Google celebrates as Android hits 25 billion downloads

Re: Spitting distance is right!

My prediction is that once Android app numbers have overtaken Iphone, the media will stop making a noise about this as if it was the Most Important Thing Ever.

Or alternatively, they'll switch to something else - such as including numbers of songs and films, and The Reg has now done.

Application download site numbers are pointless - on non-Iphone platforms, you're not restricted to the one site anyway (does Windows have no software, because there isn't an "app store"?), plus who cares about raw numbers, it doesn't tell you about the quality. Most "apps" seem to be pointless website wrappers, and why does it matter if there are 20 apps to do the same thing, instead of 19? I've also got to laugh that for years Apple users were saying it doesn't matter that Windows had more software - even though the issue there was that Mac OS did lack particular applications, and no one simply went on about raw numbers.

Numbers of songs, films etc is even more pointless. If I want to download a song, I can do it from loads of sites - it doesn't affect my choice of platform. I wouldn't want to download onto my phone via a mobile network anyway - I'd much rather download to my computer, and then have it available for all my devices.

Re: ...but how many of those downloads got erased seconds after trying the app?

Exactly the same as the iOS one, then.

Although some of the utter crap iOS Apps are made by Apple (Podcast, Maps...) while I've yet to see a crap Google application.

Apple claim to 'curate' the iOS store, but they don't do any kind of filtering for quality - they may have done so in the past (I recall having to send them a video of the application working) but they don't anymore.

Possibly this changed when they decided to go for quantity, as that's much easier to brag about.

It's really easy to 'write' and publish an Android or iOS application, so of course most of them are rubbish.

Re: ...but how many of those downloads got erased seconds after trying the app?

You can often recognize the rubbish by what permissions it asks for:- make phone calls and send messages, wants to know your precise location, etc.

Re: ...but how many of those downloads got erased seconds after trying the app?

One thing I don't like on Android is the large amount of ad-ware. Fair enough if people want to make money, but at least be honest about it - most of these don't mention it (though you can sometimes tell, if an app requires network connection, when there's no reason it should). (And it's not just a dislike of ads - already a problem if you have limited screen size on a mobile device - there's also issues such as wasting battery life.)

This includes really trivial applications like for a torch. Thing is, I'd happily write a free and ad-free app myself to do the job. But the sad thing is, no one would know about it - the already established apps would be at the top of the search results, and since they don't admit to having ads, no one would be aware of the advantage of my ad-free version.

It doesn't help that there's very limited search tools - only a choice of "paid" or "free". Thankfully with Android you're not limited to Google's site - so sites like F Droid are useful, for open source Android software.

Android may have more applications than Symbian which I used previously, though in practice it was easier finding something ad-free for Symbian. My point isn't to criticise Android - it's just another example of how raw application numbers is not a useful metric.

Re: That's nice for Google

So you're saying if I get an Android I'll spend less on apps?

Re: That's nice for Google

Circa 350m iDevices in circulation, 25 billion downloads = average 70 downloads per phone. Similar numbers for the Android camp (avergae 50 or so downloads per device).

I don't believe the average user has downloaded 70 or even 50 apps, so I'm guessing that both parties are referring to apps and content. Content generally is paid, apps, well, not very often.

Re: That's nice for Google

... could also ask how much Apple and Google have 'earned' - I've read Apple takes 30% but not seen what/ whether Google commission is...

I was annoyed at myself for letting the typos slip past me in that comment, then I noted that there's also a typo in one of the tags for this article. Nice to have company! :)

lucky s*d

Time we switched to NZD for paying Google...

Relative to UK others paid (approx)

US 16p, Eire / EU 20p, NZ 13p

Re: Hmmm revenues?

Right, that's why everyone was getting so pissy further up the thread, there's fuck all money to be made in the Android store. I mean sheeple have more cash than sense, obv...

Re: Hmmm revenues?

Who cares? Also note that the article says "top apps", which tells us little about how things are for the average developer.

As a user, a platform is better if there's more stuff available for free. That's a good thing about Windows, tonnes of free software - much better than 15 years ago when even simple stuff was crippled shareware. It's what happens when a market matures and becomes mainstream - more software available for free.

And as a developer, why limit yourself to just those two? Stats also show Nokia Store doing better than Google Play, or in some cases better than Apple too. Indeed my own experience is that I get a staggering *one hundred times* as many downloads on Nokia Store than on Google Play. In fact, I even get more downloads for Windows on my website than for Google Play. I think it's a combination of there being still a massive userbase (Symbian number one platform until 2011, and still outselling Apple after that), but less competition in terms of numbers of applications.