Last month Amazon threw open the doors on its very own Appstore, creating a new place for users of Android devices to find apps. At the same time, Apple has been vigorously challenging anyone andeveryone over the use of the term "App Store," while Microsoft last week bragged about the integrity of its apps in the Windows Marketplace. Clearly app stores, which three years ago were a relatively unknown thing to anyone outside of the gaming world, are now big business—for owners of platforms, developers, and ambitious third parties like Amazon.
It's easy to see why: a mobile platform is only as strong as its app store. As Nokia CEO Stephen Elopobserved prior to his company's embracing of Windows Phone 7, phone makers are in the business of selling "ecosystems," not phones, and the capabilities of a platfom's app store (or stores) is a clear picture of that. Beyond just the sheer number of apps on offer, a store's payment system, return policy, and whether or not it vets apps prior to putting them in the store can be just as important to customers.
PCMag approached all the companies behind the major app stores—both platform-specific ones and third parties—and asked them to send us their most recent data for this comparison. While Apple is still the clear leader in the number of apps, many of the competing app stores now offer (or plan to offer) carrier billing, something that's not a feature of the iOS App Store. Developer fees, however, appear to have settled on the de facto standard of a 70/30 split with the store owner across all platforms. And there's lots of variety in store return policies.
See how all the stores stack up against each other in the table below (click on it to see the large version), and let us know in the comments what's most important to you in a mobile app store.
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