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Amazon Building Its Own Android App Market?
Thinkcloud writes "Speculation abounds that Amazon is planning their own storefront for selling Android apps, one in which they, not the developers, will set the price and decide which apps to feature (and which apps to exclude from the store all together). It's a shrewd move and smart strategy for Amazon, though its impact on app sellers is less certain."
> Just what Android needs, more fragmentation.
Yes. Because another STORE represents "fragmentation".
I can't believe anyone modded you as insightful. You're retarded. Another store just means another source of stuff to buy.
It's like the Cydia store but you don't have to hack your device first.
Yeah. That's what Frys, Best Buy, CompUSA, Tiger Direct, MicroCenter, NewEgg, Target and Walmart mean.... "fragmentation".
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Yeah, Android will be fucked. I mean the ability to buy apps from a variety of sources completely and utterly destroyed the PC and Mac ecosystems. If only they'd been able to limit PCs and Macs to single stores to buy apps from, then nowadays we wouldn't be using the internet and having to work on...
Oh wait, nevermind.
BTW, I had no idea who John Gruber is, so I had to Google him. For anyone else wondering, apparently he's a blogger from Philadelphia, who graduated from Drexel University, and worked for Bare Bones software. Big names there, obviously a person that matters in the technology world.
I live in a country where Android phones are either hideously overpriced ($600 for a Galaxy S? Tigger please.) or bundled with a service plan offering more voice minutes in a month than I'll use in a year. So I'm in the market for an Android PDA or Android PMP like those made by Archos, not another phone with another phone bill. An Apple fan might describe it as "Android pod touch". But I'm not aware of one Android device without a cellular radio that Google has officially approved for use with its store. So developers who don't feel like competing with established apps on Google's store can target Android devices that lack 3G and sell on AppsLib and this Amazon store in addition to Google's store.
Brick and mortar stores are not relevant to this discussion.
Say I have an app I am actively developing and maintaining. One central distribution mechanism means that I can focus my time on writing and updating it, upload the .apk file, and go on my merry way. I eyeball the reviews, and make sure to take heed of any constructive critiques for the next revision of the app.
With multiple app stores, each of which has different rules, each of which are present or absent on different phones, in order to have my app available to as many users, I have to jump through every store's hoops. I also have to pay each store's ticket to entry. Google's store is very reasonable, just pay your $25 and you can play. However, with other stores in the mix, they can set prices any way they feel like. They can also set many restrictive conditions.
Want to know where the shit will really hit the fan? When stores demand exclusivity. If store "A" demands I only can use them, then any Android device that ships with store "B" and only store "B" on their device, my app is locked out of that market. This definitely will fragment Android far worse than it is now.
Don't forget that as of now, one can sideload and install via ADB on almost all devices. However, both of those abilities can easily be removed in a new model of phone forcing people to either get their apps from the store or do without.
Of course, there is the slippery slope: What happens if cellular carriers want to hop in this pool? More stores are not better in this choice, because I'm sure some carriers would only allow access to their specific store and no others.