During a pre-launch event for customers and the press in New York City last night, Randy Myerson, a T-Mobile senior product manager, told BetaNews that the Android-based G1 is still on track to ship on October 22 -- and that, by the time it does, the number of third-party apps in Google's Android Marketplace will amount to approximately 50.

T-Mobile demonstrated three of those Android apps -- BreadCrumbz, ShopSavvy, and Ecorio -- at last night's event.

Breadcrumbz is designed to let you navigate a route to a friend's house -- or elsewhere -- by looking at pictures -- either just pictures by themselves, or in conjunction with a map.

As previously reported in BetaNews, ShopSavvy and Ecorio were rolled out at T-Mobile's earlier G1 press conference in New York in September.

In a quick look today at the beta edition of Android Marketplace, BetaNews noticed that aside from the three applications shown last night, a handful of other apps have also been posted online, including Amazon MP3 for Android and two games: Bonsai Blast and Namco's PAC-MAN game.

It's probably no coincidence that 50 happens to be the number of finalists chosen during the first round of the Google Challenge contest for Android software developers. It's possible the initial applications to appear in the Marketplace will be those finalists.

In contrast, Apple's App Store opened its doors with more than 500 third-party applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch platforms in July. But then again, both the iPhone and iPod Touch had been around long before the App Store and already built up a considerable customer base for developers to target.