It was one year ago today that Google renamed their Market as Play. Today they are celebrating with special deals and free stuff. Nothing very remarkable.
Three different games — Gnome Village, Royal Revolt and Yumby Smash — all have new free levels, discounts on in-app purchases or exclusive characters available for a limited time. Fancy, Hotels.com and Gyft are all offering discounts on purchases made from the app or giving away free gift cards to be redeemed in-app as well.
Both Apple and Google launched their mobile app stores in 2008 — Apple in July and Google in October, giving iOS a three month lead time on Android. The iTunes App Store pulled out to an early lead in terms of app availability. Now Google Play has pulled ahead and will likely stay that way since there are many more Android phones than Apples.
The Apple App Store brings in a lot more revenue, however. Apple’s App Store earned 3.5 times more than Android’s Google Play in December, 2013, according to AppAnnie.
