List of mobile software distribution platforms

This list of notable digital distribution platforms for mobile devices includes digital distribution platforms that are intended to provide mobile software to mobile devices. For information on each mobile platform and its market share see the operating systems section of mobile operating system and smart phone. A comparison of development capabilities of each mobile platform can be found in the article mobile development. For cross-platform development see multiple phone web-based application framework. The article mobile software contains other general information.

Operating system-native platforms

These application market places are native to the major mobile operating systems.

Name Established Status Owner Available apps Download count Installed base Device platform Allows individual developers to publish Developer's cut per sale Developer fees Development tool(s) Free of charge IDE?
Amazon Appstore 22 March 2011 Live Amazon.com 330,000
(March 2015)[1]		 Unknown Unknown Fire OS, Android Yes 70% US$99/year
(Waive fee for first year, plus $50 AWS promo code[2])		 Amazon Mobile App SDK[3] Yes
App Catalog 6 June 2009 Closed Palm/HP 10,002
(December 2011)[4]		 108 million
(August 2011)[5]		 2.6 million
(July 2010)[6]		 webOS[l 1] Yes 70%[7] Free[7] Enyo Yes
App Store 10 July 2008 Live Apple 1,400,000 (725,000 native to iPad)
(January 2015)[8]		 75 billion
(June 2014)[9]		 800 million
(June 2014)[10]		 iOS[l 2] Yes 56-71% (varies depending on the country)[11] US$99/year[12] iOS SDK, Xcode Yes (Xcode 6 is free on the Mac App Store and Apple Developer.)
BlackBerry World 1 April 2009 Live BlackBerry 223,601
(26 October 2013) BlackBerry OS, PlayBook and BlackBerry 10 apps[13]		 3 billion
(May 2012)[14]		 75 million
(Jan 2012)[15]		 BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry Tablet OS, BlackBerry 10 OS[l 3] Yes 70%[16] Free[17] BlackBerry 10 Native SDK (with full POSIX and Qt support), HTML5 Qt4 SDK, Android (via BlackBerry Android Tools SDK), Adobe AIR SDK, BlackBerry OS SDK Yes
Download Fun/Download Catalog 1 October 2002 Closed[18] Danger, Inc./Microsoft Unknown Unknown Unknown Danger OS Yes 40% Free Danger OS SDK[19] Yes
Google Play 22 October 2008 Live Google 1,500,000
(September 2014)[20]		 50 billion
(July 2013)[21]		 1 billion
(Sept 2013)[22]		 Android[l 4] Yes 70% US$25[23] Android SDK, Android Studio Yes
Firefox Marketplace 6 September 2013 Live Mozilla Foundation 5,957
(March 2014)[24]		 Unknown Unknown Firefox OS, Android, Windows Yes Unknown Unknown Unknown Yes
Nokia Store 26 May 2009 replaced with the Opera Mobile Store[25] and closed[26] Nokia 120,000 (August 2012)[27]
17 million/day (October 2012)[27]

~6 billion (August 2012)[28]

 885 million
 Multiple[l 5]

Symbian, MeeGo, Maemo, S40, Nokia X software platform		 Yes 70% 1 €[29] Qt 4 SDK,[30] Nokia Web Tools,[31] Nokia SDK for Java, Java ME[32], Nokia X services SDK [33] Yes
Windows Phone Store 21 October 2010 Live Microsoft 300,000+
(August 2014)

[34]
4 billion
(February 2014)[35] (12&nbps;million per day,
65 per person)		 56 million
(December 2013)[36][37][38][39][40]		 Windows Phone[l 6] Yes 70% US$19 for individuals, or US$99 for companies /year/unlimited paid apps and 100 free apps submissions Or

Free for students [41][42] One Registration fee for both of Windows phone Store and Windows Store.

 Windows Phone Developer Tools, includes specialty versions of Microsoft Visual Studio, Expression Blend Yes
Windows Store 26 October 2012 Live Microsoft 150,000
(21 March 2014)
[43][44]		 Windows Desktop and
Windows Runtime (Windows 8/RT)/ Windows 8.1		 Yes with restriction[note 1] 70% that is raised to 80% if developer sales exceeds US$25,000 in a year Individuals: US$19/year or US$0/year for student, Companies:US$99/year . One Registration fee for both of Windows phone Store and Windows Store. Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows 8 or Visual Studio 2012 professional or higher. Visual Studio 2013 Express for Windows 8.1 or Visual Studio 2013 Professional or higher. Yes
Name Established Status Owner Available apps Download count Installed base Device platform Allows individual developers to publish Developer's cut per sale Developer fees Development tool(s) Free of charge IDE?
Notes
  1. ↑ Microsoft classifies developer accounts to individual accounts and company accounts. Individual accounts are restricted from using specific app capabilities and cannot list desktop apps in Windows Store, while company accounts do not have this restriction.[45] Microsoft verifies company accounts by contacting the company official, while this is not done for individual accounts.[46]

Third-party platforms

Third-party platforms are software distribution platforms which are used as alternatives for operating system native distribution platforms. Independent operating systems are software collections which use their own software distribution, customized user interface, SDK and API (except billing API which is related only to application store).

Name Established Status Organizations Available apps Download count Install base Device platform Developer's cut per sale Developer fees Developer Console Development platform(s)
Aptoide October 2010 Live Aptoide 311,000
(April 2015)		 300 million
(March 2013)		 10.5 million
(January 2013)		 Android up to 87.5% Free Unknown Android SDK, Java ME
Cydia February 2008 Live saurik Unknown Unknown 30 million iOS N/A Free Unknown iOS SDK, Xcode
F-Droid 2010 Live F-Droid Limited 1,878[47] 248 million
(Mar 2015)[48]		 Unknown Android N/A Free Unknown Android SDK
GetJar 2004 Live GetJar, Accel Partners 849,036
(March 2015)[49]		 3 billion
(March 2015)[50]		 200 million users[49] Multiple[51]
Android, BlackBerry OS, Flash Lite, Java, iOS, Palm OS, Symbian, Windows Phone		 N/A Free[51] Unknown Unknown
Handango 2000 Closed PocketGear 190,000[52] Yes Unknown Multiple[l 7]
Android, BlackBerry OS, Palm OS, PSP, Symbian, Windows Mobile		 ≈42% Free N/A
Handmark 2000 Live Handmark Unknown Unknown Unknown Multiple[l 8]
Android, BlackBerry OS, iOS, Java, Palm OS, Symbian, Windows Mobile		 Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown
MiKandi 29 November 2009 Live MiKandi Unknown Unknown 80,000
(December 2009)[53]		 Android[54] Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown
Opera Mobile Store March 2011 Live Opera Software 300,000
(November 2014)<ref

name=Opera Mobile">"Microsoft and Opera Software sign agreement to extend Opera Mobile Store to more Nokia phones". Opera Press Releases (Press release). Opera Software ASA. November 18, 2014. Retrieved November 20, 2014.</ref>

 45 million per month
(December 2012)[55]		 Unknown Multiple[56]
Android, Java, Symbian, BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile, iOS		 70% — Android, Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile; 50% — Java[57] Free[57] Unknown Android SDK, Java ME, S60, BlackBerry SDK, Windows Phone Developer Tools
PocketGear 1999 Closed PocketGear 140,000
(June 2010)[58]		 Yes Unknown Multiple
Android, BlackBerry OS, Java, Palm OS, Symbian, Windows Mobile		 ≈55% Free Unknown N/A
Name Established Status Organizations Available apps Download count Install base Device platform Developer's cut per sale Developer fees Developer Console Development platform(s)

References

  1. ↑ Amazon App Store for Android. Retrieved 11 March 2014
  2. ↑ "Amazon Developer Services". amazon.com.
  3. ↑ "Amazon Mobile App SDK". amazon.com.
  4. ↑ "App Stores:Distimo". Retrieved 24 June 2011.
  5. ↑ "Official App Catalog App Gallery : Precentral.net". Retrieved 22 January 2011.
  6. ↑ "comScore Reports July 2010 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share". Retrieved 15 September 2010.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Developing and Distributing with Palm: Developer Program Details". Retrieved 4 June 2010.
  8. ↑ Steve Ranger (January 16, 2015). "iOS versus Android. Apple App Store versus Google Play: Here comes the next battle in the app wars". ZDNet.
  9. ↑ Sarah Perez (June 2, 2014). "iTunes App Store Now Has 1.2 Million Apps, Has Seen 75 Billion Downloads To Date". TechCrunch.
  10. ↑ "Apple has sold more than 800 million iOS devices, 130 million new iOS users in the last year". Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  11. ↑ "App Store Pricing Matrix".
  12. ↑ Apple Inc. "iOS Developer Program - Apple Developer". Developer.apple.com. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  13. ↑ The App World Analytics Website. AppWorldReport.com. Retrieved on 24 November 2013.
  14. ↑ "Three Billion and Counting". Blackberry Developer Blog. Retrieved 7 November 2012.
  15. ↑ Motorola il iDEN (25 June 2010). "RIM Q1 2010 Results - 100 Millionth BlackBerry Served". Intomobile.com. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  16. ↑ Duryee, Tricia (19 August 2010). "BlackBerry Takes Larger Cut Of Developer Revenues In Updated App World". mocoNews. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  17. ↑ "BlackBerry App World FAQ". Research In Motion. Retrieved 14 July 2009.
  18. ↑ "» Downloadable Content Goes Away March 2nd - Sidekick 4G / Sidekick LX 2009 / Sidekick 2008 / Sidekick 3 / Hiptop 3". Hiptop3.com. 1 March 2011. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  19. ↑ "Internet Archive Wayback Machine". Web.archive.org. 27 February 2009. Archived from the original on 27 February 2009. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  20. ↑ 1.5 Million Apps are Live on The Google Play Store. WhaTech (19 September 2014). Retrieved on 22 September 2014.
  21. ↑ Google Play Passes 50 Billion App Downloads. Mashable.com (18 July 2013). Retrieved on 24 November 2013.
  22. ↑ "Vic Gundotra - Google+ - Just back from a whirlwind trip to Asia visiting our...". Google Plus. Retrieved 2013-09-03.
  23. ↑ Developer Registration - Android Developer Help. Support.google.com. Retrieved on 24 November 2013.
  24. ↑ Search Results | Firefox Marketplace. Retrieved 11 March 2015.
  25. ↑ "Microsoft and Opera Software sign agreement to extend Opera Mobile Store to more Nokia phones". Opera Press Releases (Press release). Opera Software ASA. November 18, 2014. Retrieved March 26, 2015.
  26. ↑ Microsoft Mobile Developer Team (February 11, 2015). "From Nokia Store to Opera Mobile Store – February 18th Closing of App Intake and Registrations". Microsoft. Retrieved March 27, 2015.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 "Nokia Developer - Global reach statistics". Developer.nokia.com. 22 August 2012. Retrieved 23 August 2012.
  28. ↑ "Nokia store passes 11 million downloads a day". All About Symbian. 10 January 2012. Retrieved 10 January 2012.
  29. ↑ Nokia Developer - Publishing your app. Publish.ovi.com. Retrieved on 24 November 2013.
  30. ↑ Nokia Developer - Qt. Developer.nokia.com. Retrieved on 24 November 2013.
  31. ↑ Nokia Developer - Nokia Web Tools. Developer.nokia.com. Retrieved on 24 November 2013.
  32. ↑ Nokia Developer - Tools centre. Developer.nokia.com. Retrieved on 24 November 2013.
  33. ↑ Microsoft. "Nokia X Platform Overview". nokia.com.
  34. ↑ http://www.wpcentral.com/there-are-now-over-300000-windows-phone-apps-available
  35. ↑ "There are now over 245,000 apps in the Windows Phone Store". WinBeta.
  36. ↑ Gartner Says Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Declined 1.7 Percent in 2012. Gartner.com (13 February 2013). Retrieved on 24 November 2013.
  37. ↑ "Gartner Says Asia/Pacific Led Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales to Growth in First Quarter of 2013". gartner.com.
  38. ↑ "Gartner Says Smartphone Sales Grew 46.5 Percent in Second Quarter of 2013 and Exceeded Feature Phone Sales for First Time". gartner.com.
  39. ↑ "Gartner Says Smartphone Sales Accounted for 55 Percent of Overall Mobile Phone Sales in Third Quarter of 2013". gartner.com.
  40. ↑ "Gartner Says Annual Smartphone Sales Surpassed Sales of Feature Phones for the First Time in 2013". gartner.com.
  41. ↑ "Registration info". microsoft.com. Microsoft.
  42. ↑ "Unifying Developer Registration: Windows and Windows Phone". Building Apps for Windows.
  43. ↑ twitter:@vlkodotnet. "MetroStore Scanner". metrostorescanner.com.
  44. ↑ "Windows Store finally reaches the 150,000 app milestone, but are you impressed?". WinBeta.
  45. ↑ "Account types, locations, and fees". microsoft.com. Microsoft.
  46. ↑ "Opening a developer account". microsoft.com. Microsoft.
  47. ↑ List of known apks in the F-Droid repository — Run "awk '{print $2}' | uniq | wc -l" to get the number — 30 January 2014
  48. ↑ Downloads data— 11 March 2015
  49. ↑ 49.0 49.1 "GetJar - Mobile - The Worlds Biggest Open App Store". GetJar. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
  50. ↑ "Company - GetJar Developers". GetJar. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
  51. ↑ 51.0 51.1 "GetJar - Mobile - The Worlds Biggest Open App Store". getjar.com.
  52. ↑ http://assets.handango.com/marketing/collateral/HandangoOverview.pdf
  53. ↑ Jordan, Jon (9 December 2009). "Android adult-only app store MiKandi launches on a natural high". Pocket Gamer. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
  54. ↑ Matyszczyk, Chris (29 November 2009). "Droid does, iPhone doesn't: The porn app store". CNET. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
  55. ↑ "A new and improved Opera Mobile Store". Opera Press Releases (Press release). Opera Software ASA. February 27, 2012. Retrieved December 12, 2012.
  56. ↑ "Opera Publisher Portal". opera.com.
  57. ↑ 57.0 57.1 "Software Distribution Agreement" (PDF). Opera Software. Retrieved 29 November 2012.
  58. ↑ http://corp.pocketgear.com/about.html

Other References

  1. ↑ "Palm Developer Network". Developer.palm.com. 29 August 2011. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  2. ↑ Apple Inc. "iOS Dev Center". Developer.apple.com. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  3. ↑ "BlackBerry App World Vendor Support". Na.blackberry.com. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  4. ↑ "Android Developers". Developer.android.com. Retrieved 6 December 2011.
  5. ↑ Nokia Developer - Your idea. Our tools. Developer.nokia.com (22 February 1999). Retrieved on 24 November 2013.
  6. ↑ Windows Phone 7
  7. ↑ http://www.handango.com/info/Partner.jsp?storeId=2218
  8. ↑ "Handmark - OneLouder Apps". handmark.com.