We will hit a milestone this week, one million apps for the smartphone and tablet markets. Among the four major platforms, Apple, Android, RIM and Microsoft, there are almost one million apps available to date. This is truly an amazing accomplishment considering the rapid growth of the smartphones and tablets. Sure you could go to the App Store, Android Marketplace, RIM’s App World or Windows Marketplace to purchase a number of apps in numerous categories, but why would you? All of these apps are available in one place, GiveMeApps.com

The company Mobilewalla, a search, discovery and analytics engine that tracks apps in real time has made this discovery. They are the ones who have provided this information. As of yesterday among the top 4 platforms there were 989,476 apps available. About 2,000 apps a day hit their “markets”, this number has always increased in number in December due to the holiday rush. In the last twelve months Apple apps grew from 338,000 to 589,148. Android’s numbers rose as well from 115,000 to 319,774. You can follow the million app milestone on Twitter at #millionmobileapps.

The app race began just three short years ago when Apple opened the App Store in 2008 and Google opened the Marketplace later that same year. Will the others catch up to Apple & Google? The downside of this is that a lot of developers have complained about a flooding of the app markets, with many apps being offered for free, making it harder to charger for others. This therefore hinders the development of great apps in the future.

Another problem is that some mobile users have become accustomed to the free apps and they just make do with the free apps. According to a report 38% of users don’t pay for apps. Out of that 38% I wonder if jailbroken and root users are included in these statistics? I know that I’m happier with my jailbroken iPod Touch and my rooted Droid, and wouldn’t have it any other way. What do you think?

Wayne Tempel is a freelance writer who has contributed to many articles on the web. You can follow him on Twitter.