Apple likes numbers, and shoving said numbers in our faces every time they reach a milestone of any kind. To celebrate the App Store’s first birthday, the company’s got a suitably huge figure to brandish: 1.5 billion. That one, five and eight zeroes indicates the number of iPhone apps downloaded within the store’s inaugural year. It’s an impressive number on its own, but it becomes even more impressive when you recall that it was only a little over two months ago that Apple hit the 1 billion-mark.

That’s half a billion downloads in around two and a half months. To say iPhone 3.0 and the new 3GS hardware probably had an effect on app downloading volume would be a gross understatement. A cursory and very unscientific examination of Twitter at the time of the official release of 3.0 saw a massive surge in interest surrounding the App Store, as people frantically shared and searched for any news of what the first push-enabled apps would be. And then probably downloaded those apps in droves as they came out.

As is now becoming standard again for Apple press releases, the official word from Cupertino includes a (rather bland) quote from returned CEO Steve Jobs, who had this to say:

“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.”

Basically, Jobs is reiterating what tech pundits, analysts and bloggers have been saying since Apple’s rivals started introducing their own applications stores. Nice that he at least sounds sporting about it, almost like he’s issuing a challenge.

For more info on the recent massive uptick in App Store downloads, including a lovely chart to show you just how Apple managed to amass so many downloads in such a short period of time, check out CNN’s Fortune blog post about the press release. As they rightly point out, this meteoric rise can’t continue forever. The question is, when and where will it end?

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In just a few days time (July 11), the App Store will officially celebrate its first anniversary. To mark the occasion, Apple has introduced a special section in iTunes, which gives kudos to some of the company’s top App Store picks. The apps on the list are mostly ones you’d expect to see, based on their general popularity or prior success, but there are a few unusual choices that make the list interesting.

The lists vary by country, but I’m pretty sure apps are common to all where availability allows. So for instance, here in Canada we get CP (Canadian Press) Mobile instead of AP Mobile, and miss out entirely on Pandora. I’ve highlighted some picks below, all of which should be available in most countries.

Favorite Apps

Photogene ($2.99, iTunes link) — This has long been a standby on my iPhone, and it recently became far more useful, thanks to the inclusion of MMS in iPhone OS 3.0. It’s a lightweight, but effective, photo editor in your pocket, so you can touch up and add fun effects, like speech bubbles, to pictures you take with your iPhone’s camera (or that you download from the web). Yes, you can use it to make your own instant Lolcats.

Dictionary.com Dictionary & Thesaurus (free, iTunes link) — Between the iPhone’s auto-correct and this app, you have no more excuses for poor spelling. I bought Wordbook before this Dictionary.com app was released (the day before, actually), and I regret it. This free app offers everything most of the paid ones do, and doesn’t require an Internet connection to function.

Favorite Games

Before I get into specifics here, I just want to point out that a few companies are very well represented in this list. Chillingo, ngmoco, Gameloft, and EA all take multiple spots in this top list, and rightly so. They’re the ones to watch in this space, with ngmoco especially topping my list of iPhone gaming heavy-hitters.

Zen Bound ($4.99, iTunes link) — I love this game, and it actually does help to focus, relax and center me. It sounds cheesy, but download the free trial and you’ll see what I mean. This is one of the few titles I recommend to friends without considering their general taste in gaming.

Rolando ($5.99, iTunes link) — I’m sure that if Rolando 2 had been out long enough, it would’ve made this list as well. If you’ve yet to experience just what the adorable little Rolandos have to offer, give either or both of these games a try. There never was a better game designed so perfectly for the iPhone/iPod touch platform.

Now that you’ve had a year with the App Store, what are your picks?

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