Apple calls to award woman $10K, she hangs up

Gail Davis, winner of $10,000 iTunes gift card

By Athima Chansanchai

Conditioned to politely hang up on telemarketers, Gail Davis followed form recently, only to find out she had hung up on a legit Apple giveaway of a $10,000 iTunes gift card for downloading Apple's App Store's 10 billionth app early Saturday morning.

"I thought it was a prank call," the UK-based Davis told CultofMac.com. She remembers saying, "Thank you very much, I’m not interested" and then she hung up. (She doesn't even own an iPod that can run apps, but her daughters own iPod touches.)

Luckily for this mom, her two teenage daughters came scrambling downstairs to tell her that this was no prank and that she better call back! They had apps to buy, for god's sake! (That last comment is from my own reenactment in my mind of this pivotal family moment.)

Turns out the girls had downloaded a few apps that morning, including the free Paper Glider app, in which the object of the app is to see "how far can you flick and fly your paper aeroplane." It's one of the top five free App Store apps, even with user reviews titled, "Truly crap," "Boring" and "Lame." It now has the distinction of being the App Store's 10 billionth app. And the lucky person who happened to download that milestone was going to get a reward: a $10,000 iTunes gift card.

The Apple App Store's 10 billionth download, Paper Glider.

"The girls came down and said it wasn’t a prank," Davis told CultofMac.com. "I had a moment of panic."

That panic led to a frantic return call to Apple, but that led nowhere fast, except to generate more family drama.

"The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was a genuine call," she recalled. "The girls were getting quite tense. They never would have forgiven me. They would have held it against me for all eternity."

But this reality show moment ends happily. An Apple exec called back and sorted things out, making sure Davis received the award.

Now may be the time for Davis and her husband to upgrade their iPods so their daughters aren't the only ones enjoying all those new apps and/or songs, movies, tv shows, etc. And from now on, she may want to screen calls first before hanging up so abruptly!

This sounds like something I would do!