POSTED BY

Rob Beschizza

AT 4:16 PM
Tuesday April 21, 2009

Fuck Up

apple • appstore • iphone

Apple prematurely announces billionth AppStore download...

bigpicapple.jpg

...but only, of course, if you set your computer's clock forward! (Click for the full-size graphic). Camillo Miller writes in:

Wanna see what Apple will do at the 1Billionth download mark? Set your Mac's clock to friday 24th and head to www.apple.com

Now here's a great piece of blogsanity: the source has watermarked its screenshots of this, as if it were some sort of exclusive not available to anyone with a web browser and a clock. Great find, though!

Update: Commenter GabrielM wonders why we've got it classified as a "fuck up." It's not because of the existence of the page itself, but because Apple's set the "billionth app" threshold as a client-side date rather than a server-side number--meaning that it's very easy to trick! (The actual counter is, as commenter Youngbrendan points out below, probably reasonably accurate)

Source [Mac Magazine via Apple Lounge]

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8 Comments

kaosmonkey

#1 – 4:28 PM April 21, 2009

Wonder if that means they've also prematurely chosen the winner of their little giveaway?

gabrielm

#2 – 4:33 PM April 21, 2009

It not really seem worthy of the "FUCK UP" tag since it only works if your clock is altered. However, it is also fun to set your clock backwards.

gabrielm

#3 – 4:35 PM April 21, 2009

"It not really..."

See, now that is worthy of the tag.

Dealator

#4 – 4:49 PM April 21, 2009

Whoops. I hope people suddenly don't start caring/hating the App store anytime soon...

Reagan

#5 – 6:57 PM April 21, 2009

I dunno, if I were a betting man, I bet they have a pretty good idea of the rate at which they sell apps and so can project that it'll happen around a particular time Friday and prepare for it - I would imagine that's way easier than making the web server to talk to the App store to get sales numbers.

Also, since the person who buys the billionth app wins something, they probably want to be able to celebrate and then figure out who the winner is / if they're eligible at a reasonable pace rather than rushing to announce and then having a snag of some type.

grimc

#6 – 7:35 PM April 21, 2009

Premature application?

C'mon, somebody had to say it.

youngbrendan

#7 – 7:57 PM April 21, 2009

It isn't nearly as contrived as it is being made out to be.

A quick look at the page source shows it pulls in data from a cached static text file. The text file is regularly updated with a date/time of update, current count and current rate.

When you set the date forward the javascript is assuming the billionth application sold due to a calculation on the date of the update times the rate and current time.

Nothing sinister at all.

Anonymous Anonymous

#8 – 3:12 AM April 22, 2009

if some software guy gets a hot rating it might
hit the 1b today ?

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