Android Phones and Applications

Google seems to be very keen to make Android the most popular mobile operating system. Few days ago the company announced new revolutionary service, which allows all users to easily create applications for their phones. Basically users will not require any programming skills or knowledge to create an application, and anybody will be able to do it.  This service is called Google App Inventor and is available for users to register their interest. The official website says that users will be given access to the service in the coming weeks. Users will be able to create and download applications to their phones, but not to other Android users at this stage.

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Distimo is a company that specializes on mobile application market analysis for different platforms. They have recently released interesting statistics on the proportion of free vs. paid applications for the Android Market, AppStore, OVI Store and others. They have also listed top 10 most popular free and paid applications for Android. The results are quite interesting, and in the case of our beloved “Market” entertaining.
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Although the online version of the Android Market, is still inconvenient and almost useless, Google made one small, but important improvement – category selection. This is a small step in the right direction, and, hopefully, one day Market will become similar to the AppStore and provide users with advanced features.

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The other day I had to sign up for a new podcast. I usually do it through Apple iTunes as I am familiar with the interface and site design (as any other iPod or iPhone user). In order to subscribe, I opened the Store tab and searched for the required podcast. While I was doing all this, I saw a link to the AppStore. And I started to subconsciously compare Apple’s AppStore to the Android Market. I realised how easy-to-use and consistent AppStore is – it doesn’t matter whether you access it from your iPhone or notebook computer – user experience stays the same. Android’s web store, on the other hand, is average at best. Why is that?

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