The HP TouchPad launched with nearly 400 apps - but some sites are saying Android's Honeycomb OS only has 232 apps. What's wrong with Android tablets?

The has nearly 400 apps at launch, HP said today. hit the 100,000 mark recently, according to MacStories.net. But the five tablets that have come out since April only had 232 apps as of June 2, according to a frequently cited statistic from AndroidCentral.com.

What's up with that?

Google and Samsung, a major maker of Honeycomb tablets, argue they're being done wrong here—that thousands of apps work well on Honeycomb tablets, although those apps may be hard to find. Developers say they're holding back, if they say anything at all. And HP suggests that maybe a little more developer hand-holding could be a good thing.

The 232 figure, cited by David Pogue at the New York Times as well as by this publication, lives on because Google steadfastly refuses to release an official number of Honeycomb-optimized apps. Since Android devices scale phone apps up to tablet size, though, the real number isn't 232, says Philip Berne, marketing manager at Samsung. He says it's more like 60,000. (See the slideshow below for some great Honeycomb apps.)

"We've had 3rd party firms look into this. 30-40% of all Android apps scale almost perfectly," Berne told me on Twitter. "That's [a] 60,000 app number in [Samsung Galaxy] Tab 10.1 releases, [an] estimate (within 4%) of apps that scale, little white space, good layout."

Google wouldn't comment for this story except to say that thousands of apps scale up well on Honeycomb tablets.

So Why Not Build for Honeycomb?

Several big-name developers we contacted clammed up when we asked them about their Honeycomb plans. EA and Facebook didn't respond to our emails. Zynga and Twitter responded but declined to comment. Autodesk said it was "taking a close look at Honeycomb."

Score Media, creator of some of the most popular sports apps for the iPad and Android phones, is waiting until later this year to unleash a Honeycomb app, the company's mobile director Dale Fallon said.

"The inflection point in terms of consumer adoption of these devices is going to be in the fourth quarter of calendar 2011," Fallon said. "With the big OEMs launching products, I think that there will be a hit device or two."

Romasha Roy Chowdhury, business director at Cynapse, creator of iOS and WebOS local search app Localscope, said the Android ecosystem was just too confusing right now.

"Multiple app stores, broad range of active OS versions, and inconsistencies in the native user interface almost ensure we will not be able to provide the experience at par with the standards that our customers on other platforms have gotten used to," she said.

Of course, that could also apply to Android in general, not just on tablets.

Flipboard spokeswoman Marci McCue was a bit more coy, but she definitely hinted that the diversity of Android implementations may be an issue.

"Google's Android OS is an important platform and they're doing lots of great stuff. For us, we are a small team very focused on designing for a specific interaction and user experience and the device is a big part of that. Right now we are focused on refining the Flipboard experience and it's much easier to do that for one platform first," she said.

Some developers want to run on Honeycomb, but they don't see the need to do a special Honeycomb version. "The Android version of Cut the Rope works really well on Honeycomb tablets, so there isnt a need in this case to do a separate build," said a spokeswoman for ZeptoLab, creators of the popular puzzle game.

So how can Android users find Honeycomb apps? And how did HP get so many apps made for the TouchPad? Click "Next" to keep reading this article.

Finding the Honeycomb App

App discovery is a big problem for Honeycomb. Google's Android Market doesn't let you easily see which apps work best on tablets, beyond a "featured for tablets" section with a few dozen apps. That's in contrast to HP's, Apple's, and RIM's app stores, all of which clearly mark (or display only) their tablet-friendly apps when you look for them.

Amazon's Appstore and Samsung Apps also don't have tablet sections or show which apps run best on tablets. You can search for "tablet" or "honeycomb" in the Android Market, but you then get a messy swamp of seemingly randomly arranged apps, not an easily browsable, organized list.

Thousands of apps may scale up to tablet sizes well, but it's very difficult for consumers to tell which ones those are. For every Cut the Rope, which works beautifully, there's an official Twitter app, which "runs" on Honeycomb tablets but looks utterly awful.

Score Mobile's Fallon says that's a concern for developers. "I think it's a big problem right now. If we do put the effort into creating an app that's optimized for the big screen, how will it be discoverable as such?"

Google, as I've said before, wouldn't comment. But I've heard through the grapevine that they're working on improvements for the Android Market—it's just nothing they'll confirm. It's an obvious move, though.

The next version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, may also bring major changes that could help Android tablets' position. Ice Cream Sandwich more closely merges the phone and tablet versions of the Android OS, letting developers write with one set of tools and potentially making it much easier for apps to work well on both phones and large-screen tablets.

400 Apps for Zero Tablets

With Google struggling to get apps written for tablets already in the marketplace, how did HP get 400 apps written for a tablet that doesn't exist? The company held some hands and made some promises, said Richard Kerris, HP's vice president of worldwide developer relations. (See the slideshow below for the best TouchPad apps.)

HP's WebOS programming tools are very easy to use, and HP has promised to expand the number of devices running WebOS—including potentially putting it on millions of PCs, Kerris said. The company has been proactive, going out to developers and inviting them to workshops on programming for WebOS gadgets.

"If you know the Web, you know WebOS," he said. "We actually haven't had many developers say no. Even though we launched today with close to 400 [apps], we actually have hundreds coming right around the corner ... and when we get WebOS on the PC, it's really going to take off and have a big footprint."

Treating developers as "customers" has also been key. While HP doesn't pay developers to write apps, personal attention matters, Kerris said.

"They really appreciate the fact that we're paying attention to what we can do to help them succeed," he said.