Comparing Android Market to the Apple App Store

I’ll begin this article with full disclosure over the fact that I have only used the Android Market, and not any of the others.I remember when deciding on a new phone to replace not only my cellphone but my long time use of Palm equipment.  I was going to step into the Smartphone ring.  I debated heavily about the new webOS that had come out as I was quite familiar with Palm.

I’ve had a few friends use the Apple OS, but I had never been a real fan of how it worked, but I was willing to hear them out.  To date the only argument they have been able to come out with has been “it has an app for everything”  To me that’s about as lame as an excuse ot say that a car has more cupholders.

I don’t know the number of “apps” I could have accessed in the old Palm OS (speaking of which – any suggestions on what to do with a TX?), but I clearly had enough for my everyday usage.  I had a device from the line for over a decade.  Is there some critical mass number, that once the number of apps surpasses it that the rest are just fart apps?

As it currently stands the Android Market is over X apps – and here’s how that stacks up…

From: GSM Arena

What I notice is a giant app store for iOS and then a decent size for Android, then teeny tiny options for the other guys.  Other guys – have we heard you holler and rant for “we need this app!”?

Not once have I gone over to a friend who had an iOS device and say “dang, I wish my Android could get an app like that”.  More often, the conversation continues thusly:  “oh, that’s just like this app here”.  And is usually followed by me saying “oh, and I got it for free”.

So… apps as the great equalizer?  No. What is it that makes one phone superior to others?  And what apps are essential to the experience of using a smartphone?

That’s something I’d like to tackle in future issues.

But what makes for a good phone experience?  Is it having extensive apps?  Surely having NO apps is unfathomable, but having those few decent apps on a machine that is easy to use, integrates with what you have (one of the key features for me having a Palm in the old days was having a contact database that I can edit while I’m not at the PDA) on a machine that has the guts to perform on a daily basis is what’s needed.

What’s great about the Android system is that there’s the choice available.  If you want iOS, you have 1, maybe 2 choices (3Gs or 4G); if you want webOS there’s the Pre (old now by comparison) and the Pre2 only; want to shop Canadian and go with RIM – well there’s a lot there to choose from, but only a couple with some real hardware and for WP7 they’re only starting to get some traction with a couple models.  Now, Android – there’s a phone for every flavour.