Apple’s App Store is about to hit another significant milestone — 50 billion downloads, which is a lot even if it includes a ton of free apps being downloaded. To celebrate the occasion, the company is a contest where one lucky winner who downloads the fifty billionth app will win a ridiculous $10,000 App Store gift card. Why ridiculous? Come on, seriously, $10,000 on the App Store?

What’s new about this contest is that Apple will also be giving prizes to the next fifty people who download an app. The prize for that lucky bunch is a $500 gift card for the App Store — which is pretty awesome. Why I think $10,000 is ridiculous while $500 is awesome? I don’t really know.

There are two ways to enter this contest. You are automatically entered when you download an app, free or paid, from the App Store. If the app you download happens to fall within the range mentioned above, you will get a prize. Alternatively, if you don’t want to or can’t download an app, you can enter the contest via an online form Apple has set up from where you can sign up for the contest, without having to purchase or download an app. It is important to note, however, if you are going to sign up via the form that you must register right after the 49,999,999,999 app is downloaded from the App Store to win. In other words, it makes no difference if you download an app or enter via the form — they are just different methods of entry with the same end result.

While I don’t really have an estimate on when this thing will hit 50 billion, it might be a good idea to download an app or two in the next couple of hours. Or three. Or four.

[via Apple]