Android Round-Up: 20k Apps, Facebook Update, OS2.1 Ported

The Android space continues to heat up. Today, we learned that the Android Market has reached the 20,000 apps milestone, the Android Facebook application has been updated, and Android OS 2.1. has been ported to the Droid.20,000 Apps

According to the stats from AndroLib, the Android Market just surpassed 20,000 applications. Sure, it's only one-fifth the size of the iPhone Apps Store, but that's a very healthy second place.

The nice graph posted by AndroLib shows the rate of new apps hitting the Android Market increasing at a nice clip. The number of apps has doubled since September. That's a steep climb.

Facebook Update

The Facebook application for all versions of Android recently received a refresh. The big news is that more features are enabled for Android devices running OS versions 1.5 and 1.6.

The app now has six different areas for users to interact with, including Friends, News Feed, Profile, Notifications and Photos. The application operates much smoother than the previous version, though Chatting and the Inbox are still MIA. It still falls way short of what Facebook is capable of on the iPhone and BlackBerry platforms. Still, it's a big improvement over the basic app that was available before.

Android 2.1 > Android 2.0

The Nexus One -- which supposedly runs Android version 2.1 -- hasn't even been around for a few days and already users have figured out how to port Android 2.1 to the Motorola Droid. The instructions on how to perform the port have already been pulled from the web, but the ROM file is still available for the brave-hearted.