Apple Promises Mother Lode to Billionth App Downloader 119
An anonymous reader writes "Apple has posted a counter of App Store downloads as they approach one billion downloads. The lucky billionth downloader gets to walk away with a stash consisting of a MacBook Pro, 32GB iPod Touch, Time Capsule and $10,000 iTunes gift certificate. The App Store now has over 30,000 applications."
Mistake In Title. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not the billionth downloader (Score:3, Informative)
When you submit said form, it says you may enter 25 times per day. However, if you try to enter a second time it says you have tried to enter too many times in the same day.
Re:Mistake In Title. (Score:1, Informative)
Yes. Mother lode [wikipedia.org] refers to the discovery of bedrock veins containing gold, from which placer deposits are derived by erosion. The classic example was during the California gold rush. They started finding gold in the streams (placer deposits) first and then traced the source upstream to the bedrock of the mountains and started mining there -- which was far more lucrative.
Motherload is the term used for, er, I'm not sure. Something to do with certain types of entertainment videos coincidentally also best known from California, I think.
Re:Nevermind I was wrong (Score:4, Informative)
NO PURCHASE OR DOWNLOAD NECESSARY. A PURCHASE OR DOWNLOAD OF ANY KIND WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING.
Seems pretty clear to me. The contest is to celebrate the 1,000,000,000 download, and it ends at that point, but it's just a random draw beyond that.
Re:Not the billionth downloader (Score:4, Informative)
What's interesting is the claim "(Limited to 25 entries per day)" on the form submission, but if you ATTEMPT to submit more than once, you get blocked with the site adding the following text to the form: "You have entered to many times today."
Not only is it wrong, it's mis-spelled... Heh...
Why enter now?? (Score:3, Informative)
Per the official rules:
The prize will be awarded for the entry (either through an app download or through the non-purchase online entry) sent immediately following the download of the 999,999,999th app.
So entering any time prior to JUST before the counter hits the magic number is completely pointless unless I'm reading this wrong or the counter is just there for show.
Official Rules: Don't have to purchase... (Score:4, Informative)
Timing. The Promotion shall run from 12:01 a.m. EDT on April 10, 2009 and ends with the downloading of the 1 billionth app (âoePromotion Periodâ). For purposes of the Promotion, the downloading of the 1 billionth app is considered to be either the downloading of the 1 billionth app from iTunes or the receipt of the non-purchase entry after the download of the 999,999,999th app, whichever comes first. Only entries submitted in this time period will be accepted. Sponsorâ(TM)s computer is the official time keeping device for this promotion.
Re:Is $10k gift certificate enough? (Score:3, Informative)
hmm
Roughly
(32 gb * 1024 (mb/gb) * 1024 (kb/mb)) / (60 (min/album) * 60 (s/min) * (256 kbit/s) / (8 kbit/kbyte)) * 10 ($/album) = $2910
Yes.
Re:small return (Score:3, Informative)
Million != Milliard (Score:2, Informative)
To avoid confusion.
Some might find this interesting, and actually is a common screw up in international media.
USA en modern Britisch:
10^6 : million
10^9 : billion
10^12: trillion
Standard:
10^6 : million
10^9 : milliard
10^12 : billion
10^18 : trillion
Among others, we in the Netherlands use the latter.
FYI - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milliard [wikipedia.org]