According to numbers from AndroLib, the Android Market Place now has over 10,000 applications in it. While this is not that big of a number compared to how many are in the iPhone App Store, TechCrunch was able to conclude that the Market Place has quadrupled in size in the past few months.
Why is Android growing? I can think of two factors. The first is that there are more and more Android devices coming out all the time these days. It seems we can’t go a week without seeing some new Android gear, and these devices are often intended for sectors of the market that don’t have Android gadgets yet. For example, last week we had news of the first pay-as-you-go Android phone and the first CDMA Android phone. New territory means new customers, and new customers means platform growth. As the platform grows, developers realize that there is a larger and larger base of consumers which will be able to go out and buy their products. This creates a positive feedback loop: more Android programs means people will find Android a more desirable platform, which leads to more people on Android, which in turn leads to more development.
Factor two is merely that Android is a more attractive development platform than iPhone or the other mobile operating systems. In addition to having a somewhat sizable userbase, developers don’t have a whole mess of restrictions placed on them. There’s no approval process to reject applications. Sure, Google won’t allow everything onto the Market Place, but developers don’t just have to rely on the Market Place; they can get their programs out there through other channels. Even though it hurts to not be one of the ten thousand apps that Google has given the green light, it doesn’t kill all prospects of profiting from one’s labor.
