Archos 7 Home Tablet and the Android Market

Android Summary

Android is Google's operating system for mobile devices based on ARM architecture. Android is a competitor to the Nokia Symbian platform, Apple's iOS for the iPhone and Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Windows Phone for mobile devices all based on ARM architecture.

Android Market Share

Smartphone Market Share for Android (wikipedia):- By Q2 2009, Android had 2.8% market share of the worldwide smartphone market rising to 3.5% in Q3 2009, 5.2% in November 2009, 9% in February 2010 and 13%  in May 2010, only 0.2% behind Microsoft. Android's Q1 2010 US was 28% share surpassing the 21% iPhone share. In June 2010 Android was getting 160,000 new users per day up from 100,000 per day in May 2010.

In October, 2009, Gartner Inc. predicted that by 2012, Android would become the world's second most popular smartphone platform, behind Nokia's Symbian OS, BlackBerry would fall from 2nd to 5th place, iPhone would remain in 3rd place and Microsoft's Windows Mobile would remain in 4th place. 

Android also competes with Blackberry for use in smartphones, tablets, portable media players and book e-readers.

Archos 7 Home Tablet (now in stock at DataMind.co.uk) has an Android 1.5 (Cupcake) operating system - released by Google in April 2009. Android 2.1 (Eclair) released January 2010 has support for more screen sizes and resolutions.

Richard asked DataMind.co.uk today "Do you know if Archos 7 Home Tablet 8gb can be upgraded to android 2.1 or if there's a way of getting marketplace onto it?"

Android 2.1 Eclair

Android 1.5 Cupcake

The Android Market is an online software store developed by Google for Android devices (wikipedia). An application program ("app") called "Market" is preinstalled on some Android devices and allows users to browse and download apps published by third-party developers, hosted on Android Market. Android market emphasis is on smartphones. Minimal hardware requirements for submissions include : GPS, compass, 2-MP autofocus camera, 3-axis accelerometer and 9 physical buttons. 

Android devices are listed in Wikipedia including Smartphones (Acer, HTC etc), Tablet Computers incl. PMP (Archos 5 IT, Archos 7 Home Tablet etc) & E-Reader devices.


AppsLib is for Archos devices and tablets that are running Android. AppsLib has Social, Games, Multimedia etc applications.


ArchosFans post Operation Unbrickable: The quest for Google Apps has information about running Android apps on Archos 7 Home Tablet (A7HT) including Android Market, Gmail, GMaps, Google Talk and Google Calendar but Abobe Flash will not work.