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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.
The issue here is not just that Amazon might want its own app store, a reasonable desire. The issue is that the current Android market really sucks. Google does not have good expertise in the curation methods that an appstore needs; right now, you have two options browsing the appstore: you can look at top, all-time sales. Games that have been out for two years top these charts, not surprisingly.
Or, you can look at the raw feed of 'newest'. In games, that would be 64 underwear puzzle games, three things in Japanese, and a tech demo of rotating lines, controlled by some sensor or other.
Google's traditional approach to this sort of problem is search, but search does not work well here, and there's significant market opportunity. Hence, Amazon.
Just what Android needs, more fragmentation.
Yea its terrible ... like having more than one shop in a mall or something
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.
Yes, because when more stores open up in your town, it's not economic growth and development, it's "fragmentation."
The funniest part of this comment is that Amazon is only going to be likely to gain much relevance for their own app store in their dreams. They're going to have reach, of course, but a job of convincing developers to accept their terms and come into their marketplace when they are already in _the_ marketplace used by tens of millions (soon to be hundreds of millions) of Android users. They will have to spend big to get out of the zone of irrelevancy. It sounds like a miscalculation born of arrogance to me.
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In the phone world you rarely have "choice" and as the parent mentioned, most carriers will lock you into something you don't want. For example, Verizon/Samsung have decided that Bing should be the search engine of choice on their smart phones. Not exactly a big deal, except there is absolutely NO way to change it over to Google, if you so desire. I can see the same thing here. Amazon/Verizon ink a deal, and all VZ phones now ship with the default Amazon market, and Google Market is no where to be found. If you actually had a choice, then I don't have a big problem for allowing multiple markets, search engines, etc. Sure, it brings confusion, but in this case, the "choice" isn't yours...it's the handset and service provider making that choice for you.
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.
Wait a minute ... Amazon gets to set the price? So you want to sell at $3 and they can decide you can only sell at $0.49? Or at $10? WTF am I missing here
It's a shop. You must use shops some times. The shop owner typically decides the selling price. The price you are willing to see at to Amazon is up to you. The price Amazon is willing to pay you is up to Amazon. The price Amazon is willing to sell to the public at is decided by Amazon. The price the public is willing to pay is decided by the public. Amazon can have loss leaders or 200% mark ups. It's a shop.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
Yeah. That's what Frys, Best Buy, CompUSA, Tiger Direct, MicroCenter, NewEgg, Target and Walmart mean.... "fragmentation".
Yes, they do mean fragmentation. In fact, fragmentation is exactly what it is. Fragmentation of electronics sales into separate and competing entities. The mistake is believing fragmentation is automatically bad instead of a driving force to present the best, safest and cheapest option.
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.
I don't know. Are they? You tell us...
How about we post the news article if they announce one? I really hate these speculative 'question' posts.
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