Apple today announced that customers have downloaded more than 1.5 billion applications in just one year from its App Store.

The App Store is also growing at an incredible pace with more than 65,000 apps and more than 100,000 developers in the iPhone Developer Program, according to Apple.

"The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality,? said Steve Jobs, Apple?s CEO. ?With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up."

The App Store has more than 65,000 apps available to consumers in 77 countries, allowing developers to reach iPhone and iPod touch users around the world. The App Store works with both iPod touch and iPhone including the new iPhone 3GS,. Apple has shipped over 40 million of these devices that run apps from the App Store.

Rival smart phone makers have rolled out rival versions of the App Store to sell mini-applications for devices competing with iPhones.