At its iPhone 5 event in September Apple let loose with a nice round number, 700,000. As in “700,000 apps available in the App Store.” Now Google has a phrase they’d like you to hear, “dead even.” As in “We now have 700,000 Android apps available in the Google Play Store, so we’re dead even.”
There are now 700,000 apps available for download on Google’s Android operating system, a company spokesperson confirmed to AllThingsD. That’s 25,000 more than it offered just a month ago, and enough to tie Apple for bragging rights on “world’s biggest app ecosystem.” So, one more point of differentiation gone between the two fiercest competitors in the mobile device space, and an ever-widening crevasse separating them from stragglers like Research In Motion, Microsoft and Nokia.
So, less than a month after Apple announced their milestone, Google matches it. Of course, in the month between the announcements the number of apps in the App Store has only grown from that 700,000 number, so Android isn’t quite dead even with iOS. But, it’s clear that developers are interested in developing for the Android platform, and they apparently believe there are dollars to be tapped in that market.
Android still lacks any great number of tablet enhanced apps, but maybe the new Nexus 10 will help remedy that. Who knows, maybe by this time next year, Android tablet app figures will be pulling up alongside the iOS tablet app numbers. I love a horse race!
