There is this mis-perception that somehow Android owners are “cheaper” than iPhone owners, given the much application revenue per user than any other device. Market analysts would like us to believe that iPhone owners are “wealthier” or more ready to spend money.
But I doubt that’s true. The real problem is that the Android Market just has a lot more crap in it. And so much of it isn’t worth a dime.
The Problem
As much as people have complained about Apple’s application review policy (it deserves a lot of scrutiny for both censorship and anti-competitive reasons), one of the side-effect benefits to consumers is that the average iPhone application has a much higher level of quality than apps for the other mobile platforms.
Most searches on the Android Market give you list of crap. The good ones are mixed in also. Good luck telling the difference, but by the time you have found the good one, you have filled up your phone with buggy, battery draining, crap.
Dvd Jon’s does a fantastic roundup of many of the Google App store problems.
Enter AppBrains
AppBrain lures you in with the very cool ability to remotely install applications (something even the iPhone can’t do yet). And it is insanely slick.
But the side effect, is that AppBrain is counting which apps are getting the most downloads buy it’s users, and is organizing and presenting this data in a much cleaner, much more useful manner. It’s a much better alternative than Google’s own Market app.
The reviews are easier to see. And finding genuine “hot” apps is much easier than Google’s own Market app.
And a single click on your PC’s browsers, and a few minutes later, the app is installed on your phone. Even iPhone doesn’t do that yet.
Wishlist: I want a Firefox/Chrome plugin that will reroute the “market:” URL identifier that is used by Android app developers, and reroute it directly to AppBrain’s site! That way I can do most of my Android app hunting on my laptop, instead of being trapped inside Google’s app.
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