Does the HP TouchPad Have More Tablet Apps Than Android?
According to sources at HP, the HP TouchPad has nearly 400 apps at launch. Apple's iPad hit the 100,000 mark recently, according to MacStories.net. But the five Google Android Honeycomb tablets that have come out since April only had 232 apps as of June 2, according to a frequently cited statistic from AndroidCentral.com.
Google and Samsung, a major maker of Honeycomb tablets, argue they're being done wrong here—that thousands of apps work well on Honeycomb tablets, although those apps may be hard to find. Developers say they're holding back, if they say anything at all. And HP suggests that maybe a little more developer hand-holding could be a good thing.
The 232 figure, cited by David Pogue at the New York Times as well as by this publication, lives on because Google steadfastly refuses to release an official number of Honeycomb-optimized apps. Since Android devices scale phone apps up to tablet size, though, the real number isn't 232, says Philip Berne, marketing manager at Samsung. He says it's more like 60,000. "We've had 3rd party firms look into this. 30-40% of all Android apps scale almost perfectly, "Berne told me on Twitter. "That's [a] 60,000 app number in [Samsung Galaxy] Tab 10.1 releases, [an] estimate (within 4%) of apps that scale, little white space, good layout."
Google wouldn't comment for this story except to say that thousands of apps scale up well on Honeycomb tablets.
