Apple's iTunes App Store has reached another mind-numbing milestone: 1.5 billion apps downloaded in its first year of operation.

Just last Friday, the App Store celebrated its first birthday. Today, Apple announced that its online repository of both smart and stupid apps was leaving its competitors in the dust.

"With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up," said Steve Jobs - who, in press-release form at least, appears to be back in the saddle again.

One download for every four people on the planet

As we reported last week, the US arm of the App Store now contains well over 56,000 apps. According to Apple, the total number of apps in the Store's 77-country reach now exceeds 65,000.

As is its custom, Apple declined to state what percentage of the downloaded apps is of the free variety, and what percentage has garnered the developers any cash.

That said, mobile-app tracker Distimo, which follows not only the App Store but also similar offerings from Palm, RIM, and others, reports that the average price of an App Store app, while still "very unstable," has kicked up recently due to the popularity of turn-by-turn navigation apps.

Apple also announced that it has shipped over 40 million iPhones and iPod touches - the two devices that can take advantage of all the App Store has to offer, from retro spaceflight games to reproductive-biology flash cards (App Store links).

We'll do the math for you: that's 38 apps per downloader. ®

Related stories

• iPhone App Store tops 2,000,000,000 downloads (28 September 2009)
• Apple squeezes video camera into iPod nano (9 September 2009)
• Rogue iPhone app stores raking mazuma (7 August 2009)
• iTablet suppliers named (28 July 2009)
• Updated Microsoft's mobile marketplace opens for submissions (28 July 2009)
• Google Latitude maps way onto iPhone (24 July 2009)
• Apple celebrates first year of App Store hijinks (10 July 2009)
• Apple grapples with wave of filth (2 July 2009)
• Apple races developer to censor smut (26 June 2009)
• Updated iPhone grows boobs at last (25 June 2009)
• WWDC iPhone reigns at Apple design awards (10 June 2009)
• Big Ben squeezes into your iPhone (5 June 2009)
• iPhone 3.0 to nix app redownloading? (1 June 2009)
• iPhone apps - the 10 smartest and the 10 stupidest (25 May 2009)
• iTunes store Kama Sutra gives Apple warm cheeks (22 May 2009)
• Apple bans Page 3 from iPhone app (5 May 2009)
• Apple drives iPhone app developers to the brink (5 May 2009)
• Apple double takes on shaken babies (23 April 2009)