A lot has been said about Android’s meteoric rise in the last couple of years. It did take a while to take off, but once it did, it spread like wildfire. Google first hit 1 billion app downloads on the Google Play Store (or Android Market as it was once known) about two years ago. Since then, the rise in app downloads have been exponential.

Google Play celebrated 25 billion downloads a couple of days ago, and to commemorate is having a huge sale where many, many apps are now available for $0.25. You can find many of them under top apps, but also search through the regular apps and you are bound to find some real gems, including World of Goo, which is most likely my favourite mobile game. They also include:

• Angry Birds Space Premium
• OfficeSuite Pro 6 + (PDF & HD) (usually about $6)
• Granny Smith
• runtastic PRO
• Asphalt 7: Heat
• Ocean HD
• Draw Something
• Tasks
• Sudoku
• NFL Kicker 13

There are hundreds more to be found. What is quite astonishing is that Google Play is averaging 1.5 billion downloads a month now. What makes it even more incredible is the fact that they allow outside parties their own app stores on Android, since its open source, and those figures aren’t even included. Hats off to Android! So head over to the market and pick up some great games and apps for just over R2!