San Francisco — Its a significant moment for search engine leader’s mobile OS — Google has noiselessly confirmed that its application store, the Android Market The for smartphone and tablet applications has just crossed a major milestone, with more than 100,000 applications, and it is official.
Google’s Android developer team tweeted the message on Monday, October 25. The Tweet said simply:
This is an important milestone that we have anticipated a little bit earlier, but with all the hoopla built around the release of newer versions of the Android OS, the “achievement” was delayed for one or two months.
The news via Twitter comes barely a week after Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the Apple App Store, which offers applications built for the iOS-based iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, had amplified to 300,000 applications.
However, even if Android Market is not close to the AppStore, which seems to have about 300,000 apps, the fact that in just 7 months time it managed to cross from 30,000 to 100,000 is simply remarkable and confirms the incredible boost that the operating system has gotten from the handset manufacturers. And if the trend continue this way, Android Market could easily take on AppStore.
The Android Market made its entree in October 2008 barely with 34 apps and 9 games; the same day the T-Mobile G1 Android phone went on sale. Later, Google started accepting priced applications from developers in the U.S. and the U.K. in February 2009. Apple’s iOS 4 remains perhaps the most significant trailblazer in the market, although Android’s surge means that Jobs is beginning to be drawn into a war of words which suggest that he is worried.
That figure is still, however, significantly behind the more mature iPhone App Store, which has been the trailblazer for the entire market. But, by March 2009, the store reportedly had 2,300 apps, which ballooned to 20,000 by year’s end. This year, the Android Market hit 38,000 apps by April. An AndroLib report from July said the Market was at 100,000 apps, but Google told Engadget that number was closer to 70,000. It appears that it has finally crossed the 100,000 mark.
And the success is not likely to be limited to traditional smartphones, with a spate of tablets sporting Android beginning to hit the market. The fact that the mobile operating system from search engine behemoth Google has proven to be a massive hit, with major handset manufacturers flocking to use the free platform, and some of the most impressive iPhone competitors — including the Samsung Galaxy S and the HTC Desire — selling well.
But the fact that Google constantly keeps improving its OS every couple months is praise-worthy, but not that good for developers who does not have time to adjust their apps’ compatibility with the latest version of the operating system.
Other rivals on the web are piling on, the Windows phone gadget blog WPCentral announced that the new Windows Phone Marketplace hit 1,000 apps just two weeks after its launch along with the unveiling of forthcoming Windows Phone 7 handsets from AT&T and T-Mobile. The phones are not even in customers hands yet, but there are 1000 apps to choose from for Microsoft’s hallowed new platform.
In reality, the numbers game for app stores today is so much overwrought back-patting. Software evangelists for leading platforms such as Apple and Android burnish their numbers because they believe it helps keep the other platforms down. Of course, narrowing down the best ones for your Android phone is no easy task – but you can at least browse through the top 80 best Android apps on TechRadar to make things more simple.
Soon, the media will be bowing to the Windows Phone 7 altar, when laid upon it by this time next year, is a gold star for having reached 50,000 or more apps. Apple’s App Store, which launched in July 2008, reached 100,000 apps in November 2009; several months after it achieved 1.5 billion downloads.