Apple's App Store celebrated its first birthday on July 11, and the computing giant [1]announced that consumers have now downloaded more than 1.5 billion iPhone and iPod touch applications over the previous 12 months. According to Apple, the App Store now offers in excess of 65,000 total applications, and membership in the iPhone Developer Program tops 100,000.

The App Store surpassed the 1 billion download benchmark [2] on April 23. In late January, Apple announced [3] the number of available iPhone and iPod touch applications exceeded 15,000, meaning that developers have added roughly 50,000 new apps in less than six months.

For more on the latest App Store milestone:
- read this release [4]
- see the App Store's top paid apps [5]
- see the App Store's top free apps [6]