Google's Android: The Next Biggest Player in Mobile Apps?
If the rate of app submission today is going to be the trend in the near future, Google's Android market will become the biggest mobile content platform by the end of 2011 according to mobile research specialist, research2guidance.
In the month of April, 28,000 new apps were submitted to the Android market as opposed to the 11,000 new apps submitted to Apple's App Store. This brought the Android app count to 295,000 where sixty-eight percent are free. iOs is still ahead though at 381,000 but at the current growth rate, expect the tide to turn come August when Android is predicted to overtake Apple at 425,000.
It's still a prediction however. Considering that Google has a fragmented platform with phones and tablets in different shapes, flavors and sizes, it will be a challenge for developers to create a complex app that would work in all Android devices. The various screen resolution is affecting the way an Android app behaves and it's hard for developers to look for a compromise to that so their app will be effective in whatever resolution an Android phone has. Compare that to iOS developers only having to deal with Apple's iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad lineup and you'll find it hard to believe that this trend will continue.
Still, being fragmented is not that bad as it allowed Android to gain a huge chunk of the smartphone market surpassing Apple. And with that, it doesn't matter if it's the best platform out there but it's now a question of which platform everyone else uses and that's where developers would eventually flock.
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