an FAQ page, Spotify says, “We’re currently not offering new download purchases on Spotify. You can still use downloads you’ve already purchased.”

You can still re-download a track you’ve already bought.

TechCrunch shares a statement from the company, saying, “We recently updated Spotify to further simplify the service and pave the way for new features announced at the end of last year. In-app purchases aren’t part of this update but we’re not ruling out their return. Credits/gift cards already purchased are still redeemable.”

Rumor has it that Apple may release a “Pandora competitor” this month, and really, that means a Spotify competitor as well. With Apple’s iTunes having such a presence in the music downloads space, it seems like this is something Spotify would want to offer. Apparently for now, it’s not in the cards, however.

Spotify currently has over 20 million subscribers, and gained 2 million paid subscriptions in 2012. In November, the company got a $100 million round of funding.

As of now, Google Play houses 675,000 apps and games.

Google Play is a little behind Apple’s App Store, which hit 25 billion downloads back in March. For that milestone, the company ran a promotion to give the person who downloaded the 25 billionth app a $10,000 iTunes gift card. The contest was won by a man in China, who downloaded physics-based puzzle game “Where’s My Water?”

“Twenty-five billion is more than twice the distance, in miles, that the Voyager 1 spacecraft has travelled since its launch 35 years ago. It’s the amount of time, in minutes, that have passed since some of our earliest ancestors began to set foot in Europe. And now, thanks to all of you, it’s a Google Play milestone. We look forward to the next 25 billion,” said Google Director of Digital Content Jamie Rosenberg.

Google Play hitting a milestone is great and all, but what’s in it for you? Apparently, discounted stuff for the next five days. Google says that various apps from the likes of EA and Rovio will be $0.25, and that they will run special collections like “25 banned books” and “25 movies you must own” on the cheap. Those deals should be hitting Google Play later today.

According to the New York Times Fox will call the initiative “Digital HD” or “DHD,” and it will start on September 18th with the Ridley Scott-helmed Prometheus.

You’ll be able to download an HD copy of the film for around $15 on the 18th, which is more than two weeks before the film is set to launch on Blu-ray, DVD, and On-Demand. The system will be made possible by the UltraViolet digital locker system – which will make the films, once purchased, available for customers on multiple devices.

“DHD” is set to launch in 50 countries around the world, according to Fox Chariman James Gianopulos. He says that many of Fox’s recent hits like “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” “The Watch” and “Ice Age: Continental Drift,” will be available for digital HD download soon.

This move comes on the heels of an abandoned premium on-demand joint venture between Warner Bros, Universal, Fox, and Sony. Last year, those studios partnered to launch “Home Premiere,” a VOD service that would ‘ve charged people upwards of $30 for a 2-3 day rental. The only real draw was that the films offered through the service would be just 2 months out of theaters, meaning they were months away from DVD and regular on-demand release. Of course, Theaters around the country threw a fit, saying that it would cut into their already-struggling businesses.

Is $15 still a hefty amount to pay for a download? Yes, to some people. If you can just hold off for a couple of weeks, the same movie could be rented for a little over $1 (Blu-ray) at Redbox. But “DHD” does offer movie ownership, weeks early, without having to leave your home. It may not be perfect as it is, but this program is definitely a step in the right direction.

And as expected, it appears that the game is a hit.

Both the Angry Birds and RovioHQ Twitter accounts tweeted this today, announcing that the new game had crossed the 20 million download mark:

Over 20 Million downloads in our first week… That’s a lot of pig popping! #angrybirdsspace

— Angry Birds (@AngryBirds) March 30, 2012

Rovio did quite a bit of viral marketing prior to the game’s release. Between nifty little videos featuring all the game’s bird characters and a partnership with NASA, there was a ton of buzz online right before launch. Plus, it was just the first true sequel to one of the most popular games of the mobile era – so it had that going for it.

Another interesting partnership that the Angry Birds franchise launched with was one with mega-retailer Walmart. It served as Walmart’s first real gaming integration and offered players bonus content with the purchase of select Angry Birds merchandise.

It also appears that players won’t have to wait very long for the game’s first update. They say that it’s “coming soon” and will bring the Space Needle into the gameplay. The fact that Seattle’s Space Needle was turned into a huge slingshot after the launch of the game probably has something to do with this.

They have not said how many of those downloads reflect the free version, which is available for Android devices.

The game has been given good reviews so far, earning a Metacritic score of 84. People are touting the realistic physics, making it one of the more enjoyable aspects of the game.

“Space” was developed in collaboration with NASA through a Space Act Agreement. The agreement is a win-win for both companies. NASA gets the opportunity to educate more people in a fun way about some of the properties of gravity, zero-gravity and microgravity. Rovio gets to cite collaboration with NASA when advertising the realism their gameplay.

For fans that can’t get enough of the franchise, Rovio has also announced an update for Angry Birds Rio, featuring 12 new levels.

And what would the Angry Birds be without merchandising. Plush toys of all the new Angry Birds Space characters are now available for pre-order.