First-order effects

• Developers choosing between platforms in early 2011 see a catalog that has grown more than tenfold in a year, narrowing the reach argument that favored the iPhone App Store.
• Apple and Google are now locked in a public counting contest where each store's total is challenged for padding — the metric itself is under audit by press and analysts.

Second-order effects

• Handset makers and carriers gain a marketing lever: catalog size becomes a standard line in Android device pitches against iPhone, forcing Apple to defend on curation and quality instead of volume.
• The rumor mill around 2011 — analysts predicting Android 'explodes' past iOS, and an expected hardware announcement driving handset prices down — feeds directly off catalog credibility, making app breadth part of the demand story.

Third-order effects

• If both stores keep inflating toward hundreds of thousands of titles, the industry will need new yardsticks — downloads, paid share, or per-user engagement — as raw app counts stop differentiating platforms.
• Store scale at this level shifts developer economics toward discovery: with six-figure catalogs, visibility inside the market rather than market access becomes the scarce resource for small shops.