There have been posts and comments on Android developer forums asking when the Android market might become viable. Up to now, I have ignored them. It’s too early - there’s only one device shipping and only to limited countries.

However, I think there’s still is a problem somewhere. If you rank the applications by popularity then you have to scroll through 149 titles before you come to one (Retro Defense by Larva Labs Ltd) that isn’t free. Similarly, you have to scroll through 148 Applications to get to an application (Power Manager Full by David Medina) that isn’t free. I am surprised there aren’t any paid apps that dominate the charts.

So what has held back the Android Market? Here are some ideas…

• The long free period before paid apps were introduced might have flooded the market with free applications and created an implicit consumer expectation
• 48hr Refunds might be holding back some developers publishing for the platform
• As I said, there’s no large market yet due to limited devices and geographical markets
• For non-casual games it can be challenging (but not impossible) to create non-stuttering Java games due to excessive allocations causing garbage collection
• Lack of c/c++ so might be preventing existing apps or engines from being easily ported
• The Android Market statistics and reporting might be skewing the real short-term popularity of paid titles. i.e. reporting over a long rather short time period
• The Android Market listing structure might be providing no way for paid apps to break out over the mass of free ones

There are just thoughts. Whatever’s wrong needs to be fixed if Android is to attract developers in the longer term.