• 500,000 iOS apps in the App Store and Counting


    The App Store has apparently crossed 500,000 app approvals in two years and ten months since its inception. The news came from Chomp, 148apps and EA-owned games publisher Chillingo. They posted an awesome infographic which you can see below. According to Fortune’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt:

    Sometime after midnight Tuesday morning,  the iTunes team pushed through a batch of app submissions that sent the total over a six-figure milestone. In 34 months, Apple has approved more than 500,000 iPhone, iPad and iPod touch apps for the company’s U.S. store. (Through attrition, replacement and withdrawal, number of apps currently available for download is 20% lower, around 400,000.)

    To celebrate the event, three app-related companies — mobile app blog 148apps, search company Chomp and game developer Chillingo — have issued a jumbo-sized infographic, a portion of which is reproduced above. The fact-packed poster includes a timeline, loads of factoids and a best-seller list topped by Angry Birds, which spent 275 days in the No. 1 spot.

    As of January, more than 10 billion apps had been downloaded from Apple’s App Store. Its closest competitor, the Google Android Marketplace, launched 8 months later, currently boasts 294,000 apps and 3 billion app downloads.

  • Android 3.0 Honeycomb Apps List is Only 17


    While introducing iPad 2 last month, Apple’s chief executive Steve Jobs described the competitive market for tablet apps on Google’s Android 3.0 Honeycomb as having “at most 100 apps.” The actual Android catalog appears to be closer to 17. as noted by Appleinsider.

    Jobs noted that the iOS App Store now has over 350,000 titles, of which 65,000 “take full advantage of the iPad,” drawing attention to “consumption apps, creation apps and fantastic games, and a lot of apps for business and vertical markets apps like medical. The things people are doing here are amazing,” Jobs said.

    “That compares to our competitors, who are trying to launch these days with at most 100 apps. And I think we’re being a little generous here. This is a huge advantage we have,” Jobs added.

    A review of Google’s Android Marketplace tablet offerings “featured for tablets” depicts just 50 apps, but as blogger Justin Williams notes, “most are upconverted and offer no significant advantages on a tablet other than a larger screen.”

    Looking only at apps that either require Android 3.0 or have a user interface “specifically designed for a tablet experience,” Williams counted only 17.