What is it that makes for a truly great smartphone? It is the easy availability of a variety of apps that not only provide entertainment for the user but are also useful and makes the daily life of the user a lot easier. Without the apps, the smartphones would just be another phone that is used for making calls. This is where the two most prominent Apps providers come into the picture; the Android Market and the App Store.
A brief comparison of the two is provided below for your benefit.
- Number of apps: It is no secret that a new phone with the Android operating system is launched every day. This has tilted the numbers in favor of the Android Market, with more and more developers making apps for the Android Market. The Android Market was launched much later than the Apps Store, but within it has already overtaken it as far as number of apps are concerned. The Apps Store may still be the leader when it comes to paid apps, but when free apps are considered, no one can beat the Android Market.
- Developing on the Apple platform can cost a developer around a hundred dollars on an annual basis, whereas they do not need to pay anything for working for the Android platform.
- Free vs paid apps: The Android Market has around 60 to 70 percent apps that can be downloaded for free while the percentage of free apps available in the Apps store stands at around thirty percent. However, the quality of apps available in the Apps store is better than that available in the Android Market.
- It is also true that the Apple platform is more closed and developers can never be sure about whether their app will be accepted by Apple or not. Android on the other hand are more open to creativity and developers have a greater chance of their apps finding their place in the Android Market.
- The Apps store categorizes the discovery of items based on the users existing library and also has a lot of options that are categorized in ways like ‘apps for music lovers’, ‘hardcore games’, etc. The Android Market lacks such ease of apps discovery, though it is constantly improving.
- You can navigate the Apps Store with a single tap on the iPhone whereas one has to use a few buttons to access the Android Market and navigate through it. Such access comes at a price. Absence of dedicated navigation buttons can lead to many problems while looking for apps in the Android Market
- Even though Google is the premier search engine over the internet, searching for apps in the Android Market leaves you with a lot to be desired. However, searching on the Apps Store is an amazing experience that is backed by a strong auto-suggest feature.
- The Android Market allows for easy updates of apps when one turns on the ‘automatic updates’ for any app. On the other hand, the App Store has better options to manually opt for updates for any particular app.
- The users can get refunds for apps downloaded from the Android Market within fifteen minutes. The Apps Stores does not have a refund policy, and allows refunds only for apps that did not download correctly.
