Android To Surpass Apple’s App Store In Size By August

http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/05/android-to-surpass-apples-app-store-in-size-in-august-2011-report-exclusive/

by ssclafani • 15 years ago

23 21 15 years ago

nsfmc• 15 years ago

Arguably, the most valuable portion of the article:

    Evidently, there’s always the question whether this matters at
    all. After all, the bulk of applications that are available for
    both platforms don’t see much traction anyway, so how relevant 
    it is whether there are 100,000 apps or 200,000 apps that are 
    rarely, if ever, downloaded by anyone?

daniel_solano• 15 years ago

Quite true; what good are 100,000 choices if none of them solve my problem?

A second problem: 50 apps look like they might solve my problem, but how do I know which suits me the best?

joebadmo• 15 years ago

Yes, and you would think that Google of all companies would be uniquely suited to solving the second problem, but it hasn't, inexplicably, at least not yet.

stringbot2• 15 years ago

In other news, Wal-Mart stocks a lot more clothes than Armani Exchange.

sudont• 15 years ago

Haven't we gone past that analogy yet? Apple isn't always high-end, Android isn't always utilitarian for the masses.

If anything, it's two competing bazaars. Apple's just been able to attract more artists to sell in theirs.

ddagradi2• 15 years ago

It's more than that though. Apple attracts more customers that are more willing to spend money on their platform. In doing so, they attract more high quality applications and developers that can make a living off of that ecosystem. Android is doing that as well, but more slowly, in no small part due to the difficulty people often face with the Android Marketplace.

aditya42• 15 years ago

How do you define high end? Because to me, and people in general out there, Apple is (always) high end in the sense that they're about as high quality as you can get as far as these kind of devices go. They don't charge "high-end" prices for some of their devices, but price isn't the metric you judge something to be high end or not.

Of course, if high end for you means diamond studded or gold plated, then we have a different case here.

stringbot2• 15 years ago

It's not actually that there are more artists, it's that the Apple bazaar has attracted customers who are willing to pay money for the art.

frou_dh• 15 years ago

They do cost a lot, but my Armani fart and flashlight apps are simply divine.

watty• 15 years ago

I didn't know Wal-Mart sold the same brands as Armani Exchange. Seems like a good deal to me...

tomelders• 15 years ago

It feels like a useless metric to me. Would knowing the number of websites on the web tell you anything useful about the web? Beyond a certain point it's just a lot of noise and I personally think both app stores would be better with a lot less apps.

peteretep• 15 years ago

I feel like I've seen a lot of metrics about how Android /will/ be the platform of choice, and little that suggests the vast majority of consumers buy Android phones for anything other than price reasons.

jnhnum1• 15 years ago

There was a study a while back that said that Android is now the most desired platform: http://www.androidcentral.com/nielsen-android-americas-most-...

I don't believe that in that study "desired" was supposed to be inclusive of price.

huxley2• 15 years ago

It wasn't a real study, it was some sort of survey done by The Nielsen Company (the ones who measure TV viewership):

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/u-s-smartp...

It doesn't describe the selection method, the numbers of interviewees or even the margin of error. And the "desirability difference" is 1%.

ZeroGravitas• 15 years ago

I believe "desired" in that report means intends to purchase in the next 12 months. So devices that are priced to sell would have an advantage. Whether that's an unfair advantage is a bit of a philosophical conundrum, particularly as people might "desire" something more if it's less attainable.

It reminds me of the TED talk by Benjamin Wallace where he sought out ridiculously expensive steak, champagne, jeans etc. to see if they were worth the price:

http://www.ted.com/talks/benjamin_wallace_on_the_price_of_ha...

ddagradi2• 15 years ago

"Desired" doesn't say anything more than "plan to purchase" in that article, which doesn't immediately include or exclude price (though it's clearly important to purchasing plans).

On the flip side, when given a choice without considering purchasing and the burden of a contract, this is an interesting microcosm: http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/04/07/clorox.shows.s...

protomyth• 15 years ago

Local information......

Now that Verizon has the iPhone, the people I talk to locally (quite a lot actually) are only getting Android (which going with Verizon's ads they only know as Droid) if they cannot afford the iPhone, are not a Blackberry user, or don't want the free LG / Samsung feature phones. I suspect the last category would disappear if Verizon had the $49 iPhone 3GS.

The Blackberry people (sure are a lot here) seem to be going iPhone if work isn't buying at about 50% rate.

guscost• 15 years ago

Meanwhile, true low-latency audio is still not possible on Android. Anyone developing precisely-timed musical tools and games (like myself) will be forced to stick with iOS, and there still isn't a single decent synthesizer for my Droid.

ry0ohki• 15 years ago

I'm honestly surprised it took this long. Considering anyone can submit "Hello World" to the Android store in 1 minute by getting a $25 dev account, and the Apple approval process is an exercise in bureaucracy....

Android To Surpass Apple’s App Store In Size By August

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