Bragging rights are common in keynote speeches these days. One of the things Google announced during its keynote speech at I/O 2012 is the milestone it has achieved as far as total apps and total installs.
Google Play now has 600,000 apps. In addition, the store is feeling the love all over, with an average 1.5 billion downloads every month and 20 billion since Android launched way back in 2007.
That’s only 50,000 apps and 10 billion downloads short of Apple, who is the undisputed world leader as far as applications and downloads go. Google hasn’t differentiated between tablet and smartphone apps in their numbers however, so it’s unclear how close they are to Apple’s claim of 225,000 iPad-oriented apps.
It really doesn’t matter at this point though; Google’s OS is not short on apps at all, and that is one feat that only Apple can attest to, although Windows Phone looks to be coming up fast, having hit the 100,000 app mark five months faster than Android did and only 3 months behind Apple. It will be interesting to see how 2012 (and beyond) plays out.