[Igglyboo]

The only thing I can think of is that they don't really install OS level stuff, think software libraries or runtimes etc.

Other than that they're literally identical to something like synaptic.

[_ea1k]

On Android they sometimes do install OS level stuff (libraries, etc). I think he has a good point.

The biggest difference I see is that package managers on most Linux distributions are designed to be extensible to support other sources. Application stores generally are not.