850k a day?

[twowheelz]

To ring in the first day of Mobile World Congress, Google revealed some new statistics about how far its Android mobile operating system has come. Close to a million Android devices are activated every day, the company says, and there are now 450,000 apps in the Android Market.

The news comes straight from Google’s head of Android, Andy Rubin, who posted the stats on the Google Mobile Blog this morning. With 850,000 devices activated daily, Android is already 150,000 devices above the count from December, and the number represents year-over-year growth of 250%, according to the post. The estimated total of android devices in the world is now a staggering 300 million, Rubin says.

About a year ago Google had just 150,000 apps in the Android Market, but today it says there are 450,000. That’s impressive growth, but the platform still hasn’t caught up with Apple, whose iOS App Store boasts 550,000 apps officially, though some estimates go as high as 725,000. However, Android is clearly miles ahead of other rivals like Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace (65,000) or BlackBerry App World (60,000).

Although the official count of Android apps is high, it bears reminding that Google counts wallpapers and “lite” versions of apps as separate apps. Microsoft, for one, says it doesn’t count such apps when tallying its count for its Windows Phone Marketplace.

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[johnny cizzle]

sounds like the writer of that article was trying to down android when they deserve credit. what else is new.

[claudermilk]

When both are within 50k of a half-MILLION apps available does it really matter any more? I have found several options for any task I've looked for. At this point it's now just "mine's bigger than yours, neener, neener"