The $300-billion Cupertino-based tech giant, Apple, has announced that more than 1-million applications have been downloaded by Mac users from the company’s just launched Mac App Store.

The Mac App Store currently has over 1,000 applications in its index, including both premium paid and free applications.

It is only available for users running Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or higher. Other Mac OS X versions, such as the upcoming 10.7 Lion will also be supported.

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Figure 9 from U.S. PatentNo US007660749

Apple Inc. today has been awarded a new virtual store patent (Patent No. US007660749) by the U.S. Patent Office, indicating the company could roll out a virtual app store environment where users could customize their own virtual characters.

The patent application also gives hints at the environment, suggesting there would be far more outside of the actual store. The entire virtual world, including the environment outside of the store, would dynamically change according to various factors such as the time of day, weather, and possibly even to yearly seasons such as summer and winter – think Rockstar’s GTA.

We’ve already seen virtual interactive environments such as Sony’s PlayStation Home (wikipedia) realm, and SecondLife.

The Apple patent figures do not provide much insight as to what the end-product would really look like, except minor details that show users could purchase music, books, electronics, and likely an excessive assortment of other goods. So, Apple once again has us guessing as to what Apple CEO Steve Jobs could possibly unveil in the future.

The patent was originally filed back in mid-2006, but was published as approved today.

At the Apple WWDC conference, Apple put up 20 large 30-inch LCD displays, showcasing the icons of 20,000 of the most popular apps found on the App Store today. Every time that someone downloads an app, its icon bounces up and down. Andreas Douglas and Greg Pascale who were at the conference decided to take some pictures and put them all into PhotoSynth. Check it out, it turned out very nicely. The photos were taken with an iPhone. A reminder, to check it out, you will need to have the Microsoft Silverlight plugin installed (about 18MB).

If your not sure what Photosynth (see our first coverage) is, the app lets you upload multiple photos and then it creates one cinematic panorama 3D 360 degree view. Photosynth analyzes each photo and uses the

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Nokia firstly announced the Nokia Ovi Store merely a few months ago at the 2009 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The Nokia Ovi store is simply an online store where people can purchase applications, themes, ringtones, among other content, for their Symbian-powered handset. Free applications can also be found, such as the Bloomberg news app.

The Ovi Store has just launched in Singapore, Australia, with more countries to be added over the next day.

Right now, S40 and S60 Symbian powered devices are supported, with support for additional Nokia phones to be added.

The Ovi Store icon will come standard on newer Nokia phones such as the much-anticipated N97 that will be released June 2009.

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Not to be left behind, both Samsung and Nokia are set to unveil a new mobile app store at the upcoming MWC 2009. Samsung will launch its Samsung Mobile Applications app with just over 1,000 apps initially available for mainly Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile powered devices. Both freeware and commercial apps will be available.

Nokia, which owns the Symbian OS, will also unveil its Nokia app store as well during the conference. Nokia already has its app store finalized; it just now needs to officially unveil it. The new app stores will help the millions of users of the most used mobile OS Symbian find and use useful mobile applications, as currently, people mainly search online the internet and online forums to find the apps. Read the full story

Microsoft has already confirmed it is developing SkyMarket, which is essentially a direct competitor to the Apple App Store, where people can purchase third party software for their Windows Mobile powered devices. Microsoft is also expected to launch its SkyBox service, which is essentially a direct competitor to Apple’s MobileMe. SkyBox will essentially sync and allow you to access your contacts, e-mail, calendar, SMS, pictures, and your files from a centralized system. Importantly, it is believed Microsoft will not limit SkyBox to only Windows Mobile device, instead allowing almost any newer handset to take advantage of the service, including Symbian and iPhone handsets, which would be a big competitive edge over Apple’s MobileMe. Microsoft is also expected to launch an enterprise version of SkyBox called SkyLine. It is unclear how the two will differentiate. Microsoft should launch these products in February at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. In related news, Blackberry maker, RIM, has just announced it is accepting submissions for its own Application Storefront for developers who want to sell their Blackberry made applications. Note: Windows Mobile 7 Pictured Above