As the number of apps in the App Store rapidly approaches 100,000, the fact that growth is still accelerating is pretty staggering. It’s not hard to see why when app development houses are pumping out dozens of apps in short order. But at that volume, most of those apps aren’t going to be very good. Big in Japan, a respected mobile app development house, has a plan to up the ante in terms of both quality and output.

The company has set a goal to release 100 apps before the end of 2010 for the iPhone. How are they going to do this? By pulling together a bunch of developers from around the U.S. to make an app development power house. Currently, the team has assembled 25 developers and 25 user interface guys to work towards the goal. The team members mix and match, pairing up to do one app at a time. When they complete that one, it’s on to the next one, with a new set of partners.

I was Tweeting with Michael Gartenberg last night about all the great Android games. After all, the Android Marketplace has so many great titles like Civilization Revolution, Canabalt, iShoot, and… oh… wait…

All kidding aside, the reason there is such a dearth of great games has to do with some programming choices in Android itself and it’s a problem that can – and should – be fixed before the Droid comes to market this November.

I was sorting through my notes and video footage of the Google press event around the launch of Google Maps Navigation for Android 2.0 and saw this gem. It’s a minute or so of footage of Google CEO Eric Schmidt talking about the potential of today’s mobile platforms when combined with the cloud.

His words echo Arthur C. Clarke’s famous quote “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Schmidt says that today’s mobile platforms are so powerful that when combined with a robust cloud service they can do “magical things.” And he encourages people not to limit their imaginations when thinking of new applications to serve people.

Inspiring stuff for people out there thinking up the future. Full video is below:

When Google announced what is clearly the best car navigation application on any mobile today, it didn’t just take a swipe at GPS navigation companies such as Garmin and TomTom. It took a swipe at Apple.

Beyond the advanced features of the Google Maps Navigation app (voice search, crowdsourced traffic data, Street View navigation), what makes the app noteworthy is that it launched on Google’s own Android phones first rather than on the iPhone. By doing so, Google is putting Apple on notice that it is no longer reserving its best apps for the iPhone. This is but the latest sign of a growing rift between Apple and Google.

Google released a new mobile navigation app today and GPS navigation companies such as Garmin And TomTom saw their shares take a plunge. The announcement shaved $1.2 billion off of Garmin’s market cap alone. Its shares are down more than 16 percent so far today to $31.60. TomTom’s shares are down 21 percent to $8.11.

And this is just for an Android app. But Google could very well make it available to other phones as well, and that is what has investors worried. GPS navigation apps are among the most expensive, and most lucrative, of all mobile apps.

If you weren’t sure about switching to an Android phone in the near future, this might put you over the edge. Google Maps Navigation is an absolutely killer app. And it is only available for Android 2.0 phones.

Today is Droid day, and for the most part Google is taking a backseat and letting their partners get most of the attention. But Droid is the first Android phone to run Android 2.0, and Google Maps Navigation is clearly the early trophy app for those devices.

Features, video and image gallery below:

With the Holiday Season nearly upon us, we at TechCrunch thought it would behoove us to share with everyone a definitive list of the best smartphones currently available (or launching shortly), so as to help with any possible purchasing decisions which may occur in the upcoming months.

In making our decisions, we looked at these phones from the standpoint of the consumer. Thus, developer struggles, business security, and other such problems were not taken into account. Instead, functionality, price, and the overall usefulness of various smartphones made up the criteria which we adhered to during our reviews. These phones can be found on a multitude of carriers, operating systems, and continents.

The first Android-powered phone launched in Japan last June. Users were able to access free apps on the Android Market, with paid apps to become available at a later point. Paid apps for U.S. users came to the market in February. Now it appears that paid apps have finally come to Japan.

As we wrote in May, the country’s largest telecommunications company, NTT, has picked up the rights to distribute the first mobile phone that uses the Android OS in Japan. The first paid apps hit the Android Market today for Japanese users. The apps are listed on the Japanese version of AndroLib, which lists applications and games for Android for various countries.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated emphatically during Google’s most recent earnings call that “Android adoption is about to explode.” We agree – despite developer hiccups, Android is about to have its moment in the sun. An avalanche of new devices are hitting worldwide markets, and some of them are serious contenders.

Our bet is that the upcoming Motorola Droid will be the breakout winner from this batch of phones. But here’s the complete list of officially announced Android phones, as well as stuff that’s just rumored at this point. Bookmark this post, and keep a lookout for updates.

Here are the Android contenders:

Verizon and Motorola finally lifted the curtain on their new Droid Android phone yesterday. Make no mistake, this is Android’s flagship product, and the first phone that will pose a significant threat to Apple’s iPhone. And it will be available very soon, possibly as early as the end of this month.

MobileCrunch has been tracking the phone, which has also been called the Tao or Sholes, for some time. Just about anyone who has come in contact with the phone can’t stop talking about it. And from what we hear, they have good reason.

The phone is a three-way effort between Motorola, Verizon and Google. It looks a lot like the iPhone, and may even be as thin or thinner than the iPhone 3GS. It also has two key advantages over the iPhone – a slide out physical keyboard, and use of the Verizon network.

Unlike previous Android phones, the Droid is rumored to be powered by the TI OMAP3430, the same core that the iPhone and Palm Pre use, and which significantly outperforms Qualcomm 528MHz ARM11 based Android phones that exist today (Engadget has a great overview article on mobile CPUs).

During Google’s third quarter earnings conference call today, one message came out loud and clear: Google’s mobile strategy is starting to pay off. “Android adoption is about to explode,” declared CEO Eric Schmidt, explaining that all the “necessary conditions” are set for growth: There are now 12 Android phones out there (most recently the Motorola Cliq) across 32 carriers in 26 countries.

The whole Android strategy, of course, is to offer an low-cost, fully-featured, open-source OS and hand that to the cell phone manufacturers so that they can concentrate more on designing desirable hardware. And what does Google get out of all that? More mobile searches, which could be one of its biggest sources of growth in the coming years.

The dessert trio is, of course, a product of Google’s quirky sense of humor: each Google Android release has a dessert codename (Cupcake was 1.5 and Donut was 1.6, and Eclair is 2.0), and the Android team puts out a new giant sculpture to coincide more or less with the software’s release.

Like us, it appears that Google is a big fan of movies and television. It has dubbed this week “Go Mobile” week not for any real product reason, but rather because this week marks the anniversary of the original pilot episode of Star Trek. The rationale is that in that episode, Captain Kirk first uses the Communicator device, one of the first widely-recognized wireless communication tools. If the Communicator had existed at the same time as Google, the thought is clearly that it would have been G-powered.

This is one mobile application I think everyone should have installed. And be recommended by them to all of their friends and relatives to boot.

Meet iMobile Care, a potential life-saver that you can carry around in your pocket.

Launched at the beginning of this month, the app is primarily a reference guide that lets you obtain essential information about medical conditions and situations quickly and easily. The tool allows users to get a visual and textual explanation of how deliver aid and care during emergencies and events such as accidents, bites and stings, choking, injuries, poisoning, burns, and many other critical situations.

But billed as a mere mobile first aid guide even by its own makers, it’s actually much more than that.

75 million phones running the Android operating system will be sold in 2012, says research firm Gartner, making 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.

We wrote about Google’s Quick Search Box (QSB) a few months ago when the product was officially launched. We found the Twitter plug-in particularly interesting because QSB was able to turn into a Twitter app that let you post Tweets from the search box itself. Now, Google is launching a version of QSB for the Android Phone which provides similar functionality from the phone’s home screen.

QSB on the Android aims to cut down on keystrokes by providing suggestions as you type and provides a single search box to let you search a variety pf content on your phone, including apps, contacts, and browser history, as well as content from the web, like personalized search suggestions, local business listings, stock quotes, weather, and flight status. And QSB is intuitive; the search box will pull up items that you search for and use most often.

Israeli modular phone manufacturer, Modu, looks to be shaking things up with its next modular gadget – Modu 2. In a recent interview with TechRadar, Modu CEO, Dov Moran, has let (some of) the beans spill on Modu’s ambitions for its next generation of devices.

For anyone who is unfamiliar, Modu’s modular ecosystem includes various “jackets” which “create a new look and provide added functionality” to the underlying Modu phone. In the same way that you and I change our clothes based on our plans, Modu’s phone can change jackets for different functions, such as playing MP3s, taking digital photos, or at its simplest, changing its outward appearance with a dressy “suit” jacket.

We’ve seen a few different Android devices that seem to be VZW-bound over the last few weeks, but Verizon hasn’t said anything about the handsets or platform until now. The company has a webcast scheduled for later today but released a preemptive press release that outlines the basics.

(Full release after the jump)

We’ve covered a couple of Distimo reports in the past because they provide us with some valuable insights on Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Market based on the startup’s in-depth analysis of publicly available data. Now the company has added RIM’s Blackberry App World store to the fray, which gives us even more data points to compare the rivals’ app pricing and whatnot.

In the latest report (September 2009), Distimo notes software programs for Blackberry devices are considerably more expensive than comparable apps for competing devices/platforms.

In fact, the average price for apps is more than three times higher than the one for similar apps in the App Store and Android Market, which is sort of unbelievable. There’s not a single category where the average price of an app is lower than its equivalent on the latter two application storefronts, and the more serious, business-related tools are definitely much more expensive. (chart after the jump)

Turn-by-turn navigation was one of the features that iPhone users were most looking forward to with the release of the iPhone 3.0 software. Unfortunately, as users quickly found out, turn-by-turn meant either significantly more expensive apps, or a monthly fee. Not only does Waze do it for free, but it offers an interesting gaming element to boot.

The reason Waze can be free while other turn-by-turn apps are expensive is that their maps are entirely user-generated. Waze simply lays down a foundation and users build out the roads just by using the app. And the company makes it in your interest to help them not only by offering turn-by-turn functionality, but also by turning the mapping of uncharted areas into a game or sorts. If you’re on a road that no Waze user has mapped before, you will see little dots and your car icon will turn into a Pac-Man-like character, to eat the dots and collect points for it.