iOS
Apple’s App Store is the largest repository of both free and paid apps in the world. With over 600,000 apps currently available, all of which have been vetted by Apple to ensure quality and meeting Apple’s app requirements, the App Store has not only the most apps available, it often has the newest apps first. iOS app development has become a business. Companies like Rovio (Angry Birds) have sprouted from just a few guys, and established developers like EA and Epic Games have found equally high levels of success.
However, because Apple checks every app before it is available in the App Store, new apps are slow to come, and it may take weeks for individual apps to go through the process. Many apps are turned away, and every few months there’s another story of an app removed from the store for breaking one of the rules. Even then, there have been over 18 billion app downloads on iOS, and we expect that to break 20 billion by the end of this year.
iOS also has the largest selection of games, with tens of thousands of games, already more than every dedicated mobile console ever made combined. Many of those games are free or under a dollar, but so far iOS devices are the only ones that are regularly compared to consoles like the Nintendo 3DS or Sony’s upcoming PS Vita.
Android
Google’s Android Marketplace has the second largest offering of apps, with over 320,000 according to Google. What’s startling about the Android Marketplace, compared to Apple’s App Store, is that 67% of all apps for Android are free. Google just hit 10 billion app downloads, and with that achievement Google released a detailed infographic on the types of apps downloaded, and some fun data regarding apps on the Android Marketplace.
Because Android is the most prominent mobile OS, and because developing for Android is completely free, more and more developers are working either on both iOS and Android simultaneously, or just on Android alone. However, Android still tends to be second when it comes to today’s most popular apps. Games like Angry Birds, Doodle Jump, Words with Friends were all released months after the iOS versions as ad-based free games.
Case in point, Android owners are less likely to spend money on apps. Only two of the top ten grossing games in the Android Marketplace aren’t free. Like iOS, the majority of them are games. While Apple makes billions in gross revenue on apps, analysts think that Android still hasn’t broken the $1 billion barrier, from launch through September grossing only $341.8m. That may change in the future, but it has kept developers who have been successful on iOS to jump over to Android.
App development is also more difficult on Android because of the number of different Android devices. Rockstar Games recently announced Grand Theft Auto 3 will release on iOS and Android, but only on select devices. Of the hundreds of Android devices, only seven will be able to play the game.
Windows Phone 7
As the youngest OS of the bunch, it comes as no surprise that WP7 has the fewest available apps. With just over 45,000 apps, 55% of those apps are free according to WP7 Applist, which monitors all WP7 apps.
What WP7’s apps have that both iOS and Android lack is trials for apps. That is, the option to download the full app to try it out, free of charge. 15% of all apps have trials, including all of the games available through Xbox Live. That means 70% of all apps on WP7 are free to use or try. Neither Android nor iOS allow for app purchasing on a trial basis.
Winner: iOS
With both the largest number of apps and the most well-developed apps, Apple's iOS is king. Not only is it the platform that most developers opt for because iPhone owners are more likely to purchase apps, but the platform has a better application store and is more likely to earn money.
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