The Hippest Phones » Android Market

Android Market is down, showing zero apps (update: fixed)

Chris Ziegler — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 21:41:00 +0000

Look, we know that checking the Android Market for updates its a nervous habit during brief periods of downtime for many of us -- but for now, you're going to have to go back to chewing your nails or tapping your fingers on the table, because the Market's down. Well, that's only partially true -- you can still get into the Market app on your phone without any errors, you just won't see any apps in there, which renders it pretty useless by our estimation. Hang on, don't panic -- we imagine this won't last long.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: It's still down for us on a Froyo Nexus One, but if you take a gander through our comments section, you'll see that a lot of folks are having no trouble at all -- so it's probably based on your location, your devices, and your operating system. As far as we can tell, it's not restricted to Froyo since we've received a number of tips on the issue and we're hearing of some Droids that can't see apps. Keep the observations coming, folks!

Update 2: Google just reached out to us to let us know that it should be fixed and that the total outage was somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 minutes. They're apologizing for the inconvenience -- but with the Droid X being announced today, can you really hold a grudge?

Android Market is down, showing zero apps (update: fixed) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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QIK admits Evo 4G launch problems after 20x increase on server load

Thomas Ricker — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:22:00 +0000

While record sales are generally a desireable thing, that one-time spike in demand can leave service providers scrambling to cope on launch day. Evo 4G owners are well aware of this after noticing one of the handset's flagship features -- Qik video calling -- was unavailable in the Android Market on Friday. After correcting the issue, Qik then had to pull the app after users experienced intermittent service failures resulting from what Qik calls "an unprecedented 20x" workload increase on its servers. The Qik team is scrambling to provision more capacity and expects to have things under control "shortly."

QIK admits Evo 4G launch problems after 20x increase on server load originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Jun 2010 07:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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DoubleTwist adds some polish to Android with new media player app

Vladislav Savov — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 10:51:00 +0000

Peruse the Android Market this morrow and you might come across a hot new addition from the folks at DoubleTwist. That's right, the iTunes-aping desktop sync manager has gone native on the Android platform and early feedback on its media player implementation has been positive. The free music and video player app does that whole seamless thing quite well, apparently, interfacing directly with your Windows or Mac computerino and porting over relevant playlists, ratings and media. A widget and other features are coming soon, though you'll likely have to pay for them, given the "free for a limited time" note on the download page. Better get it while the gettin's good.

DoubleTwist adds some polish to Android with new media player app originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Jun 2010 05:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Skype Mobile with video support coming to Android Market later this year?

Vladislav Savov — Fri, 28 May 2010 11:39:00 +0000

Skype's PR folks have been unusually loquacious today, as they've responded to a query about whether HTC's EVO 4G would get a Skype client with a deep and meaningful forward-looking statement, underpinned by a promise of an Android app "for all consumers globally to download regardless of carriers." This universally available addition to the Market should arrive "later this year," but what's important about it is that it's preceded by a lengthy spiel about Skype's ambition to "set the bar on mobile video calling," which it also intends to do this year. Does this necessarily mean that Skype video calling is coming to Android in time for us to wish granny happy Hanukkah over video chat? No. Is it a well constructed insinuation to that effect? Hell yes. Read the full statement at the source, or find the juiciest excerpt after the break.

[Thanks, Jeremy]

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Skype Mobile with video support coming to Android Market later this year? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 May 2010 06:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google adding over-the-air app installation and iTunes streaming to Android

Nilay Patel — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:17:00 +0000

Sure sure, Froyo is great and all, but Google just blew our minds with two previews of upcoming Android features at I/O: OTA application installation and remote music streaming. OTA installation is just as simple as you'd expect -- after browsing to an app on your desktop, you can push it to your phone and install it with just a single click, all done over the air. Interestingly, Google also showed music being purchased and transferred from Android Marketplace in the same way, which could indicate a deeper push towards music integration, or just be a nice demo. Either way, it's pretty slick stuff -- the fewer wires we have to carry, the better.

The remote music streaming is a little crazier: Google bought a company called Simplify Media, which makes a bit of desktop software that can stream all your music directly from iTunes to your phone. The demo was quite slick -- you just open the app and push "all," and all your music is instantly available. Whether or not this'll work over 3G or be limited to the local network is still up in the air, but we're dying to try it out.

Google adding over-the-air app installation and iTunes streaming to Android originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 May 2010 12:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google: Android Market now serving 30,000 apps

Robin Wauters — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:00:43 +0000

At the most recent Mobile World Congress, Google CEO Eric Schmidt revealed that the company's partners are now selling over 60,000 Android handsets on a daily basis. With that kind of growth rate, it's no wonder that the size of the Android Market is quickly increasing in its slipstream. While Google doesn't publicly show how many applications there are in Android Market, a Google representative this morning informed me that the application store now serves approximately 30,000 free and paid apps in total.

HTC debuts widgets for Sense-equipped Android phones

Chris Ziegler — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:49:00 +0000

HTC was already in the Android software game by virtue of the fact that it drops a fully-customized UI and widget suite on some of its models, but this is new: they've migrated over to the Market. Now, what'd be insanely awesome here is if you could, say, buy Sense for $9.99 and install it on any Android device, but yeah, not so much -- what we've actually got here is a four-pack of free widgets that are compatible with the Hero and Droid Eris. Dice, Today in History, Tip Calculator, and Battery are each downloadable individually; none are particularly exciting or different than what's already available in the Market, but they've all got that famous HTC high style and the exclusivity of knowing that Motorola, Acer, Samsung, and Huawei riffraff can't use them. All four are available now.

HTC debuts widgets for Sense-equipped Android phones originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google downsizes AndroLib’s Android Market app count by a few grand

Chris Ziegler — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:09:00 +0000

A stout 20,000 apps in the Android Market, eh? Not so much, according to none other than Google itself -- which, with all due respect to original counter AndroLib -- has a little more street cred here, especially when they're deflating the numbers rather than inflating them. A spokesperson for the company told us this afternoon that "there are currently more than 16,000 free and paid apps in Android Market" without specifying paid-to-free breakdown or differences among regional Markets, so we don't much basis for figuring out where Google's number comes from; we'd count it ourselves, but we've... uh, we've got dinner plans this evening. So until someone can conclusively prove otherwise, we're going to say that the Market has yet to crack the 20K mark in any region where the Market operates -- not to say you can't find a fair share of goodies among the 16,000 that are out there.

Google downsizes AndroLib's Android Market app count by a few grand originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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T-Mobile Top Picks brands the Android Market, magenta-style

Chris Ziegler — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 04:01:00 +0000

T-Mobile's been keen on making its Android customers aware of particular apps since the launch of the myTouch 3G and the App Pack, but there's a problem -- App Pack is its own app, which is kinda unwieldy when you've already got the Market sitting there. That's where Top Picks appears to come into play, the carrier's next-gen effort to inject some of its opinions into its users' app selection process by integrating directly with the Market, much as Verizon has done on the Droid. Customers can expect to get updated with Top Picks "over the next couple of weeks," though it requires Android 1.6 -- we're guessing that means no CLIQ or Behold II love for the time being.

T-Mobile Top Picks brands the Android Market, magenta-style originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android Market hits 20,000 apps, over 60 percent free

Donald Melanson — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:38:00 +0000

Quantity rarely equals quality, of course, but it's still fairly notable that the Android Market has now managed to top 20,000 apps just a little over a year after it opened its doors -- Apple's App Store had over 50,000 apps a year into its existence, for those keeping track. Even more interesting, however, is the distribution of free and paid apps in the Market. According to AndroLib, fully 62.2% of the apps available are completely free, compared to just 37.8% that are paid apps. That's in stark contrast to the App Store, which now has over 100,000 individual apps, of which (by some recent counts) a hefty 77% are paid applications -- although only 30% of total App Store downloads are for paid apps. What does it all mean? Well, that's open for debate. But one thing's for sure: the rest of the app store contenders are going to have to work some special pie chart magic to come out looking good in this battle.

Android Market hits 20,000 apps, over 60 percent free originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android Market grows up, hits 20,000 apps milestone

Robin Wauters — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:04:48 +0000

Rest assured that 2010 is going to be a big year for the Android operating system, with many new handsets finding their way to stores around the world (including Google's own phone) and an increasing amount of developers building tools, games and the likes for the fast-growing platform. One way of noticing that the OS is poised for a big breakthrough at the expense of Windows Mobile, Symbian and other operating systems designed to run on various mobile devices, is the number of applications already available for download in the platform's own application store, Android Market. Lo and behold, that number hit the 20,000 milestone just moments ago, a little over 5 months since it reached 10,000 apps.

T-Mobile rolling out Android Market carrier billing — on some phones

Chris Ziegler — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:28:00 +0000

The good news is that you don't need to hook up that shady Google character (whoever that is) with your credit card information anymore when you're looking to buy paid Android apps from the Market if you're on T-Mobile -- the bad news, though, is that only 1.6-powered phones are getting the update at this point. Over the course of December, the carrier's going to be pushing a new version of the Android Market on the G1 and myTouch 3G that lets folks charge purchases straight to their phone bills, and -- in line with Google's existing policy -- you'll have a 24-hour trial period before the billing actually goes through. For the time being, CLIQ and Behold II users are being left out in the cold, a sign that carrier billing is joined at the hip with the revamped Market that was pushed out with Donut. That sucks, but we suppose you could look at that one of two ways: either it'll end up getting back-ported to 1.5, or -- more intriguingly -- 1.6 will end up happening sooner or later for those guys.

T-Mobile rolling out Android Market carrier billing -- on some phones originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apps for Blackberry cost way more than iPhone, Android apps

Robin Wauters — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:11:38 +0000

We've covered a couple of Distimo reports in the past because they provide us with some valuable insights on Apple's App Store and Google's Android Market based on the startup's in-depth analysis of publicly available data. Now the company has added RIM’s Blackberry App World store to the fray, which gives us even more data points to compare the rivals' app pricing and whatnot. In the latest report (September 2009), Distimo notes software programs for Blackberry devices are considerably more expensive than comparable apps for competing devices/platforms. In fact, the average price for apps is more than three times higher than the one for similar apps in the App Store and Android Market, which is sort of unbelievable. There's not a single category where the average price of an app is lower than its equivalent on the latter two application storefronts, and the more serious, business-related tools are definitely much more expensive. (chart after the jump)

Android Market Now Over 10,000 Applications Strong

Robin Wauters — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:57:50 +0000

In the mobile OS world, Google's Android is still a challenger but with the amount of devices that will be running the system that are due to come out in the coming months alone in combination with its open approach it is definitely a contestant to watch closely. The success of Apple's App Store for the iPhone / iPod Touch is often measured by how many apps have already been developed for the platform (around 70,000), but since Google doesn't disclose exactly how many apps are available through Android Market it was difficult to compare the two on that particular level. But thanks to AndroLib, which provides a useful website where you can browse Android apps from your computer (unlike the Android Market website), we can conclude that there are currently at least 10,000 applications and games available on the platform today.

Android and iPhone Apps Cost About The Same, Except For Games And Dictionaries

Erick Schonfeld — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:55:14 +0000

Do the prices people are willing to pay for a phone app depend on the device or the type of app? A comparison of July prices in the iPhone App Store and the Android Market by app analytics firm Distimo found that across broad categories such as entertainment, navigation, and tools the average price for the Top 100 paid apps was very similar for both mobile computing platforms. There were a few exceptions. The average price for a paid reference app on Android is close to $9, which is more than twice the average price for the same category on the iPhone. This disparity is mostly due to some dictionary apps on Android priced between $15 and $30 (mostly from Paragon Software). I'm not sure those are big sellers, but it bumps up the average. Finance and social networking apps are also slightly more expensive on average. Games are on average about the same as on the iPhone, around $2.50. But if you look at the price distribution, that tells you a different story. While most of the top paid games on the iPhone go for $0.99, on Android many more games are priced between $1.99 and $4.99.