Photos: Google's Android Market still not selling actual robots

We popped into AndroidMarket, the app store for the Google Android mobile operating system, to see howit's going with last week's launch of paid apps.

It looks like there are just nine paid apps in there now,most of them games. But when we spoke to a group of app developers, they toldus Android was a pleasure to develop for, so there's bound to be more soon -- although these guys were wrangled for us by T-Mobile, which may or may not have been holding their petshostage in exchange for such glowing reviews.

In a live demo, we watched app developer Konrad Hübner, whowon a prize from Google for Cab4Me, writea little application that displayed nearby T-Mobile hotspots on a map. It looked quick and elegant to write in Java, and showed off how Android gives third-party apps full access to the handset's functionality, such as maps. And because of Android Market's lack offilters, it could have been launched to the world within a couple of hours.

The question is whether the lack of strict quality controls likeApple's App Store willhelp or harm the Android Market. Somesay it will become swamped with useless crap, while others argue that because there are no restrictions on what gets published, good ideas will surface that might otherwise have been quashed for encroaching on Google's turf. Besides, there's a five-star rating system to help filter your choices.

Click through the next few pages for hands-on pics with the AndroidMarket.