Android Market clears the 50,000 app mark, says AndroLib

Google has never been too inclined to give the world the straight dope on total app counts in the Android Market, but other companies -- notably AndroLib -- have been happy to try to pick up the slack. The app tracking site now reports a grand total of 50,031 approved binaries as of this writing, marking a pretty magical milestone in light of the Market's humble beginnings as a free-only cache of a handful of apps for the G1. To be fair, AndroLib is aggregating across all of the Market's regional sites -- you won't find 50,000 apps in any one Market alone -- but it's undoubtedly a solid sign for the platform. Now we just need a little Froyo to go with that, right?

[uwish2804 Posted Apr 23rd 2010 11:39PM]

i switched from the iphone 3g to the droid when it came out in november. i still have an ipod touch so ive been using apple's os for ipod/ipod touch since the release of the original iphone and ive used android since november 2009. yes, androids market had 50k apps and apple is at 180k. i dont really care about the number but the quality. yes there are some good android apps and i believe that the market will continue to impove but right now the android market's apps are sh!tty and the app store has many more great apps i like especially in the game department but right now apps store wins with android up and coming

[hyundaifanscom Posted Apr 23rd 2010 11:59PM]

Go Android!! Stick it to jobs!

[Uion1715 Posted Apr 24th 2010 12:03AM]

BTW, I saw a stat that stated 80% of Android apps are free compared to 20% of iPhone apps. So doing simple math, Android has 40,000 free apps compare to 37,000 free apps for iPhone. Apps for Android have to get better though.

[forHim247 Posted Apr 24th 2010 12:59AM]

It's over 9,000!!!!!!!

[onlymyrailgun Posted Apr 24th 2010 1:16AM]

Is that from all the bikini apps moving from the App Store to Android Market?

[egloskerry Posted Apr 24th 2010 1:39AM]

I see deja vu here:

MS vs. apple, 1970-2000. Apple makes both their hardware and their OS. MS makes the OS, and licenses it. Apple had a pretty good lead at the start. Look who won.

Google vs. apple, 2008-present. Apple makes both their hardware and their OS. Google makes the OS, and licenses it. Apple has a pretty good lead right now...

[beardoc Posted Apr 25th 2010 8:11AM]

@egloskerry Yes - the tight control of the platform gives them an early lead, but the licensing out allows Android to win in the end...

[namyboyz44 Posted Apr 24th 2010 2:02AM]

I like Android but the games are crap! Start using that snap dragon common!!! Even the Palm Pre has better games!

[big nazty Posted Apr 24th 2010 2:28AM]

you want to see revenue of what? microsoft has nothing to due with android.... even if you combine mobile and computers together microsoft still nabs apple with plenty to dish it times some more.... im not a fan boy but thats a fact... android has most of its success because it doesnt have a dictator dictating what can go on the platform and what cant.... i e ex.... apps and FLASH.....

[big nazty Posted Apr 24th 2010 2:31AM]

to all you apple users this conversation has failed from you since the get go because at least i can MULTI TASK my 50,000 Aps lol

[jellotime91 Posted Apr 24th 2010 2:38AM]

Am I wrong or did their growth slow down? Didn't they go from 10 to 40k in just a few months, like, 3 months ago? I think it might be plateuing. Nothing against android, but iPhone is where the money is for developers, so obviously there is more interest and quality applications. It's the truth, don't hate me because you don't like it. :/

[jellotime91 Posted Apr 24th 2010 2:44AM]

This isn't really that impressive of a figure when you consider that the approval process is basically non-existant, and developing for the platform is completely free. These are good things, but there's an obvious reason why it was able to reach this number. If Android charged even as low as $20 for a developer license, and had an approval process, they'd have far less apps.

[etwashoo2 Posted Apr 24th 2010 4:34AM]

@jellotime91

Time will tell...but based on that graph, I wouldn't underestimate the head of steam Android has.

[funkyboss Posted Apr 24th 2010 5:43AM]

@jellotime91

Google charges a $25 registration fee to publish apps in the Android Market.

[bluefisch200 Posted Apr 24th 2010 5:29AM]

Boah..."i have 50k apps", "yes but i have 150k apps", "oh cool and i have 20k apps"....and how much do the users really need? 10-30...and not more...

[zakany Posted Apr 24th 2010 11:59AM]

@bluefisch200

I have a couple hundred on my phone. But yeah, once you pass the five-thousand mark, you pretty much have all the good apps accounted for.

[Geozec Posted Apr 24th 2010 6:12AM]

Sounds good but as a new Desire owner I can only say I'd wish it only had 1.000 apps but really good ones. The quality of most I've tried is not so great. I can't compare it with the Apple store as I've never used an IP but maybe there should be some quality control after all.

[willengage Posted Apr 24th 2010 8:19AM]

Wow! Soon there will be more apps for Android than there are users.

[iLikePickles Posted Apr 24th 2010 8:26AM]

Thats allot of fart apps...

[GmanC Posted Apr 24th 2010 12:39PM]

@iLikePickles
More like soundboards and porn apps

[exsonic Posted Apr 24th 2010 12:42PM]

'cause most of those apps are ported from IPhone................... not original

[tomer Posted Apr 24th 2010 3:44PM]

@iucidium Although I think this its great that there are these many apps (can't wait to try them on my new HTC desire i'm getting next week!) from everything I've read the profitability of Android vs Apple apps is almost non-comparable. Apple apps tend to make a lot more than android's

[Gohawk09 Posted Apr 24th 2010 4:06PM]

any yet my droid eris is still the ancient 1.5 firmware. bummer...

[c4rlob Posted Apr 24th 2010 4:40PM]

While I respect Android's steep adoption curve. Don't be so blind to overlook that number of downloads is a far more important statistic...
I don't care if you have 1 Billion apps on your store, if only a fraction are being downloaded, it's just a growing bubble waiting to pop.
The Android curve is bound to be steeper than Apple's at first considering most Andorid apps are merely piggy-backing off of iPhone apps that took a good year to mature without the luxury of a pre-existing model to mimic.

[doaphone Posted Apr 24th 2010 6:15PM]

First comment EVER @Engadget

[Shark Tek Posted Apr 24th 2010 11:32PM]

Who cares who have more market share. I only know that apple is a few millions away from MS in market capital. That says a lot of how successful they are.

[ClothoBuer6293 Posted Apr 25th 2010 1:09AM]

What happened to the good old days when off-topic comments were deleted?

[kyphem Posted Apr 25th 2010 3:15AM]

Congrats Android! Maybe In a few years time when you grow up, I will make a switch. I like where its going.

[TechBlogger Posted Apr 25th 2010 11:55AM]

It's already more apps than I ever need. But keep it coming Android