App Store has 5X more apps than Android
Say what you like about Apple’s often unknowable rules governing app approval and removal, and the arbitrary way they’re applied — it’s still the winning formula and the iPhone the platform to beat. Further, look for the number of apps to surge after the iPad ships.
Using data culled from AppShopper.com and the companies concerned, Silicon Alley Insider has put together this handsome table that starkly shows just how dominate Apple is in the smartphone app space.
As you can see from the above, Apple currently has about 170,000 apps available versus its closest competitor, Google Android, which offers around 30,000 apps. Both Research In Motion (5,000) and Palm (2,000) barely qualify for also ran status in this race.
Of course, Microsoft, which has yet to ship a modern mobile operating system, will launch Window Phone 7 Series later this year with even fewer apps.
A patent smorgasbord
With Palm’s turnaround in tatters and RIM sliding toward oblivion, the question of who will claim the carcasses (i.e. their patent portfolios) looms large for the one dominant and one insurgent competitor. Apple certainly has the cash to take both, but that would likely raise the hackles of federal antitrust regulators.
Which do think Apple will claim?
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March 21st, 2010
Apple may have 170K apps, but how many of these are a waste of time? Probably less than 2% are useful. Quality is more important than quantity
March 22nd, 2010
Apply the same rule of thumb to the other app stores and Apple’s still way, way, way ahead.
March 22nd, 2010
I agree with Mux, I have an iPod, and the app store is garbage. Out of the 170K apps they have most are junk. I’d say honestly 8 of 10 apps are completely useless wastes of time. The only thing that saves them is the (usually) $0.99 price tag. I have been dissappointed too many times in the past to waste more than a dollar on their garbage apps.
March 22nd, 2010
the apple app store has also been around the longest. how about the fact that the androind app store has increased content by 610% vs apples increase of 340% over the same time period. give it time and the android app environment may well overtake apples, primarily because it offers a cut of the fees of paid apps to the carriers, unlike apple which keeps all of its share, so there is more of an incentive to carriers to increase the market share of android.