Technology And gadgets: For better or worse, Google owns the mobile app space

Friday 25 January 2013

For better or worse, Google owns the mobile app space

Android Central

Google has captured five of the top six spots in the mobile app space, and it isn't likely that they will be slowing down any time soon. That chart you see above is the number of unique (as in you only get counted once) users of the top 10 mobile apps on Android and iOS for the month of December 2012, and as you can see Google is just tearing it up. In fact, according to Comscore Google would have also grabbed the number one spot were it not for the maps fiasco in iOS 6.

That my friends, is a whole lot of eyeballs.

We created Android in response to our own experiences launching mobile apps. We wanted to make sure that there would always be an open platform available for carriers, OEMs, and developers to use to make their innovative ideas a reality. We wanted to make sure that there was no central point of failure, where one industry player could restrict or control the innovations of any other. The solution we chose was an open and open-source platform. -- Google

Google has consistently stated that one of Android's primary goals was to put the Internet, and their apps, into as many hands as possible. With upwards of 75-percent market share alone, and close to 95-percent when combined with the Google-friendly iOS, I think they've succeeded in a very big way.

But while you're cheering and bumping bro-fists over Google's triumph, I'm thinking of all the great alternatives we'll never get to see because they can't gain a foothold against these kinds of numbers. I'm not talking about Bing, or other apps like it that we already know and find pretty useless, but I think we all can agree that somebody out there has an idea for a way to do things that's better than what we have now. I'm not necessarily knocking Google. I use all of their services and appreciate the hard work and innovation that brought them to me. I just don't want to miss something better. I hope they can find a way to show it to us in this one-sided landscape.

Source: Comscore