By Suzanne Choney

The number of Android apps would seem to be gaining ground on Apple iOS 5 apps; a new study says that the number of applications published in the Android Market "leapt to over 500,000 in September." Apple's App store has more than 600,000 "successful submissions."

But app market apps are not apples to apples, so to speak. German-based research2guidance, which issued the report, said that more than 37 percent of the apps published in the Android Market were later removed "for various reasons, whereas the Apple App Store has removed just 24 percent of published apps in comparison." Furthermore:

Although Apple is known to regularly clean up its store from inappropriate or outdated content, its active application share still exceeds that of Android. It is likely that the more rigid application submission requirements prevent developers from publishing multiple trial or low quality applications whereas publishers in the Android Market place a lot of market testing, trials, demo and malware content.

In the Android Market, 78 percent of the apps removed were free applications, "which could mean that publishers put more effort into the applications they place with the pay-per-download business model, thus ensuring that it is kept longer in store."

Research2Guidance didn't address RIM's BlackBerry App World (which has around 40,00 apps). But it did say that Windows Phone Marketplace, with more than 30,000 apps, has only 13 percent of its apps "deactivated" for various reasons.

Related stories:

Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

Suzanne Choney