APPLE REACHED a major milestone over the weekend when an English mother of two downloaded the 10 billionth application from its App Store. It has taken the company just over two years to reach the landmark, while some seven billion apps were downloaded last year alone.

Gail Davis, from Orpington, Kent, was oblivious to the fact she was in possession of the 10 billionth app – a paper glider game – and confessed it was her two daughters who made the purchase from the online store, which caters for 160 million iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users.

When contacted by Apple and told she had won a $10,000 iTunes gift card, she assumed it was a prank. “I declined to take the phone call. My daughters told me they had downloaded it and they knew there was a competition and that we may have won it.

“I had that moment of blind panic, but Apple kindly phoned me back and said I was a winner.”