100,000 and counting

The App store for the iPhone and iPod touch has now reached over 100,000 applications. These range from games, to map services, to programs that will find the best local restaurant. This makes Apple's application store the largest in the world. Users can be in any of 77 countries and have already downloaded over 2 billion apps. There is no sign of the use slowing down, as more people are turning to Apple and AT&T's 3G network. New competitors are emerging however, but new devices, such as the Droid, do not have nearly as large of a store with around 10,000 applications. Until another provider can offer the wide range of apps that Apple's store offers, I can not see anyone choosing a different handset device, no matter what features the phone itself offers. With devices today doing very similar things and having similar features, the App store is one thing that manufacturers can not reproduce and puts Apple heads above the competition.