Android Market Hits 10 Billion Downloads, Games Dominate 178
New submitter sandeepabhat tips news that Android Market recently saw its 10 billionth app download, reaching the milestone less than a year after the App Store accomplished the same feat. New downloads through Android Market are proceeding at a rate of roughly 1 billion per month. Google has now created an infographic to break down the information further. Games outpace any other type of app, accounting for more than a quarter of all downloads. The top five countries in downloads-per-capita are South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the U.S., and Singapore.
10 cent downloads for 10 days (Score:5, Informative)
Just in case anyone hasn't noticed, Google are celebrating by making selected apps are available for 10 cents for the next few days (it started a few days ago so there's something like 7 days to go).
The selection changes each day so it's worth having a look. I picked up Toki Tori today.
Re:Paid Vs. Free? (Score:5, Informative)
This also means that people of course download way more apps too.
Re:Paid Vs. Free? (Score:4, Informative)
Um... you were doing great until you hit the piracy part. That isn't why apps are less expensive on Android. The issue is that Android's market (small m market) are competitive because there are multiple ways consumers can buy (Google, Amazon, etc)
Re:Paid Vs. Free? (Score:5, Informative)
Mobile developers quickly learned that piracy on Android is much larger problem than on iPhone and that they couldn't just sell their software.
This certainly isn't true for me. I used to pirate all kinds of apps for Windows Mobile and for PC, but with Android it's easier to pay 99 cents for an app and get perpetual updates than to bother trying to pirate an app and keep it updated. Kind of like STEAM. I've bought a lot of apps already and I plan to buy almost all of the apps that are going on sale for 10 cents this week.
Re:Knew it (Score:3, Informative)
Breakdown of my iPhone usage (I was a holdout until 18 months ago):
25% Googling for things I'm wondering about when chatting with friends / to resolve a disagreement / to make sure I'm not telling my daughter untruths
25% Facebook/Sickipedia when I've got 5 minutes to kill; general surfing
15% Calculator/Wolfram Alpha when reading, accounting, doing bills, etc.
15% Dilbert, xkcd, news with the morning smoke
10% Texting, emails
5% Taking photos/vidoes when out and about
4% Miscellanous (Shazam, DSL diagnostics, route calculation, local "what's on")
1% Games
My computer is now exclusively for doing long emails and coding, and possibly a bit of Amazon or reading a long online piece. My games console is for gaming. My "phone" is for everything else, because I always have it with me and it can "always" connect to the internet.
Get one. You won't miss your flip phone.
Re:Paid Vs. Free? (Score:2, Informative)
It's called common sense. You get apps for a large price that you find on the iphone as well, then you find some apps that do the exact same thing cheaper, and you can find again other apps that do the very same thing but for free, sponsored by ads or something else. Why would I buy some app when I can get it for free, or so cheap I can buy dozens more instead of just a very expensive one.
The fact that there are so many price ranges, business models and markets, speaks in Android's favour. That's competition for you, the user wins.
Re:Paid Vs. Free? (Score:2, Informative)
OK, how about this [androidcommunity.com], or this this [mobilemark...gazine.com].
From that last one,
Re:Paid Vs. Free? (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody mentions Amazon's AppStore? If you can sideload it works just like Google's Market except they have more stuff that you can pay for to get rid of the adds so a developer is not tied down completely to the Android Market.
Only useful for US Residents. The Amazon Appstore doesnt work outside the States.