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Google Tasks has failed to take off, and Google has no one to blame but itself
The app took more than 3 years to reach 10 million downloads
There's nothing Google's developers love more than making new messaging apps and task management/to do/reminder apps. When Google Tasks was announced, more than three years ago, we thought it would be the one solution to rule them all — at least for task management. Except Google's strategy with this app, as it has been for years, has remained as disjointed as ever. It's no surprise then that Tasks just made it past the 10 million download mark on the Play Store.
Statistics for Android Go-related sales haven't been revealed, so it's tough to say how many of the phones have been sold. That makes it hard to tell if things are generally going well for the Android Go effort or not. But, a related milestone was just reached that could shed a bit of light on the upper-bounds of the project's success. Yesterday Google Go, an app which ships on Android Go-powered phones, hit 10 million installs on the Play Store.
Google Classroom first showed up on the Play Store in 2015, as an organization tool for teachers and students. The YouTube for Android TV app is a bit older, as it first showed up in 2014, just one day after the Nexus Player went on sale. Now both apps have passed 10 million installs on the Play Store.
HBO NOW has been the top grossing entertainment app on Google Play for a little while now, but the app just reached another significant milestone. It's ringing in the new year by the numbers, having just hit 10,000,000 installs on the Play Store. That's a lot of downloads, with some big implications for the number of subscribers the service has, though it's impossible to know for sure.
There is no denying that Amazon's Echo devices and Alexa voice assistant are a huge success at this point. What started out as a weird little cylinder you can command to play music and ask a few questions has now become an entire line-up of devices, an ecosystem that has engendered many integrations from thousands of companies worldwide, and has kickstarted an entire product category and tech section that was nearly non-existent before it.
It can take quite a while for an app to reach a significant milestone. That is, if your name isn't Nintendo. The company's new Animal Crossing game slipped out a day early back on November 21st, and now, in just 23 days, it's garnered over 10 million installs on the Play Store. That's a huge number.
The end of the year seems to be the best time for companies to reflect on their performances and pat themselves on the back for a job well done. Last year for example, LG was happy to have sold 450,000 LG V10 units in 45 days despite a release in a few limited markets. This year, it's Huawei's turn to puff its feathers and flaunt its numbers in front of everyone: the P9 and P9 Plus have shipped over 10M units worldwide. Hooray!
About three weeks ago, we reported that Google Duo had reached 5 million downloads on Android in the week or so that it had been officially released. Now, Google's new video chatting app has hit a whopping 10 million downloads. That's certainly impressive for a month-old app, but less healthy-looking is its placement in the Play Store's Top Charts; it's fallen over a hundred places from its high point at first place.
It's been just over two years since Samsung introduced the capacious Galaxy Note to an intrigued press corps at IFA in Berlin. Who'd have thought that it would turn out to be nothing less than a phenomenon, spawning a new sub-category in smartphones and innumerable flattering attempts at imitation? The original Note sold 10 million units by August 2012, but according to Samsung, the Note 3 has reached the same lofty goal in just two months.
We already know the Samsung Galaxy S II (SGSII) is a huge success (even compared to the original SGS), but now sales of the uberphone have been kicked up even higher. In the last 8 weeks, sales have gone from 5 million to 10 million - or 625,000 units sold per week. And here's the real kicker: the press release expressly states "Model: GT-I9100," meaning these sales figures don't even include the United States.