As we head into the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Apple has circulated a press release announcing that 40 billion apps have now been downloaded, with almost half of those downloads during 2012. (Note that that figure consists of unique downloads and excludes updates and redownloads.) In addition, Apple's announcement said that there are now over 775,000 apps in the App Store, and that developers have earned over $7 billion on their apps.