By A few weeks back the folks over at AndroLib made the bold claim that the Android Market could be sitting at 100,000 apps by the end of July. I say bold because the last official number was quoted at 60,000 applications. Based on their statistics they felt that growth in the realm of 40,000 apps was not unlikely. Well the end of July is bearing down on us and the unofficial numbers are in. According to AndroLib the market is now up to 100,000 submitted apps.
Now, emphasis on the word ‘submitted.’ The actual number of apps the market plays host to currently sits at 83,000. Again, these number are in no way confirmed by Google. If they are true, we are sure the technology giant behind Android will be quick to tout this new number in front of all that mocked the measly 20,000 apps for Android a little over half a year ago. Official or not, if the numbers stick it is a momentous occasion for Android. My head spins thinking of the voluminous number of apps that may be available in a few months if growth continues at this rate.
[via Android Community]
Of course soon it will be like Iphone with 100 different farting apps.
Someone should do a study and see how many apps are actually useful, high quality apps. My bet is about 5%
Isn’t it already like that?
Whenever you look at the most recent apps in the market it’s porn and mostly junk. Kind of depressing.
I think once the dev app comes out it will take off. I have had ideas I want to do, but with no formal programming skills it is rough. I know some of the language and Eclipse, but for to develop a location based app, it would be impossible. I think once they get an easy way for the common man to do an app, the market will erupt with good (and some crap) apps
At the moment AppDev will have no impact on the market, because currently apps created with it are not able to be published to the Market.
Now if they could only add a search filter so I could search new apps without digging through a mountain of soundboards, tip calculators or scantly clad girls.
Frankly I don’t think the future of android is in mobile apps. As we move towards cloud computing , I feel like web based applications are the way to go. They are already working on it by making browser more capable, so it can make use of the camera and gps. This whole idea of get rick quick apps came about when a bunch of devs make a lot of money on apple’s iOS. But unlike apple, google is still mainly an internet services company and web apps is what it should focus on. Most of the good apps on Android (voice, maps, nav. etc) are made by google anyway. Other devs can benefit from this too, since web apps will be platform agnostic.
@Isthmus
Considering there are already so many ways to do this (AppBrain etc), how much is this really affecting you?
the future is HTML5!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfmbZkqORX4
oh wait, it’s not.
Out of 83,000 only about 3500 are useful, unless you need fart jokes and 15000 wallpaper apps and most people only use 5 to 6 apps on there phone, this is true. those apps that are just enhanced websites will meet there doom with HTML5 or ADOBE hits the market for Android. @mrmojoz – IfAppBrain sorts them out then thanks for the HEADS UP! because searching thru the market sucks BIG NUTS!!!! THat has to be controlled like searches on google.
5-6 apps? I count at least 21 on my screens that I use multiple times a day. While I agree that probably half the apps are not useful, I don’t think you are giving enough credit
They will tout them at Q3 earnings report, and again at Android 3.0 launch, together with how many phones the shipped.
Both should be very impressive numbers. Androd might reach 400,000 units activated per day by the end of the year. This is because of Samsung entering the market, later Dell and LG (high end this time), and of course the new Motorola and HTC phones. And let’s not forget all the tablets launching soon.
apps that are *just* enhanced websites are stupid but we want more widgets and notifications
The more junk apps it gets, the harder it will be to find a decent app.
Maybe that’s why the PC doesn’t have a centralized app market.
I just signed on to Market and just in and had to go all the way to number 8 before I saw one that read ‘Pretty Girls’. Then it was another 17 before I got to ‘Japanese Lady’s’ and after that it was downhill with the porn sites and I mean several. Do that many people download these apps? I myself have many useful apps and they are note porn
I agree with ari-free. Widgets are the way to go. For one, it separates Android from Apple and the iPhone (there’s an app for that.) Widgets are much more useful and easy to use. Cloud computing is also going to be huge as time goes by. There also should be some sort of oversight to prevent malicious apps from being pervasive, as has happened a couple of times already. Though I am not lobbying for anyone to approve/disapprove based on their like, more just on the validity of the app and it’s security. There also needs to be a better way to purchase paid apps. Since I am logged into my Google account anyway, why not have my paypal, or other payment method on file with a secondary password for security. A clearing house to act as an intermediary.
Where are the quality apps?
Those numbers are bollocks! I just want 5.000 top notch apps and I’ll be done.
By the year end there will be 1 million android phones activated per day. I think you guys are only looking at high-end releases, you are forgetting players like Huawei, ZTE, Acer who are churning out huge number of android phones. And by year-end, you are going to have Mediatek phones. Mediatek chips powered phone sell around 100 million plus per year as of now. These are major players. Android is going to explode.
and 95% of those apps are quite useless. Most of them are soundboards, wallpapers for hot/sexy Asian girls, half-broken-crappy apps.
I think google needs to step in and remove the following apps:
– crappy apps like the ones we’ve mentioned before
– apps that are broken and are not being updated/supported constantly by the app developer
– apps with very low rating
– apps with low download rate for a long time
first, numbers matter no one touts that the iphone has 1 million (or whatever fatuous number being flouted) quality apps.
second, remove apps with low download rate, will remove quality apps that are only for minority of users.
third, apps with low ratings are not necessarily deserving of these ratings but are sometimes advanced apps being used by naive users.
Granted I feel we need a decent filtering system, like appbrain, but in the short term its numbers of apps that will push the platforms popularity
I find it more productive to have idea what I want my phone to do and just go find an app that can do that. It worked well for the iPhone and seems to be working well for my Android phone. As someone mentioned before Appbrain kicks butt for finding and backing up your apps. I am on my second Android phone and used it to get all my apps back within a few minutes. Check out appbrain.com if you like to get a feel for it.