ANDROID MARKET HITS 10 BILLION DOWNLOADS

The applications plaza for Google's mobile OS, Android, just had its ten billionth app downloaded. In honor of hitting this mark, it's passing the savings on to you, placing ten apps on sale for ten cents. The sale will last for ten days, so procrastinators will have a little extra time to decide which ones are worth a dime. There's a few classics on the list, such as SwiftKey X, Minecraft, Asphalt 6 and SoundHound.

LEAK: NEW ANDROID MARKET COMING

Version 3.3.11 of the Android Market has leaked out and assuming this version is close to what will be officially distributed, it will be adding a few much-needed features. The first and most-important is that Google is tweaking auto-download settings yet again by giving users the option to make auto-update the default setting, making it easier to auto-update apps on Android. You can also tick a box to "Update over Wi-Fi only" to save precious megabytes on your cellular data plan and probably improve your battery life to boot. When you download a new app for the first time, you can opt to have it automatically add a shortcut to your homescreen.

There are plenty of other nuances to be found, including a new icon, smaller fonts, more visible star ratings, and the voice-button on the default Market search. Rumor has it the update is being pushed out to handsets now, so it hopefully it won't be too long until it arrives on your Android device. Hit the link here for a gallery of images.

ANDROID MARKET JUMPS TO OVER 500,000 APPS

The total number of published applications in Google’s Android Market climbed past the half-million mark in September. According to data from mobile app market intelligence firm research2guidance, the Android Market surpassed 500,000 published apps last month, but over 37% of submissions have been removed over time for a variety of reasons. Apple’s App Store has had over 600,000 successful submissions to date according to the firm, while 24% of apps have been removed. “Although Apple regularly cleans up its store from inappropriate or outdated content, its active application share still exceeds that of Android,” research2guidance noted in a press release. “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.”

BLACKBERRY PLAYBOOK TO FINALLY RUN ANDROID APPS BY LATE FALL

RIM previously announced that its Playbook tablet would be able to run Android apps by the summer, but a reliable source states this highly anticipated feature of the Blackberry slate now won't arrive until "late fall." With RIM struggling against ever-stronger competition, delays like this are bad news.

GOOGLE'S ANDROID WEB MARKET CHECKS TO SEE IF APP IS COMPATIBLE WITH YOUR DEVICES

Google has already made some tough moves to tackle fragmentation, but it's clearly still wary of the problem. It's just tweaked the Android Market web store to show users which apps are compatible with which of their gadgets. Of course, compatibility screening was already in place for users who accessed the Market from within their device, but this update should still be of use to those who surf the web store, especially if they're rocking multiple handsets or a phone-plus-tablet combo.

GOOGLE LAUNCHES MOVIE RENTALS IN ANDROID MARKET

Google just announced movie rentals in the Android Market at its I/O conference. Chris from the Android services team just hit the stage at Moscone and demonstrated renting movies on the Android Market from your phone, tablet or PC with a single click. "Pinning" mirrors the experience with apps and books, you can select it on your PC and download to the device in the background for offline viewing.

Movies are live in the market right now, support on all Android 2.2 or higher devices is expected "in a couple of weeks" and tablets will get support bundled with their upgrade to Android 3.1. On the PC, it ties back to the recently expanded YouTube rental service with the same restrictions (30 days to watch, 24 hour window once you start watching) and pricing, making that per-movie VOD price a bit easier to swallow with its cross-platform support and we even spied a few HD selections for $4.99.

GOOGLE'S ANDROID MARKET GETS AN UPDATE

Many people woke up to an early Christmas present on Sunday...an updated Android Market. Besides a new EULA, the Market sports a brand new cleaner UI which makes it easier to browse things inside an app (ratings, comments, etc.). Finding an app is still somewhat frustrating, but getting better.

The other big change is the returns windows. This time period has gone from 24 hours to 48 hours and is now at 15 minutes...YES, 15 MINUTES! This time was primarily driven by game developers, but has ramifications beyond gaming. Take keyboards. Is 15 minutes enough time to really get acquainted with a new keyboard? [Geek]

ANDROID MARKET SURPASSES 100,000 APPS

Google has confirmed via Twitter the Android Market has surpassed 100,000 apps available.  It has only taken seven months to go from 30,000 to 100,000+ and three months to get there from 70,000.  Apple of course is still the king with over 300,000, but at this rate Android is hot on Apple's heels. [Engadget]