Recent market problems actually a good sign?

Alternate Market huggers the world over were cheering their cause recently as the Android Market was down for a few hours recently for many people. Apps would neither install nor update, and pandemonium ensued. Combined with reports of minor errors in a few regions around the world, the good ship Market has been sailing rough waters recently, and not handling it well. Or are they? Recent sources have shown that positive changes to the market are beginning to show, leading this writer to believe that what we are seeing is not Market failure, but Market upgrades in anticipation and deployment of the new features we were all promised with Android 2.3, codenamed Gingerbread.

We know that the Market will be getting a web store, allowing us to use our computers and the great big screens attached to them to find apps easily and install them without even touching our phones. When this originally came out, my thoughts were ‘wow, this is great guys, but what about the actual market app itself?’. The app has been out centralized installation source, and I am more than willing to use other things along side my Market, but I still want my market experience to be improved. Thanks to the sharp eyes of my friend @droidhead_ryan, we are starting to see improvements across the platform geared at enhancing the Market.

Go to your mobile browser, and head to Google. What you will find there under the more tab is a drop down of additional search filters, just like always. Now, however, there is an additional label. Android apps. Selecting this option allows you to search the Market with any search parameter, and come back with results that link right into the Market, both Free and Paid. Now, obviously this is not that change I am talking about, and I still expect Mountain View to deliver a lot more, but this randomly popping up gives me hope that the guys working on the Market are aware that search and discovery is a problem, and they are testing solutions. This is little more than a gut feeling at this point, but I think we can expect some really great things to come from the next release of the Android Market, though I guess we will all see soon enough!