By David Goldman
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- If apps were taken out of the equation, would you consider buying a Palm Pre? What about a BlackBerry Torch? Or a Windows Phone?
Today, a smartphone is really only as good as the applications that run on it. And despite what Nokia (NOK) CEO Stephen Elop says, that battle has really become a two-horse race between Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) and Google (GOOG, Fortune 500). The iPhone App Store has 350,000 apps, and the Android Marketplace has 275,000. Their next biggest competitor, Nokia's Ovi Store, has 50,000 apps. Research In Motion's BlackBerry App World, has just 20,000 apps, and distant rivals Windows Phone 7 and HP's WebOS have fewer than 10,000 offerings in their app stores....[continued]
