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Google: 100 million Android devices activated, 4.5 billion apps downloaded

10.05.2011
The mobile powerhouse is cruising to new heights with 100 million activated devices, 4.5 billion downloaded from the Android Market, and 450,000 developers building tools for Android phones and tablets, Google said Tuesday as it kicked off the fourth annual Google I/O developers conference.

There are now 400,000 activations of new Android devices every day, with more than 310 devices available in 112 countries from 36 OEM vendors and 215 carriers, Google said. The Android Market has hit 200,000 applications, Google also announced, still quite a bit behind 's 350,000 apps for iPhones and iPads.

LIFE AT GOOGLE:

"There were many skeptics," boasted Hugo Barra, director of Android product management. "What did Google know? We had never been in the mobile space or the operating system business."

Barra and colleagues announced numerous improvements to the Android platform, both for and for tablets. While Google has, by some measures, toppled Apple for the most popular smartphone operating system, Android still lags far behind the in large part because the applications built for Android phones don't look so great on the larger screen of a tablet.

Google engineer Mike Cleron said Android 3.1, the next version of Honeycomb, will roll out to owners of Motorola Xoom tablets today. He also said the next major release of Android will be code-named "Ice Cream Sandwich."