Android controls roughly 68% of the market share for Smart Phones, and Apple, in second place, has about 17% of the market. The remaining 15% is divided among Microsoft, Blackberry, and other phone providers. Apple has around 700,000 apps available on their iTunes market, whereas Android has around 600,000 apps. Looks like Apple wins out in that category. Roughly 72% of Android apps are free, whereas only 33% of Apple's apps are free of charge. And we have a tie!

Apple arguably has the lead with developers, with roughly 4 times as many as Android's 10,000 or so developers. This is largely due to the entrenched nature of Apple's apps; they aren't portable to any other device or brand of devices. With Android, you can use most apps on almost any standard Android device, regardless of manufacturer. Despite the large number of developers favoring Apple's stricter environment, Apple only has 33% more installs than Android, at 30 Billion versus 20 Billion.

If you want free apps, Android is still the way to go. If you want big name apps (and to pay for them), stick with Apple. In the end though, most developers make cross platform apps, but if you pay for one on iTunes, don't expect to use it on your Android device.

[Ed - One of the reasons that Apple apps are not portable is a restriction put in place by Apple. Originally many developers were using Flash to build their apps and then would simply compile it for their device of coice using one of Adboe's tools. However, Apple banned the use of Flash even as a development platform which killed that completely. Still there are many developers that are moving toward Android simply because they have a much bigger userbase. In time we imagine that Android Apps will push past the once mighty Apple..]

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