They mention that while there are hundreds of thousands of apps on the Android market, only the top of the charts really account for the majority of app usage. There are currently over 250,000 apps available and the top 50 of those account for 61 percent of the time spent in-app (43 percent in the top 10 alone). The post points out that the remaining 249,950+ apps are all trying to get a piece of that remaining 39 percent.

Why is this?

249,950+ apps suck?
Obviously this isn’t the issue, but there is a fair share of worthless apps in the Market. There are clear positives and negatives to allowing virtually every app developed on to the store. One positive is that Android can claim a faster growing and more variety-filled collection, but how many of those are worth even reading the description? And how do decent apps get noticed in the large pile?

Android users aren’t interested in new apps and games?
Doubtful, but it appears that the majority of users are not taking advantage of what’s out there. As developers or publishers, what can we do to get our new, hot app noticed?

The Android Market app is horrible?
Well, it used to be, for sure. The recent update to the app makes it an entirely different place to search for apps. Plus, with new storefronts like Amazon offering Android apps, we may see an uptick in sales and app usage.

The concern here for the developer is that any app you release has little chance with the Android audience. A focus on promotion is critical for any new developer, but getting your app into user’s hands will still be chore.

One thing to note is that Nielsen, for whatever reason, does not have similar stats for iOS. It would be interesting to see if that device struggles with the same issue, but from all other indications iOS has much more app-happy user base.

Android – 29%
iPhone – 27%
Blackberry – 27%
Windows Mobile/Windows 7 – 10%
WebOS – 4%
Symbian – 2%

One thing to note: Android may be leading the pack as an OS, but the data clearly shows that iPhone and Blackberry phones are very strong as single manufacturers. Android powers many phones across several brands, while Blackberry and iOS run on their respective company’s devices.

In the same blog post, Nielsen showed the same data broken down by age. Android apparently attracts younger users compared to the other big two with Blackberry being more attractive to older audiences in comparison.

The two models are both named Galapagos (003SH and 005SH) with one being a touchscreen and the other with a slide-out keyboard. Both will sport a 3.8 inch screen that use an autostereoscopic display similar to the one used in Nintendo’s upcoming 3DS handheld.

While the 3D technology obviously has little functional use with many smartphone related applications, it has great potential for movies and games. Capcom has already announced that 3-D versions of some of their hit games are in development for Android. Titles include Mega Man, Ghosts ‘n Goblins: Gold Knights and Resident Evil: Degeneration.

This is a very exciting development in smartphone technology and will further push their entertainment aspect. Also, expect to see some interesting non-entertainment applications as developers find unique ways to use these new screens.

However, some are surprised it took this long. The App Store reached the 100k mark in less than 500 days while it took the Market 733 days. One would think that this came from the hot start that Apple had compared to the Android adoption and that Market is just hitting its stride. One could think that, but gigaom.com plowed into the numbers and found that from June to October of this year, Apple’s App Store added about 417 apps a day while the Android Market averaged 294 a day.

Again, this is a bit surprising. The Android OS is featured on a variety of devices, developers can work with the SDK for free, they can develop from any type of computer they want (Apple requires that their apps are compiled on a Mac OS system) and there isn’t the barrier of an overly strict review process to put an app on the Market.

So why is Apple still gaining? It’s probably several things, but it really comes down to money. Developers and publishers feel that the App Store is currently a more lucrative place to sell their wares. iOS users have shown to be more willing to purchase apps while ad-driven apps are seen as the standard on Google’s platform.

With Android adoption rising, new devices coming along and recent sales numbers showing that Android devices are now outselling iOS devices, we’re sure to see that gap decrease. What this shows is that the mobile app market is very strong. Both Android and iOS are doing well and growing. This is an exciting time for developers with new opportunities around every corner.

With the latest version, we should see some improvements to the emulator as well as expanded support for tablets and devices with larger screens.

We’ll be watching for more news on this….

Rokon

Rokon is an interesting open source 2D OpenGL game engine for Android. It’s developed and maintained by Sticky Coding and is currently pretty active with the latest version released earlier this month. The engine also has features for handling physics utilizing Box2D.

The project’s website is a very clean and easy-to-use Joomla site with an online API reference page, an active community forum, and tutorials (although only a few).

I couldn’t find many games developed with Rokon, however. The project site lists an example game that is currently in the Android Market called Drop Box. Unfortunately it’s not open source, so we can’t see exactly how the engine was used to create it. However, there is a game developed by Sticky Coding that has been recently released as open source after some legal issues called Flying Aces. I have not had a moment to look over this game, but it’s been said by the developer to be poorly commented and was built with an early version of Rokon. It’s nice to have it as a reference if nothing else, though.

Rokon Gallery:

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AndEngine

The AndEngine is a very promising game and app engine for Android. It’s developed by Nicolas Gramlich and is focused on 2D development with OpenGL. Like Rokon, this engine is also open source with the source code available at its Google code project page.

Extra features have been made available through extensions to the engine. The project page links to several helpful ones that add various features such as live-wallpaper creation, multiplayer, multitouch and Box2D physics.

Where Rokon’s website was heavy on reference documentation and light on example games, the AndEngine is quite the opposite. They list about 12 games, 1 app and 9 live wallpaper apps that have been created using the engine. On the other hand, I couldn’t find any good reference docs on their project site.

The AndEngine’s community forums are active and I found several posters to be friendly and helpful. The site features a Showcase page that has a handful of youtube videos showing off the engine as well.

AndEngine Gallery:

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The app is designed with a very simple and easy-to-use interface. You simply provide the auto-reply message and set the speed limit that will activate the functionality. For example, if you choose 20 mph as in the screenshot, DriveSafe will begin functioning when it detects that you have met that minimum speed.

At first thought, DriveSafe may seem unnecessary as you can easily silence your phone (or just ignore it) while driving. But with more and more states enacting laws concerning phone use while on the road, this could actually be quite handy for those that often forget to silence their phone or don’t have the willpower to ignore any incoming texts. Add in that the app is only $.99 right now in the Android Market, and it’s easy to see how this could be nice tool that many people would benefit from daily.

Scan this with your Android device to visit the product in the Market

from asymco.com - Apps vs Songs download data

Some are speculating that this data shows just how much piracy is hurting the online music industry. It could be a little from piracy, a little from Pandora-like sites and little from increased competition from other music stores like Amazon MP3 that may be contributing to this.

But it’s a tough thing to compare the two, really. iOS apps can only be acquired from the App Store, at least for non-jailbroken devices. There aren’t alternatives for those users. That combined with the fact that many apps cost nothing to download, it’s easy to see how this can happen.

We are continually trying to make the App Store even better. We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart. Based on their input, today we are making some important changes to our iOS Developer Program license in sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 to relax some restrictions we put in place earlier this year.

The statement went on to clarify saying that developers could now use third-party tools as long as the app doesn’t download any code. This seemingly opens the door to allowing the use of Flash development tools which Apple seemed to have specifically targeted before in section 3.3.1, stating that:

Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs

Apple also said that they are now providing more transparency with regards to how they approve App Store submissions. They will now, for the first time, publish the App Store Review Guidelines, giving developers a clear idea of the process.

These are two welcomed changes to the Apple policy. I personally do like the moderated App Store over the wild-wild-west Android Market as the consumers get a cleaner store and higher-quality applications (on average) and changes like this will only help it become stronger.

Next change – Flash in the iOS browser, please…

Motorola takes another swing at Apple via the New York Times. This isn’t the first time in recent months they’ve put out a full-page ad attack, though. Either way, it’s pretty funny.

I really thought that once Android devices supported full Flash, that Apple would come off their stance to not include it. Before a competitor did it, there was no need to allow their users to have access to Flash games and apps that would rival some in their store – at least in the way that Apple does business. You could say a fully open store may not always be the best thing either, in terms of quality.

Adobe, of course, would love for the iOS platform to support Flash. In a recent interview, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said that they were working with 19 out of 20 phone manufacturers to get Flash working on their devices. Apple’s was the only one not included. ”There are companies that are choosing to provide a complete end-to-end experience and control every aspect of it and want all the business model gains from it,” Narayen says. “There are other companies that have chosen to say that the open eco-system is the way to go and that’s how you would contrast Apple and Google’s business models. We’re on the side of the open.”

Adobe? Open? yeah, ok…..

Either way, I hope that Apple comes to the right decision and starts to include Flash in an upcoming release. Like many others, I don’t expect it though. But in the meantime, if you want Flash, there’s a phone for that.