Queuing Up for Chotskies

The scene on the first floor of the Moscone Center West, with developers lining up to claim their free T-shirts.

After the 5,000 attendees lined up outside the third floor keynote hall, they ran for their seats in the auditorium. Here’s the view from the press seating.

Android creator Andy Rubin relaxes in the front row before the keynote. Rubin would not speak until the press Q&A after the keynote.

Last year Google executive Vic Gundotra sent shivers down the spine of Android fans when he vilified Apple for its proprietary approach to hardware and software development. Gundotra, who would later be appointed to run Google’s social product effort, spoke only for a few minutes and did not participate in any demos.

But what Gundotra did do was allude to last year’s Apple bite with this great graphic. This drew loud applause and laughter from the crowd.

Yes, you read that right. Users have activated 100 million Android devices since its inception. That’s as many iPhones that have sold, for the record.

Heres more Android growth statistics, highlighting the platform’s global expansion.

With that much momentum, it might seem as though there should be more devices, but there are 310 right now.

People are activating 400,000 Android devices each day, up from the last count of 350,000.

Android Market has hit the 200,000 app milestone, still far less than Apple’s 350,000-plus for its App Store.

Google has also tracked 450 billion application installs.