Since Apple first launched its online Apple Store just three and half years ago in July 2008, the number of downloads from the store has reached an incredible 10 billion.

Yes, you did read that right – 10 billion, covering a tremendous variety of applications for the iPhone, iPad and iPod. The number available started at a respectable 500 but since then has grown to a massive 400,000 applications. Is this another record?

Apple’s customers, spread across all three of its devices, now total around 160 million with many if not all of them downloading applications as diverse as travel reports to games. A recent addition to the latter is Paper Glider which is made by a British developer based in Cirencester in Gloucestershire called Neon Play.

Along with another application, Angry Birds, Apple believes Paper Glider could become one of the most downloaded and addictive games ever created. The purpose of the game is to allow a user to swipe across the screen of an Apple device and ‘throw’ a virtual paper plane out of a window or through other virtual environments.

Apple’s download record is nothing short of remarkable. When the store was opened in 2008, it took just 11 months for 1 billion downloads to occur. By January 2010 this had soared to 3 billion, but by a year later the number of applications downloaded had exceeded all expectations to reach a massive 10 billion.

Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, told the Daily Telegraph: “…the App Store has surpassed our wildest dreams.”

Image Courtesy of Apple