Hasta La Gadget!

What would you do with a $10,000 iTunes gift card? That’s a lot of Ke$ha singles and fart apps. Apple is giving away just that to the luck person who downloads the 10 billionth app from its App Store.

The company is well on track to hit that milestone–as of this morning, around 9.76 billion apps had been downloaded. Giving away a boatload of free downloads is likely only helping the counter spin away.

There are some rules of course–users are limited to 25 downloads a day, automated software will disqualify you, and you’ve got to agree to let you name and image be used for Apple promotion.

The story goes like this: Apple offered Verizon first crack at its upcoming handset. Verizon either balked at the offer–or just flat out refused (perhaps due to the company’s then more pronounced need to load up phones with proprietary software like VCast)–so Cupertino went with AT&T, thereby consummating what has proven one of the most profitable partnerships in mobile history.

Verizon, naturally, regretted the decision almost immediately, and has been stewing in its own juices, waiting for the incredibly lucrative contract between the companies to run out.

Now that Verizon actually has the phone, the carrier’s CEO is telling his side of the story. Verizon was never actually offered the phone, Ivan Seidenberg tells Charlie Rose in an excerpt from an upcoming interview.

“Apple decided that it wanted one carrier in every major market,” Seidenberg explains. “So Apple and AT&T consummated a deal three years ago. And because Apple was more focused on a single technology–the GSM technology–they chose AT&T. We had good discussions with them, but it was clear to us that they weren’t looking to make a device for both sets of technologies”

Discussions opened up a bit once Apple opted to open up to a second carrier in other markets. “Now, over the course of the last three years, particularly if you go to Europe and some of the Asian countries, Apple expanded to a second carrier,” explains Seidenberg. “And it was time for them to expand to a second carrier here. So yeah, we did have a lot of discussions with them over the last couple years. We even installed antennas on their campus, and they tried our technology. When they were ready to make a decision to add a second carrier, we made sure that they had a favorable impression.”

Steve Jobs hates buttons. He has said this before. Multiple times. In a very public fashion. In fact, we’re pretty sure that it has pained him that he’s had to feature the Home button on the iPhone, iPod, and iPad–a single aesthetic imperfection that has nearly driven him crazy, like the lead character in some Nathaniel Hawthorne short story.

Well, it seems that the Apple head may finally be able to live his mobile life in a completely button-free bliss. Word from Boy Genius Report is that the company is set to drop the Home button for some future version of the iPad. In fact, the latest version of iOS (4.3) added multitouch gestures for precisely that reason, according to the site’s “sources.”

The disappearing button will eventually make its way to the iPhone as well, according to the aforementioned report. This aesthetic update may or may not make its way onto iOS devices released in 2011.

Now that the country’s two biggest carriers have the country’s biggest smartphone, the question is, who’s next? After years of rumors and speculation, Verizon yesterday announced that it is finally going to offer the iPhone.

So, what about T-Mobile and Sprint. Would they be interested in carrying Apple’s wildly popular handset? In a word, “yes.” T-Mobile USA’s new CEO Philipp Humm told The Seattle Times , “We would be interested in offering the iPhone, but ultimately it is Apple’s decision.” Apple, naturally, didn’t respond to a follow up question.

T-Mobile recently sent out a press invite for an upcoming event. Wishful thinking, perhaps?

Microsoft this week filed a complaint with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, asking the organization to reject Apple’s request to patent the term “App Store.” The software giant is arguing that the term was generic long before Apple filed for a trademark, used to describe all manner of mobile application storefronts.

Says Microsoft (or, rather, Microsoft’s lawyers),

Any secondary meaning or fame Apple has in ‘App Store’ is de facto secondary meaning that cannot convert the generic term ‘app store’ into a protectable trademark. Apple cannot block competitors from using a generic name. ‘App store’ is generic and therefore in the public domain and free for all competitors to use.

Even Steve Jobs himself has used the term to refer to competing stores, according to Microsoft lawyers.

Here’s what Apple argues in its own filing,

The vastly predominant usage of the expression ‘app store’ in trade press is as a reference to Apple’s extraordinarily well-known APP STORE mark and the services rendered by Apple thereunder.

Certainly Apple’s store is the first that springs to mind when uttering the term, these days. But “vastly predominant usage” seems a bit much. I know we’ve certainly been guilty of bandying term about in reference to stores from Google, RIM, Microsoft, Palm, and others.