App Store 10 billion download winner hung up on 'prank' Apple call

The winner of Apple's 10 billionth download promotion hung up on the company when they called, thinking it was a prank. Gail Davis of Orpington, Kent, UK, had downloaded Paper Glider, a free iOS game, on Saturday, and with that, won a $10,000 iTunes gift card.

Davis said:

“I thought it was a prank call. I said, ‘Thank you very much, I’m not interested’ and I hung up.”

The call came Eddy Cue, Apple’s Vice-President in charge of iTunes. Her daughter told Davis it wasn't a prank, and she started to panic, but she needn't have: Apple wasn't going to let one hang-up deter them.

"The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was a genuine call. The girls were getting quite tense. They never would have forgiven me. They would have held it against me for all eternity.”

Indeed they would not have.  Gail Davis didn't actually make the download.  It was one of her two daughters, 14 and 17, who was the actual winner.  Fortunately for her, Davis was called again a few hours later by one of Cue's colleagues.

Davis and her husband only have iPod nanos, which cannot run iOS apps. They're thinking of upgrading their devices so they can start downloading. She needs to hurry; as she indicated, her daughters are already trying to figure out what to buy.

Beatles on iTunes: five million tracks, one million albums sold

How much pent up demand was there for Beatles music in some sort of downloadable format? A lot, appearently, as Apple has said that since November 16, when they were first released to the world on iTunes, 5 million tracks have been downloaded worldwide.

As of Friday, according to The Loop, the Fab Four have also sold 1 million albums. “Abbey Road” is the current best-selling Beatles album in the U.S., and “Here Comes the Sun” is the current best-selling Beatles song.

Sales have certainly slowed since the initial release. In the first week of sales alone, 2 million songs and 450,000 albums were purchased.

Apple has exclusivity over downloadable Beatles content, although the exclusivity ends "sometime" in 2011. The iTunes Beatles collection currently contains 17 albums, with 13 of the remastered. There is also a $149 box set, which includes all of the remastered studio albums, along with a mini documentary, and a video of the The Beatles first U.S concert from 1964 at the Washington Coliseum.