Google Says 700,000 Applications Available for Android
Google Inc. (GOOG) said there are about 700,000 applications available for downloading onto mobile devices that run the Android operating system, challenging Apple Inc. (AAPL)'s lead in the race for software tools.
Context & Ripple Effects
The 700,000 figure is the latest step in a count Google has been publicizing for three years: roughly 16,000 apps at the end of 2009, over 200,000 by December 2010, and 400,000 by January 2012. Framed against the 500 million device activations Google reported in September 2012, the catalog number is the supply side of the same argument — that Android's scale now matches Apple's on software, not just shipments.
The story traveled widely on pickup day, with CNET, ZDNet, VentureBeat, SlashGear and others running it, which itself signals how closely the press tracks the app-count race as a proxy for platform standing against Apple.
First-order effects
- Google gains a headline talking point for the holiday selling season: an Android catalog at rough parity with Apple's App Store removes 'fewer apps' as the standard objection to recommending an Android phone.
- Developers building for both platforms now treat simultaneous iOS and Android releases as the default, since neither catalog can be dismissed as too small to matter.
Second-order effects
- With raw counts converging, competition between the stores shifts toward what the counts don't measure — tablet-optimized apps, where Apple's iPad lead remains the harder gap for Google to close with its Nexus 10 launch pending.
- App-discovery and merchandising inside Google Play becomes the differentiator: at 700,000 titles, ranking and featuring decisions carry more revenue weight than adding new inventory.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, platform competition settles into an ecosystem contest — devices, catalog, and services bundled — rather than a hardware-spec race, with store metrics becoming the recurring scoreboard both companies publish.
- The app-count arms race also invites scrutiny of how catalogs are counted, echoing Google's own 2009 walk-back of its Market numbers, and pushes the industry toward quality and monetization metrics as the next battleground.
The trend: Mobile platform rivalry is moving from device shipment counts to ecosystem-size claims, with Google and Apple publishing catalog milestones as the measure of who is winning developers and buyers.