Purveyor of cool gadgets, Apple, continues to blaze a trail with its App Store, announcing on Friday that consumers have downloaded one billion applications since its launch in August 2008.

Apple’s application marketplace, which is largely responsible for setting an industry bandwagon in motion, has more than 35,000 applications available today in 77 countries.

This summer, the forthcoming iPhone OS 3.0 software update will provide developers with over 1,000 additional APIs, enabling app store purchases from within applications, peer to peer connections, control of accessories from within apps, as well as Push Notifications.

Apple recently announced over 100 new features that will be available to iPhone and iPod touch users this summer, including cut, copy and paste; MMS; landscape view for Mail, Text and Notes; stereo Bluetooth; syncing Notes to the Mac and PC; shake to shuffle; parental controls for TV shows, movies and apps from the App Store; and automatic login at wifi hot spots. The OS 3.0 beta release will also include a Voice Memo app and expanded search capability for all key iPhone apps, as well as Spotlight search.

Apple released the iPhone OS 3.0 beta software and SDK last month for all iPhone Developer Program members to use for development and testing of their apps for iPhone and iPod touch.