How many apps do you need? Don't get me wrong, I think the iPad is very, very good. I use mine every day. But I just took it out and counted the apps I actually use really ever, and apparently 64,987 of those 65,000 apps could be deleted tomorrow with no apparent loss of functionality for me. Of the 13 remaining, at least half run everywhere (Kindle, Twitter, etc.), several others are nice-to-have ways to access web sites (Alien Blue for Reddit, Instapaper, FeeddlerPro for Google Reader), and only one by my count has no suitable replacement outside of the iPad (Papers).
Yes, everyone will have a different set of apps they use, but there's no realistic justification that "SearchEngines.ru Forum" (from the recent release page I just looked at) is adding much value to the platform. A lot of those 65,000 are apps like those. Realistically, if you have maybe 1500 of the most popular apps, you have enough to pretty well serve the market.
>>Realistically, if you have maybe 1500 of the most popular apps, you have enough to pretty well serve the market.
Yes, that's the point. It's just that iPad now has so many good quality apps compared to Android. It _may_ change in future, but for the time being iPad wins. (The total number of apps never matters, most of them are crap anyway)
That's a reason for some geeks to buy one. It's the reason I looked at buying one - not so much for Android, but for something to build a DIY dynabook on. I still probably will when someone makes something closer to Apple's industrial design, but I don't think that's going to help a whole lot with market share.
This is silly, without apps what value does it offer?