Can Apple Lose The App Race?

(MoneyWatch)  Apple's lead in mobile applications can't be overstated, but with the industry as young as it is, it's far too early to call it done. That said, it's no small matter that Apple currently boasts over 70,000 applications for its iPhone App Store. Estimates for Google's Android market vary from six thousand to around ten thousand ?€" an order of magnitude smaller -- and there are far, far fewer apps for Nokia's Ovi and BlackBerry's App World.

But the iPhone may yet become a victim of its own success, as Jason Hiner noted on sister-site ZDnet.

The challenge is that the iPhone App Store is already getting very crowded with over 70,000 apps. That makes it harder for new developers and new apps to get noticed. As a result, many app developers are already talking about spending more time developing for the Android or BlackBerry app stores, where things are just starting to get warmed up. There might be a better chance to strike gold over on that mountain.

Or as Yogi Berra would have put it, "nobody goes there anymore ?€" it's too crowded." No one seems in better shape than Google to take advantage of that glut -- and the inevitable iPhone fatigue that's bound to set in with consumers.

But before Google can seduce customers, it has to seduce developers, who, as I've noted in an earlier post, haven't been shy about expressing their frustrations with Android's foibles. Most common among complaints is a poor user experience for anyone wanting to buy an app, a lack of marketing opportunities, and unreliable payment processing.

Matt Hall of Larva Labs noted that his shop generated an average of just over $62 per day in app sales through the Android market: "Very difficult to buy the summer home at this rate," he quipped.

Google does seem to have taken note of these criticisms, adding features that make it easier for developers to market their wares. Henceforward, "developers will be able to provide screenshots, promotional icons and descriptions that will better show off applications and games."

The best news for Google, however, is that many developers prefer developing for Android to the iPhone from a purely technical standpoint. Mobile apps consultant Zigurd Mednieks noted on a forum for mobile developers that Android allows developers to "fundamentally change the way Android works as a phone."

Android is unique among all smartphone platforms as a platform for mobile technology providers to showcase new capabilities OEMs can put in handsets--. On Android, you can recompile the whole platform from source - applications, Java libraries, the Dalvik VM, any Linux, Userland software and drivers, and the Linux OS.

Mednieks also said on-device debugging and emulation features needed for quality assurance purposes are excellent on Android.

From a marketing standpoint, Google has a golden opportunity to catch up to Apple in the coming months if, as it claims, there will be eighteen handsets running Android on the market by the end of the year. But as Hall noted, "I'm sure Android will be on a lot of phones at some point in the future, whether it'll be possible to target it profitably as a small developer I'm not sure."