Explore new Android apps
Three Web sites that report stats for the Android Market can help you find new and popular apps.
Though the Android Market has been open for eight months, it lacks many important features present on Apple's iPhone App Store. Above all, you can't browse the full gallery of apps on your PC. What limited browsing features that are present on the official Android Market site only display selected applications.
But where Google has lagged, the community has stepped up. A number of clever Web sites now enables users to perform improved searches, view a complete listing of apps, and see historical rankings. You can use a combination of these sites to discover new apps and trends.
Cyrket acts as a Web client for the Android Market. It provides the same category listings that you'd expect to see on your phone, but you'll also see the description, details, rating, and reviews for each app. Other features in Cyrket include search, listing by popularity, and RSS feeds for the latest updates.
aTrackDog collects information about the apps you've installed and reports it to a central location. Advanced filter options enable you to find the most popular apps over different time periods, which makes it easy to find helpful information about the best selling games last month or the top free apps in the last week. Each listing also provides links to the developer's Web site and reviews from Android Tapp.
AndroidStats focuses on historical rankings. You can use its weekly movement charts to identify quality new apps and games and view graphs that display all-time ranking of each app. Another helpful feature tracks general pricing trends by showing the price change report from the previous day.
It would be great if the Android Market displayed such information, but I expect that a major update to the Market this year will play an important role in the next Android Developers Challenge, which enables users to review entries and vote for their favorite apps.