Apple iPad users have downloaded some three billion apps cumulatively since the revolutionary device was first introduced in January 2010. Compare this to Android tablets users who are estimated to have downloaded just 440 million so far, some 582% less.
The report by ABI Research found that, in total, there were 120,000 iPad-specific apps published to the App Store by Q3 2011, significantly larger than Android’s tablet-specific selection. With 16 billion apps in total downloaded from the App Store, iPad users account for around 19% of total app downloads.
While the iPad is still miles ahead of all Android competition, research suggests that this is about to change. Annual Android app downloads are expected to out-perform iOS downloads by a ratio of 2:1 by 2016, reaching 56 billion, compared to Apple’s anticipated 27 billion.
Version fragmentation, an unwanted aspect of Android that has hindered platform development, is further tackled in the latest version of the mobile operating system – Ice Cream Sandwich. Android is working to standardise experience by requiring that the “Halo” family of themes be implemented unmodified into devices.
Android users continue to upgrade their devices, with 89.8% using Android 2.2 (Froyo) and above. Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich, the two versions of Android that support tablet devices, only account for 3.9% of all Android devices, however.