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In the mobile OS world, Google’s Android is still a challenger but with the amount of devices that will be running the system that are due to come out in the coming months alone in combination with its open approach it is definitely a contestant to watch closely. The success of Apple’s App Store for the iPhone / iPod Touch is often measured by how many apps have already been developed for the platform (around 70,000), but since Google doesn’t disclose exactly how many apps are available through Android Market it was difficult to compare the two on that particular level.

But thanks to AndroLib, which provides a useful website where you can browse Android apps from your computer (unlike the Android Market website), we can conclude that there are currently at least 10,000 applications and games available on the platform today.

AndroLib’s latest stats show a total of 10,072 apps that were crawled by their system, the majority of which were free (64.2% to be exact).

Good news, Android users: Dropbox, the widely acclaimed (and super-useful) file syncing service, is going to be releasing an application for Android devices very soon. Today, they’re giving us a taste of what to expect when the app lands some time in the next couple months, and it looks like it will be worth the wait.

The new Android App will allow users to view their files from their phones, and will support multimedia content like music and movies (you can elect to store your key documents locally on your phone if you want). As with the desktop version of the app, if you edit a file, it will automatically sync up with your account. You can upload new files to your account and share links to them with your friends (the app will also be integrated into Android’s systemwide ‘Share Via’ menu, so you can immediately upload a photo or video you shoot to Dropbox). In short, this is exactly what Android-toting Dropbox users have been waiting for.

Dropbox has been available on the desktop and web since it launched at TechCrunch50 2008, and it released an iPhone application in September 2009. Other smartphone users have been able to access their accounts through a mobile web app, but it doesn’t offer nearly the flexibility that the native app will. According to an email the company sent out last month, a native BlackBerry app is on the way as well.

For those of you that haven’t tried Dropbox, it’s a service that makes it remarkably easy to share files between multiple computers (it means you don’t have to keep emailing files between your home and work computers, or rely on a clunky USB stick). It’s also great for collaboration — we’ve been using it around the TechCrunch office to share files for years now.

So today I finally got to touch an Android phone. T-Mobile, Google, and HTC put on a big media circus in New York City (see our live notes), complete with Google co-founders Sergey and Larry coming out on rollerblades to tell us how cool the phone is because you can hack it just like a computer. (Sergey wrote an app that uses the built-in accelerometer to measure how long it takes for the phone to hit the floor when you throw it in the air because, well, he’s a geek). And you really have to keep that in mind. There will be many Android phones, and they will all get better over time. It’s a platform, yada, yada, yada.

The T-Mobile G1 is $20 cheaper than the iPhone, at $180 for existing customers, and comes with two data plans: $25 a month (with unlimited Web access and limited text messaging) and $35 a month (with unlimited everything). It goes on sale October 22 at T-Mobile stores, but existing customers can begin pre-ordering on the Web already. Expect a huge marketing push. This will be the biggest marketing campaign in T-Mobile’s history. (Although they didn’t say it at the press conference, I suspect Google is footing the tab). The commercials are already out on YouTube.

But how does this one stack up against the one and only iPhone? It doesn’t have quite the finish of the iPhone (both in terms of hardware or user interface), but it comes pretty damn close. (John Biggs at CrunchGear calls it “almost perfect”). And more importantly, it matches the iPhone on many fronts. It’s got GPS, WiFi, a touchscreen, an accelerometer, a camera, Gmail, Google Maps, a Webkit-based browser (just like Safari on the iPhone), and an App market.

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I’ve been pretty pumped about Swype’s ultra-speedy alternative typing solution for touchscreen devices ever since it first debuted at TechCrunch50 2008. My excitement only grew when it finally made its way to a handset, the Omnia II, just last month – but as I’m not the biggest fan of the OS that powers that device, my thumbs were left twiddling until an Android port was released.

Earlier this morning, I got my hands-on a pre-release copy of just that: Swype for Android. So how is it? In a word: Great.

If you’re unfamiliar with Swype, here’s how it works: rather than typing words by tapping letter-by-letter, you swipe (swipe, Swype – Get it?) your finger (or a stylus) through the letters of each word. If you wanted to spell “DOG”, for example, you’d put your thumb down on D, slide it over to O, down to G, and then release. You don’t have to be perfectly accurate – in fact, you can be pretty sloppy and Swype will still figure out what you mean. If it’s not positive which word you meant, it’ll present a list of possible options. After a very very slight learning curve, Swype promises to be considerably faster than the standard hunt-and-peck keyboard input method.

Notes & Impressions:

I tested Swype on the Verizon Droid Eris. As far as I can tell, Swype is working properly on any Android-device with a WVGA (800×480 or 854×480), HVGA (480×320), or QVGA (320×480) resolution. This pretty much covers the gamut of Android smart phones.
After just a few minutes of get accustomed to Swype, I’m already typing a bit faster than I am on the standard Android keyboard. With a bit of practice, I could probably double my speed.
I’m surprised how sloppy I can be with my tracing before Swype starts tripping up. Once you start blasting away at it, it’s almost magical.
Works in both portrait and landscape mode
Currently appears to support US English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish
Under options, you can pick your language, toggle Auto-spacing (inserts spaces after each word), Word prediction, Tip indicator (Flashes a tip indicator on the keyboard when it has hints for you), Disable sounds, set how long the Swype path is shown, tweak the Speed vs Accuracy settings (defaults work for me), and run through the Swype tutorial
It doesn’t know curse words out of the box. Duck you! However..
Adding words is simple: You just type them manually, letter by letter. I taught it every curse word I know in a minute or two.
Switching back and forth between Swype and the standard keyboard is a matter of holding your thumb on any text input box, hitting “Select Input Method”, and picking whichever keyboard you prefer.
Swype appears to work just fine in every Android app I’ve got on this device. One feature, however, requires apps to be modified for compatibility: double-tap correction. In any Swype-tailored app, you can double tap any word you’ve typed to be presented with a list of alternatives. All apps, Swype-enabled or not, will present a list of alternatives immediately after a questionable word is typed – you just can’t double tap them after the fact.

Android Market is finally getting a robust desktop presence. But we don’t have to Google to thank for it — it’s coming from doubleTwist, the syncing software that allows you to sync your media with Android phones (it also supports myriad other devices). The new feature is launching today with the latest update of doubleTwist for Mac, and will be included with the Windows version soon. doubleTwist is also offering a web version of its Android Market directory, which you can access at http://apps.doubletwist.com. I’ve made no secret of my dislike for the current version of Google’s official web presencefor Android Market — it offers a sampling of Android’s top apps, but it’s ugly and doesn’t offer a full listing of what’s available (it doesn’t even offer a search function). There are some third-party web directories, like AndroidLib, but these don’t offer the slick feel you get from a desktop application. doubleTwist comes closer than either of these options to matching the iTunes browsing experience, but it still isn’t perfect.

Whuhp! Looks like that i1 banner didn’t go up all that early after all. A day before CTIA 2010 even begins, Motorola has just come along and made the Android-powered i1 and its push-to-talk features official.The Android-powered and push-to-talk points were already confirmed, but Motorola’s release throws in a few new fun facts: it’s rugged up to Military 810F standards (dust, shock, and rain), has a 3.1? “tough” touchscreen, WiFi, 5 megapixel camera, and comes preloaded with Opera Mini 5. No pricing or specific availability announced just yet, but expect it to hit the shelves sometime this Summer.

75 million phones running the Androidoperating system will be sold in 2012, says research firm Gartner, which if right, would eventually make it the second most popular mobile OS after Symbian.

This makes sense, because the operating system is free (unlike Windows Mobile), and it gives mobile carriers and handset manufacturers who aren’t Apple and RIM (the closed off guys) the ability to create a smartphone that someone may actually want to use. I’ve switched to Android now based largely on deep integration with Google Voice. And that is despite the fact that Android is still just an infant. Version 1.5, which most people are using, has an imperfect user interface and is somewhat laggy on today’s hardware.

But hold on. There’s just one problem. Android, an open source operating system, must avoid the fate of J2ME, an open source mobile applications platform. Open source is great, until everyone splinters off into their own world. That’s what happened to J2ME, and a number of frustrated Android developers are now saying that there is a risk Android will follow the same path.

New Android devices are being announced and shipped in bunches. HTC, Samsung, Dell, Verizon and others have phones on the way. Each has different hardware, and different software, than the others.

We’ve spoken with a number of high profile Android application developers. All of them, without exception, have told me they are extremely frustrated with Android right now. For the iPhone, they build once and maintain the code base. On Android, they built once for v.1.5, but are getting far less installs than the iPhone.

And now they’re faced with a landslide of new handsets, some running v.1.6 and some courageous souls even running android v.2.0. All those manufacturers/carriers are racing to release their phones by the 2009 holiday season, and want to ensure the hot applications will work on their phones. And here’s the problem – in almost every case, we hear, there are bugs and more serious problems with the apps.

There are whispers of backwards and forwards compatibility issues as well, making the problem even worse.

More than one developer has told us that this isn’t just a matter of debugging their existing application to ensure that it works on the various handsets. They say they’re going to have to build and maintain separate code for various Android devices. Some devices seem to have left out key libraries that are forcing significant recoding efforts, for example. With others, it’s more of a mystery.

Imagine if Windows developers had to build different versions of their applications for different PC manufacturers. Or even different versions for various models by a single manufacturer. That’s what some Android developers are saying they are facing now.

Some manufacturers/carriers are opting out of the Android marketplace altogether, and only allowing custom applications on the phone. These devices can still use the Android robot logo, which is creative commons, but they aren’t able to use the Android text logo, which requires that they pass a compatibility test suite.

Developers are frustrated. And consumers will be confused when their “Android” phone won’t let them download their favorite third party applications.

When Steve Ballmer said open operating systems are hard, he wasn’t kidding. And Google, which is currently building two separate operating systems (Android and Chrome OS) doesn’t have 30 years of experience in getting it right.

But Wait…Keeping the Cart Behind The Horse

First of all, the compatibility between versions issue may be overblown. The reported problems have been limited to an Android developer contest, where developers were building on v.1.5 and being reviewed on v.1.6. We haven’t heard of any major app developers complaining of backwards or forward compatibility problems. Also, I’ve now upgraded my phone from 1.5 to 1.6, and every application continues to work fine.

The bigger issue of a general splintering of Android cross-partner may also be overblown. As I said above, the carriers are rushing to get devices to market by end of year, and they are pushing developers to ensure that their apps work. In most cases the test devices developers get aren’t running final software, and so the final devices at launch may not have these problems.

The real test will come in a month or so when sales of multiple devices running v.1.6 of Android ramp up. If apps are running bug-free cross-device without tons of developer frustration, Android may be looking good. But if developers are forced to create and maintain multiple versions of their apps for various devices, Android may be in trouble. The whole idea of Android is to let app developers build once and let users install on any Android device. Right now, it’s not a certainty that will happen.

Adobe this morning announced that third-party developers now have access to the Photoshop.com Mobile for Android 1.1 editor, allowing them to make it a part of their applications.

The news comes four months after the company released Photoshop.com Mobile for Android, enabling users to easily edit and share their photos. That app got an upgrade, too.

Amusingly, Adobe also takes a bit of a swing at Apple for not being able to provide such tools to iPhone app developers. Said Doug Mack, vice president and general manager of Digital Imaging and Rich Media Solutions at Adobe:

“Unlike iPhone, the Android platform allows us to make the Photoshop.com editor broadly available to developers so they can provide it within any application they are working on. Photoshop functionality can then easily be accessed from an online auction, real estate or social media application so users can quickly fix photos and make them look their best, before being showcased.”

The updated version of Photoshop.com Mobile for Android 1.1 brings effects like Vibrant (to boost photo colors) and Pop, which brings a ‘pop art’ style to images. The Soft Black and White, and Warm Vintage tools can be used to add a classic and aged effect to photos. Other new effects include Vignette Blur, White Glow and Rainbow.

Adobe Photoshop.com Mobile for Android 1.1 is available as a free download in all countries with Android Market in English only. Search the Android Market for “photoshop.com” to find it.

As Apple goes on the offensive against Android, it risks alienating more and more developers. Today, another prominent developer chose the opposing side. Tim Bray, the well-known software architect and blogger, is joining Google to help rally even more developers around the Android mobile operating system.

Bray is the co-inventor of the XML Web standard, and most recently worked at Sun Microsystems. In a blog post, he explains that he is drawn to Google in part because he hates the iPhone, or at least its closed and controlling environment from a developer’s perspective.

The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord’s pleasure and fear his anger.

I hate it.

He also notes that Android is catching up to the iPhone in terms of sales:

As of now, they’re selling around 90K iPhones per day compared to around 60K Android handsets. It’s a horse race!

In February, Google noted partners are selling 60,000 Android handsets a day, and Apple sold 8.7 million iPhones last quarter, or about 97,000 a day. Android is making steady gains in market share.

Bray’s decision to throw his hat into the Android ring is just the latest example of a growing backlash among developers to Apple’s autocratic ways. Facebook developer Joe Hewitt famously quit the iPhone over similar issues. Apple cannot afford to alienate developers because, given the choice, they will shift their attention and their apps to other platforms.

Remember the Dell Mini 3i, Dell’s China-only Android phone? Well it’s not China-only anymore.

Rumor has it that Dell will bring the Mini 3i to the U.S. in the next few months to compete with other Android phones coming down the pike from HTC, Samsung, and Motorola.

The phone, presumably still in its Chinese trade dress, felt “cheap and plasticky, like the Pre,” according our tipster. He believes it will be upgraded for the American market.

The phone has better hardware than the Chinese version and a slightly better camera – probably 5-megapixel over the Chinese 3-megapixel. It is slimmer than the iPhone and the interface mimics, as seen from this photo, the iPhone’s icon-based launcher UI.

Interestingly, Dell is splintering the Android stack and shipping the phone with modified or missing Android libraries, making it a bit harder to program. The tipster reported that some apps won’t work on this version.

Dell hasn’t sold a smartphone since the Axim X51, an ill-fated WinMo PDA-alike last sold in 2007. This return to the smartphone market seems to be a direct attack on the WinMo architecture as Dell could have easily gone with something like Windows Mobile 6.5.

We’ll have photos of the new phone this week but we’ll add this to our Palm Pre and Pixi announcements as interesting new phones from ostensibly U.S.-based companies.