Yesterday morning, a sizable chunk of the T-Mobile G1 pre-orders showed up prior to their expected arrival date of October 22nd. Filled with new-toy glee, the new Android users tore their boxes open, poked and prodded at the screen.. but something was wrong.
Reviews said something about there being 50+ applications already available in the Android App Market. Even immediately after the device was announced, there were 18. By a count yesterday morning, there were only 13. As was to be expected, the internet quickly filled with conspiracy theories. Was Google shaving down the list to save bandwidth? Were they pulling off a significant chunk of the applications so that they could be rolled out over the days after launch, making the content stream seem torrential?
Nope – turns out, they were just giving things a quick once-over before the big day. By mid-day yesterday, the count was back up to 20. This morning, it’s hovering right around 30. Google’s official statement on the matter:
The demo devices give an early version of the Market since it hasn’t been launched yet. We needed to be sure that a few of the 3rd party apps are final for consumer use in the Android Market when the T-Mobile G1 officially launches on October 22nd. We’re replacing the preview applications with final versions today. After October 22nd, developers will be managing their own applications.
Update: T-Mobile’s response:
We anticipate there will be 40 to 50 applications available on Android Market when the T-Mobile G1 launches on Wed (10/22) and that number will continue to grow as additional applications are added daily.
With that, the panic bells are slowly fading, and all is returning to normal. When the G1 officially launches tomorrow, all should be well in the world, with at least the majority of applications nestled right back in their original spots, now with that final stamp of approval.
Eagerly waiting for my G1 to appear in mail (today/Tomorrow?).
Will the Android App Market have an online interface or will users only be able to access it from their G1? I just checked the website and they show only some screenshots of apps.
Basically, I’m wondering if the Android App Market will be more ease to use than iTunes for the iPhone. Our site (http://appbeacon.com) and several others like it are a replacement for the App Store. I’m wondering if the Android Market will need a replacement too?
googles first sign of app censorship. appayola here we go.
hopefully someone is focusing on an app to help all the out of work tech people find a job. oh no, dont tell me that all those out of work tech people are now gonna be competing for the creation of the next killer app. the fun and games are over my friends. stop playing with these toys and get some work done. i wanna see some hands get dirty.
HardwareLocator.com- build something.
This Android is ugly to hell. It would be interesting to see how the open apps would be available for Android. This is the only point the search giant can beat apple on Iphone. But I am actually disppointed at google for their recent apps: routes for google map always goes wrong, gmail sometimes flickrs, it is time for the next google.
Posting on my g1. Surprised I got it two days before launch, so far imeem is the coolest app out of the 13 on the market.
Question, how do you get your app into the market!!!???
Don’t worry, all the useless apps, that you’ll never use more than twice will be there ready to go.