Google, one of the biggest player in the smart phone market has been putting its money on the Android Operating system, betting big on the future of smart Mobiles. IOS has been the biggest challenger and is growing faster with quality apps & games, but the biggest question is can Apple maintain its lead in the App store business. With the newer versions of the Android platform released frequently with better features, one can easily upgrade android versions quickly and experience better usability. Back in 2009 Google first released 1.5 Cupcake , supporting 3 API levels , now after 3 years in 2012 Google has launched a faster , better operating system version 4.1.x Jelly Bean with 16 API levels (a list of OS versions can be viewed at Wikipedia ) . The user experience of using the Android phones have been superb with quality features and excellent hardware from Samsung, LG,Sony, HTC, Motorola and other manufacturers relying on the Open source platform to build their niche.
Apps have been the key to Androids growth. With a robust developer network, android market is growing faster . According to the latest stats release by Google, its Google Play android apps market place has clocked 25 Billion downloads with 675,000 apps available currently and growing, that’s an impressive number. With this current growth, it will soon surpass the Apple App Store.
It is a very close battle between Google and Apple in terms of apps available in the market place and user downloads. So far the stats released have shown that Apple’s App Store leads in terms of paid applications. A study released in 2011 found that Apple’s platform pocketed 90 % of all dollars spent on apps for mobile devices. But this number will soon change in favor of Google, its just a matter of time.
Most popular Android market categories
Entertainment is the hottest category in the android market. The total number of apps, free apps and paid apps per Android market category is shown below:
AppBrain has provided some excellent stats in the form of a chart above. The usage of apps and games is going to grow in coming months and will largely depend on the experience provided by the Upgraded Android Operating Systems in the future.
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