We all watched Steve Jobs boasting about the 185,000 apps in the App Store yesterday. And while 185K is a huge and potentially intimidating number, it's not entirely out of reach. Last time we checked in on the topic, Google acknowledged that the Android Market had reached 30K apps, while AndroLib was calling it at around 35K.
If you recall, back in December of 2009, Android Market had reached about 16K apps, quickly doubling to 30K by March. Now, as data has been compiled to represent March statistics, we can see that 9,330 apps were submitted. If you're keeping track, it represents a 68% increase over the 5,332 new apps submitted in February - a "58.5% increase in the number of available applications as a whole," according to BGR.
There seems to be some controversy over whether such a rapid rate of growth in the Android Market is a good thing. As the number of apps increases, things like duplicates, junk, and porn apps also increase, unnecessarily inundating the market. Apple saw this happening and underwent a massive overhaul, banning over 5,000 apps, and more stringently regulating the application approval process. In any case, if the 9,330 apps submitted in March are an indication of developers' excitement about Android, I think it's safe to say that - along with the line-up of super phones expected this summer - Android's future is continuing to look bright.
Anyone care to guess when Android Market will hit 50k apps? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments!
Via BGR
