As one of the major forces in the technology world, Apple has enjoyed huge fan support throughout the last years, with its smartphone and tablet supporting App Store becoming the most popular by far.

Now Apple has announced that its venerable App Store has beaten yet another record, reaching the massive milestone of 15 billion downloads. The store currently sports some 452 000 apps which includes 100 000 apps made specifically for its iPad line of tablets.

In addition, the company claimed that some 200 million devices are now running on its iOS mobile operating system, with users split over 90 countries around the world.

These daunting figures make for an uphill battle for Apple competitors such as Google, RIM, Microsoft and Nokia, who also supports their own app stores. And while Apple is by far the leader in the race, Google and its Android OS and app store has been closing fast, announcing a few weeks ago that Android Market was approaching 5 billion downloads.

Non-mobile Apple users can also take heart, because with the upcoming release of Mac OS X Lion, Apple will include a Mac App Store application built into the company's new line of notebooks and desktops.

Apple's upcoming iOS 5 is also looking mighty powerful, and will address certain competitor aspects directly. The chief of which being the new 'iMessenger' platform, set to compete directly with BlackBerry's Messenger service.

Apple fans also have the company's iCloud service to look forward to (launching this spring), which will include a ton of cloud-based features and functionality, allowing users to sync content on all their Apple devices together.

Whatever the future may hold, it seems Apple won't be going in unprepared. The only question is whether chief competitors Google can ever catch up to the Cupertino giants in the mobile apps sector.