In Numbers, Google Play Is Larger Than Apple's App Store

Google Play store has more apps than Apple's App Store. Google Play ended 2014 with 1.43 million apps, compared to App Store's 1.21 million apps.

According to appFigures, for the first time Google Play has outnumbered App Store.

Plethora of apps available for iPhones and iPads has been Apple's main draws and now Google surpassing the numbers is a bit of blow to Apple's bragging rights.

"Apple's strict [app] review process is paying off for Google," Ariel Michaeli, co-founder of appFigures.com, said in an interview. "Apple rejects a lot of apps ... and it is either becoming too difficult for developers [to create iOS apps] or Google is just becoming more lucrative.... It is [easier] to submit apps to the Play store [compared to] how strict Apple is, often to the point of frustrating their developers with the vague rules that give Apple the ability to reject or pull apps without notice."

Apple's 'pickiness' could mean that the company is more concerned about the quality of apps than quantity of apps.

Google also beat out Apple for the number of new developers debuting in its store, for third year in a row. The Play Store added 388,000 new developers, compared to Apple which added 282,000.

 "Apple came out with Swift, which is supposed to be easier than [the programming language] Java and anything else on the market," Michaeli added. "Swift is not an evolution of Apple's current technology but rather a new language created from scratch that's based on newer coding standards and is not only simpler to use but also easier to learn."