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Windows Phone 7 Marketplace and Android Market take off

By | December 29, 2010, 6:00am PST

Summary: The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace is taking off with a total app count around 5,000 just about 2 months since the devices were rolled out. The Android Market is also taking off.

Last week I posted about the obvious success of the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace and now I see the Bing Visual Search page is limiting the view of apps to a maximum of 3,000 for some reason. According to the Marketplace Browser, there are over 5,138 apps for Windows Phone 7. And according to AndroLib.com there are now over 200,000 Android apps in the Android Market.

Windows Phone 7

The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace is growing faster than any other app store has to date and it looks like the major Microsoft developer initiative is paying off. I know that my SIM has been living in my T-Mobile HD7 and I am liking the device more every single day thanks in large part to the available applications. Wednesdays are Windows Live days and today we saw the release of the Revolution and Rise of Glory games for just $2.99 each. I played the trial of both and subsequently purchased both. Revolution is a cool gears puzzle game that I found instantly addicting and Rise of Glory is a fun flight simulator/dogfighting aerial combat game, both very high quality.

I also found that the popular ShopSavvy application that was one of the first I installed on my Android devices is now available in the WP7 Marketplace. One of the weaknesses of Windows Phone 7’s Zune integration is the lack of podcast support from the handset so I was very pleased to find the Podcasts! app that lets you search, add favorites, and stream podcasts. Offline caching of podcasts would be a wonderful addition to make my HD7 even more useful. I think we will hear much more from Microsoft and developers next week at CES and am getting more and more impressed with Windows Phone 7.

What are your favorite Windows Phone 7 apps and what else should I try out?

Android

It seems like we have been talking about Android as having 100,000+ apps for quite some time, as compared to the 300,000+ iOS apps. We now hear from some sources (Google hasn’t made an official statement yet) that there are about 200,000 Android apps. I know I discover more each day on my Samsung Galaxy Tab, thousands of which are available for free.

What are your favorite Android apps?

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Matthew Miller started using a Pilot 1000 in 1997 and has been writing news, reviews, and opinion pieces ever since.

Disclosure

Matthew Miller

Matthew is a professional naval architect by day and a mobile gadget freak at all other times. He purchases his own devices and then sells them on eBay or Craigslist to buy more. Many other devices are sent for review on a 30-day loaner basis and then returned to the carrier or manufacturer. If any are provided as “long term loaner units” this will be clearly disclosed in his reviews.

Biography

Matthew Miller

Matthew Miller started using a mobile devices in 1997 and has been writing news, reviews, and opinion pieces ever since. He is a co-host with GigaOM's Kevin Tofel on the MobileTechRoundup podcast and an author of three Wiley Companion series books. Matthew started using mobile devices with a US Robotics Pilot 1000 and has owned over 125 different devices running Palm, Linux, Symbian, Newton, BlackBerry, iOS, Android, webOS, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone operating systems. His current collection includes an HTC Radar 4G, Dell Venue Pro, Apple iPad 2, HTC Flyer, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Nokia N9, Apple iPhone 4S, MacBook Pro, and many more, along with tons of accessories and classic devices like the Apple Newton MessagePad 2100 and Sony CLIE UX50. Matthew can be found on various discussion forums under the user name of "palmsolo".
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RE: Windows Phone 7 Marketplace and Android Market take off
tomlin21-24319035676893835085146735905770 11th Oct
I'm literally dissatisfied of stage of this the nfl jersey net internet site. I've by no means witnessed so horrible content material posts, complete not highly recommended!
It seems the more apps get released the harder it becomes to find good ones. sad

Android application marketplace isn't only apps so 200,000 is not the number of apps.
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50,000 of them
LiquidLearner 29th Dec 2010
@jhughesy

Are annoying sound boards and far generators. A few of them are fake AV. My daughter was nice enough to accidentally install that while playing a game.
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@jhughesy

Something I've been pointing out for some time now. How are things like widgets, wallpapers, ringtones and other junk that populates the Android "wild wild west" store considered apps?
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@jhughesy - It's harder to find good apps on Windows Phone 7 because the vast majority are hobbyist apps.

Most of the WP7 apps made by big companies were paid for by Microsoft. There is otherwise no profit on Windows Phone 7.

ZDNet's sister publication, TechRepublic said that most Windows Phone 7 apps are downloaded less than 10 times. That means there are very few WP7 handsets out there.

Windows Phone 7 has flopped.
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like Android - it sold 10 million handests in just SIXTY DAYS!!
@zndac

I think if you look at metrics, Microsoft probably would want the numbers to be higher of sales, as most business probably would.

However, having used used the Android platform on a few different phones, there really is no comparison when it comes to quality of use. Put the Windows phone side by side any Android phone and it simply blows it out of the water. I've let my friends and family play around with my phone and first, they want one, and second, Android/Windows is lost on them. They know it isn't an IPhone but when I say 'it's the new Window's phone' their eyes glaze over. What most users are concerned with is functionality. And quite simply, the Windows phone functions better.

I've never been an Apple guy so I can't compare it with the IPhone.
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MS refuses to release information on apps sales
Habiloso Updated - 29th Dec 2010
The author of this article has absolutely no idea. He bought a couple of games that he likes and extrapolates, from that, that WP7 is doing well. What an incredible leap of logic. Well, here are a couple of facts. MS won't be releasing any dividends to developers until Feb 2011. As well, MS is refusing to tell developers the number of times that their apps have been sold until Feb 2011. So, no-one except MS has any idea about how well or poorly apps are being sold. So, how does the author jump to a conclusion that the marketplace is growing faster than any other app store? Purely on the basis of the number of apps? Until MS releases sales figures in Feb 2011, we won't have any idea about how well WP7 is performing. And, the fact that MS won't release the figures can only be seen as a sign that sales are not as high as MS (and developers) would like them to be! I am not being anti- nor pro- MS. The issue quite simply is that sales figures etc will not be made available until Feb 2011 and until then no-one will know how well WP7 and its apps are performing.
@jhughesy

Love my WP7 HTC Mozart and so do my employees. It's the difference between an elegant tool and a toy. All the FUD cyber and Donnie and the others under the bridge keep providing doesn't matter - you just have to try one.

What should concern the trolls and have them stocking up on anti-depressants is to consider the .Net, XNA and Silverlight applications that will be ported to the WP7 - simply because you can. MS has the best software development system and the ability to target PC, Xbox and Wp7.

Perhaps you'd like to compare the number of Windows applications to fart and flashlight applications on Android and iPhone.

Of course, the actual measure is suspect. I've had wp7 for a month and have yet to purchase an app. Tried quite a few (mainly games) but the phone is so useful out of the box, that I haven't really felt the need to purrchase anything.

There are also some benefits from no custom ring tones (and you do have a huge choice to select from). No late nite ads and no children running up huge bills by "subscribing" to ring tones. Wanting a custom ring tone says more about you than it does utility wink
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All 12 of those fart apps
Bruizer 29th Dec 2010
@tonymcs@...

Your "toy" line is old, tired and simply a lie. My favorite "insight" of yours was when you predicted the iPhone could never sell more than 20,000,000 units per year. To think they do that every 3-4 months.

While WP7 actually looks like a good design, being rare from MS, the iPhone Android currently blows it out of the water for functionality.
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Too many choices
symbolset 29th Dec 2010
@jhughesy

Having choices is good. We like choosing. We especially like that many of the really good iPhone apps have Android equivalents.

And for the author of the article, why are so many articles bundling Windows Phone 7 with either iPhone or Android as if the two are both doing well? Look at the numbers. Windows Phone 7 might be relevant one day, but until then this nonsense is just silly.
Windows Phone KIN and Wp7 is the year's flops. They sell so bad that Microsoft refuses to show sales figures ...

Microsoft is desperate!!!

Show us the real numbers MS

R.I.P == Wp7
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@Sultansulan Exactly! And they also won't release payments to app developers not release information about the number of apps sold to their developers. They have to wait until Feb 2011. Sounds like desperation to me! The only info released so far is that 1.5m WP7 phones have been "sold", but that info is dodgy because it only applies to phones sold to retailers etc, not the actual number of phones sold to customers. Some articles suggest as few as 750,000 were sold in the first 6 weeks, but from that you need to subtract 90,000 bought by Ms and 30,000 by another company. That means that possibly as few as 600,000 to 650,000 WP7 phones were sold in the first 6 weeks, and there are something like 30 different devices. Samsung Bada phone/s sold 1million in only 4 weeks. It is quite normal for MS to crow about its supposed successes and the fact that they don't crow about WP7 and won't release useful information on sales, apps sold, income from apps and so forth is very telling . . . in a very negative way!
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ptorning
John Zern 30th Dec 2010
90,000 bought by Ms and 30,000 by another company

I know, that never happens with Apple or Android apps, does it?
Quite telling indeed.
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The more I read about WP7 the more I want to try one out. Here's to hoping they release WP7 phones during CES to the CDMA carriers.
@Loverock Davidson

I received a HD7 for Christmas and I love it. I previously was an Android user for a long time but I grew frustrated with the 'new' software updates that I wasn't getting. Plus, my phone was sluggish in its response.

I hate to sound like an Apple fanboi, but the HD7 'just works'. It is super smooth and fast. In fact, the phone has about 3 things keeping it from being totally perfect, and I don't use that term lightly.

1. Minor software misses: The phone doesn't allow for the user to create individual ringtones. Seems like an obvious miss. Also, the inability to cut and paste has been mentioned to death. I'm counting these minor fixes to be in place for the update that Microsoft has planned early next year.

2. Missing Apps: The App store is growing but there still isn't any IM apps or any dedicated reader apps from the major stores (Kindle, Nook, Borders). On the other hand, the Netflix app is, um, awesome.

3. Battery life. I don't think it's possible to go the full day without charging my battery on my HD7. Part of the problem probably can be attributed to just how easy the phone is to use. I often find myself just picking up my phone to do things I would have used my laptop/desktop for. I previously was in the market for a Tablet as well, and I seriously considered getting the Galaxy Tab, but now, I simply don't have a need for it.
@retnep There is an IM app for Live and one for Yahoo.

I know what you mean about its use. Im using my WP7 way more than any phone I had before. Almost like a tablet to me.
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@retnep
Amazon has been showing off the Kindle for Windows Phone 7 app and said that it will be release in a month or so.

As for the battery, unfortunately, the HTC HD7 has the biggest screen and the smallest battery of all the WP7 devices.
@retnep
that phone would go back to the supplier in 2 days if they shipped it to me. This is 2011! Kindles run for a month (or nearly a month if you use the internet on them) on a single charge.
@retnep
My Android is anything but sluggish. And it works well as a phone, which WP (before 7, never tried 7) never did.
I sync flawlessly my music and notes from Ubuntu One and works great as a remote control. And turn-by-turn that in my experience is unsurpassed. I have myTouch. T-mobile sucks though.
I see no reason to migrate to WP, even though it seems a good platform- I will loose all Ubuntu support, copy paste, tethering (which is a killer for me). For now I see it as a dud.
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you're seriously recommending a phone with poor battery life to friends?

My BlackBerry, under normal usage, gets about 4 days of battery life. My iPhone, under normal usage, gets between .5 and 1.5 days of battery life, depending on how many games I play. When you talk about poor battery life, you must have missed this part of the post you responded to:
Part of the problem probably can be attributed to just how easy the phone is to use. I often find myself just picking up my phone to do things I would have used my laptop/desktop for.

And this is exactly why my iPhone has such "poor" battery life when compared to my BB. I actually use it to do stuff, stuff that I would never do on my BB.

So stevey_d, would you recommend that I return my iPhone 4 to the store? After all, it only gets half a day's worth of battery life.
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RE: Windows Phone 7 Marketplace and Android Market take off
The Danger is Microsoft 30th Dec 2010
@retnep - I think you mean 'I hate to read like an Apple ad ripper, but I'll steal their phrase and say HD7 'just works'.

There you go. Corrected for the Microsoft ignorant!
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I need my phone to work. I want a reasonable size screen for the internet. Why compromise? have two devices.

I wouldn't buy an iphone. I'd stay with a regular cellphone (Sony Ericsson or Nokia or Motorola or Amoi or something - you can access the web easily when you want, everything works), but stay away from Wifi on a cellphone, it will kill batteries quickly.
I want my cell to last 4 days+ in normal operation in case I forget to plug it in overnight.

Most smartphones are going to be geek-only zones forever I think due to these limitations (and they are all too big). Note: iphone total sales 73 million worldwide. Worldwide cellphone users 4.5 billion.
@stevey_d
I have an iPhone and the battery is good for 1 or 2 days, however, I re-charge it every day. You see, I have a radio streaming app and a dock with speakers. As I use this radio every day, I also re-charge my iPhone every day... I never forget.
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RE: Windows Phone 7 Marketplace and Android Market take off
The Danger is Microsoft 30th Dec 2010
@Loverock Davidson - Damn you! Just when the mfg. cos. were going to make something you chime in! Now they will NEVER do it.

Thanks....just a lot...for ruining it for the rest of us you Microsoft shill!!! You ain't gonna get your check this week! Actually, you make be required to give a refund ~ har har har!
I found walmart is selling the HD7 online for $125. That is really tempting.
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@Bookmark71 CellHub is selling them for $49.99.
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RE: Windows Phone 7 Marketplace and Android Market take off
The Danger is Microsoft 30th Dec 2010
@AboveAverageJoe - They could sell it for 100.00 with a 150.00 rebate. I still won't buy! MS = Most Stupid purchase.
Just a matter of time before MS pulls the plug on this dud.
@james347 Have you tried it? It's no dud, I can assure you.
@jhughesy True, but it makes him feel better to say it anyway. happy
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UI is not enough
cosuna Updated - 29th Dec 2010
@jhughesy and @james347: Just to remind you both. Neither the interface makes anything successful (else NeXT would've been a winner on 1988) nor will MS pull the plug on WP7 any time soon.

The real problem for early WP7 buyers is what I call the Zune-trap. You buy the thing. You are taken by the interface and by the ease of use, but the "damn thing" doesn't seem to move on the market, not because it's a bad product, but because the ecosystem is not complete and developers get more bang from their buck investing on the tried-and-true iPhone and Android markets (more the former than the latter).

So you're "stuck" with an excellent "thingy" nobody seems to want.

Even worse, what will happen when HTC suddenly decides to release an HD8 phone featuring Android. Why would they do such thing? (essentially killing the HD7) For the same reason Palm brought the Treo to Windows Mobile... new drivers, new apps, new functionality.

Every new phone generation adds a newer version of the DSP and modems to support new features (witness the Droid X and its hot spot). If MS doesn't put it's house in order, HTC will not be able to release an HD8 with WP7 and will instead go the safest route, just to keep up with Motorola and/or Samsung.

So, again, UI is not the ubermost feature needed and MS will not kill WP7. But will the UI be enough or will OEM kill WP7 before we have a change to find out? (just by offering superior phones on competing platforms)
@james347
Wake up, it's no longer utopia for you i*.* users (er aka Jobs blowers). There is finally a better alternative and that is the Windows Phone 7.
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like your wife did with you?!?
Ron Bergundy 29th Dec 2010
Hahaha!!
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@james347 Dud? how exactly is WP7 a dud?
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Because he doesn't like it.
John Zern 30th Dec 2010
and if he doesn't like it, then it must be a dud because he's representative of all the purchasing public.

In his mind, anyway. wink
Absolutely loving my Samsung Omnia 7. Wish they would release a tablet with WP7 on it. Its so smooth and visually appealing.
For anyone out there considering an HD7, you won't regret it. As Matthew says in the article, every day I use my HD7 I enjoy it just a bit more. I started out interested in WP7 because I'm a .NET developer and was excited about the opportunities for creating mobile apps, etc., but I am blown away at just how awesome this platform is already.

I know there are many areas for improvement and am looking forward to seeing those addressed, but even now I wouldn't trade it for anything else on the market.
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5000?
banned from zdnet 29th Dec 2010
one has to be a rather delusional zdnet blogger to think that the windows marketplace is "taking off" with 5000 apps available. what a joke.
@banned from zdnet And just how long did it take Android and iOS to reach 5,000 apps? Uh huh! That's what I thought. happy
@banned from zdnet 5000 apps is "taking off" considering how quickly it has grown compared to other phone platforms.
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I know you're frightened...
trickytom3 29th Dec 2010
@banned from zdnet

Look, this OS is a success, live with it.
@trickytom3 LOL!!! Yeah, it's a success, so successful that the manufacturer can't post real sales figures.
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Right on cyberbrother2!!!
Ron Bergundy Updated - 29th Dec 2010
we know that its all crap not like the ipad where Apple keep telling us "estimates" of how many they "should" sell by X and X date!!!
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Let's get real here
dazzlingd 29th Dec 2010
@banned from zdnet - As most WP7 apps include an option to upgrade from a trial version to a full version, the true number would be higher if you count them like iOS apps.

In iOS, most apps have a lite version or a full version. Realistically the 300,000 iOS app count is more like 200,000.
@dazzlingd then you consider that between books and games you have around 105k apps with Apple.

iPhone really only has around 100k useful apps. The rest is just junk.

Bookwise, Google provides a lot more than Apple. The iPhone is a toy. Android is useful but its sluggish response and the fact that Europa is not quiet Visual Studio, do give MS a huge advantage they can leverage.

Problem is, MS failed with their first set of Win7 phones. It needs more traction to become effective.

On Principle, because of the way MS taxes is customers, I will avoid using one as much as possible, but thats just a personal preference.
@uralbas ... 100k useful apps? SERIOUSLY? I have an iPod Touch and it has like 50 apps installed on it... and I can say... it has everything I want. Of course it is nice to have selection, but no one is going to load up 100k of apps. They wouldn't even FIT on the thing to begin with.

Number of apps is stupid... Does it have good apps? Missing Kindle is a show stopper for me... and missing CDMA is also a show stopper... WP7 has to go to Sprint.
because at the begining android had 28 apps!!
@banned from zdnet Exactly. WP7 App Store has been accepting apps for 80 days now, and the growth curve has been pretty much a straight line. At this rate, without significant improvement, they're looking at 27,000 apps by the end of 2011. 2 to 3 years ago this would have been amazing, in 2011 it's not even enough to keep up.
@rbgaynor And you expect this trend to continue? It would help if you educated yourself just a little before making a fool of yourself. There were over 18,000 registered WP7 developers out there almost a month ago. This number of registered developers does not suggest a linear increase of output.

I teach introductory algebra here at the local community college. You need a lesson? happy
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I'm not saying WP& doesn't deserve a golf clap or two. But Windows Phone 7 comes out with a few apps and has what 2,000 more apps; Android increases it's application market by 100,000. You get two games you like fro $2.99 each on WP7, Android through ad support has hundreds (including angry birds) for free. You get giddy as a schoolgirl over podcast support. iPhone, Android, and even my MP3 player can do that. So why do you lead with WP7, try and convince everyone how great it is, and then give Android some kind of runner up honorable mention?
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RE: Windows Phone 7 Marketplace and Android Market take off
tomlin21-24319035676893835085146735905770 11th Oct
I'm literally dissatisfied of stage of this the nfl jersey net internet site. I've by no means witnessed so horrible content material posts, complete not highly recommended!

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