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Amazon To Launch 'Amazon Appstore For Android'
angry tapir writes "Amazon is preparing to open an Android app store to compete with Google's Android Market, and has launched a beta portal where developers can submit applications for Android-based smartphones. The applications will be sold on the Amazon Appstore for Android, which the company expects to launch later this year. At launch, the Appstore will be available for customers in the US, and it will be compatible with Android 1.6 and higher. Users will be able to shop for applications from their PCs, which isn't possible with the existing version of Android Market, or from their smartphones, and pay with their existing Amazon account."
What's the point? It's easy enough to share/sell an application on Google's Android App store...
since it doesn't specify the V7 processor. I wanted to port my firefox plugin to android and I had to go with a newer android build because FF requires the V7 spec processor.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Was wondering when Amazon was going to enter the fray.
They already have a music store, selling apps isn't that big of a jump.
Already having peoples credit card numbers and the trust of most will also helps.
"Users will be able to shop for applications from their PCs, which isn't possible with the existing version of Android Market"
Guess they haven't heard about AppBrain.
http://www.appbrain.com/app/appbrain-app-market/com.appspot.swisscodemonkeys.apps
Wouldn't it be great if Amazon could open a competing Apple app store, and then people could have free choice to buy wherever they please, just like in the real world?
That'd be anti-capitalist, though.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
it's also basically the iPhone app store, on Android. gee that's what we've always wanted.
To submit applications, developers first need an Amazon account. Amazon recommends creating a new account for the Appstore Developer Program. Joining the program will cost US$99 a year, compared to Google's one-time $25 registration fee for Android Market. However, Amazon will waive the fee during the first year of the program.
Amazon reserves the right to set retail prices for applications, although developers may indicate a "list price" which must be less than or equal to the list price for all current and previous versions of the app, whether on Amazon Appstore or elsewhere. Amazon will pay developers 70 percent of the purchase price of the application or 20 percent of the list price, whichever is greater.
Unlike Google, Amazon will have an approval process for applications submitted to its store. The company will be testing the apps to verify that they work as outlined in the product description, and that they don't impair the functionality of the smartphone or put customer data at risk once installed, Amazon said. Offensive content, including pornography, is prohibited. What Amazon deems offensive "is probably about what you would expect," it says. Amazon will also stop applications that infringe user's privacy.
when the first apps will be remotely removed from phones?
Fandroids hate facts.
Some call it "fragmentation" and some call it "competition"
Unless you want everyone to carry exactly the same hardware, there is bound to be "fragmentation". Why don't they call it "fragmentation" when Chrysler parts don't fit on my Mazda?
You would think that at some point, app programmers, who from what I can tell are the only ones complaining about "fragmentation" would be happy to see lots of different platforms because it means more opportunities.
Maybe it would be easier if there were only one hardware platform for all cell phones and one hardware platform for all computers and one hardware platform for all cars. One operating system. One phone carrier. Then, life would be easy for the few hundred programmers and designers that would have jobs.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yes, it's much better to have a single organization that can decide for me what apps I can decide to buy and sell. One that can block apps for any reason or no reason at all. All jail his Jobness
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Another site offering largely the same apps as the main android site thereby having the exact same 'Most Popular' and 'Top Paid', do.not.want. What about an Android/Amazon partnership, where they both offer different things tailored to their own markets, with no dupes.
http://www.awfullybigmoustache.com
in the android world, we call it "choice".
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
The problems are the cost to the developers to list their apps in all of these locations, and that the rules the various marketplaces enforce upon you as a seller can be very confusing.
I currently sell products thru amazon and several other online channels. I pay amazon.com 15% (+$1.35 per item) of all sales that go thru their channels, and $39 a month for the privilege of listing my items. And another $39 a month to list on amazon.ca and another $39 a month to list on amazon.co.uk and another $39 a month to list on amazon.fr and another $39 a month to list on amazon.de Yes, its still profitable for us or we wouldn't do it, but they certainly take a big bite.
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
I hate competition as well.
The more interesting thing about this store is the terms for developers - almost the same as Apple's store.
$99/Year (I think that's being waved for now)
You can choose to have apps have a DRM wrapper (of Amazons design)
Amazon gets 30% of sales
I think potentially this could become THE app store for Android, because it will be probably about as carefully maintained as Apple's App store. No way is Amazon going to let through some things like blatant copyright infringement apps that get into the Android store today. As a result the apps to be found there should be of a generally higher level of quality.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Amazon's market would be doomed to failure if the enduser had the choice between it and Android's.
If you ever actually saw the Android Market app in practice, you know that competing with it is trivial, because it is utter crap. It's the single most crash-prone piece of software on my Nexus One, is is dog slow even when it's working, the UI is inconvenient, and you can only make purchases on the device itself, and not from PC (where it's far more convenient to browse stuff, read reviews etc).
And then we can put it on Google instead. Exactly my point- with multiple stores, you'll find one that will accept it.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Not true.
I have been using Apps first on my Palm and then Palm phone for many many years. We just called them Programs.
There were NO APPS!
I guess you've never heard of Symbian, then.
Infinite time means everything that can happen, will. You being you is absolutely incidental. You do not exist.
It's not competition when Amazon pays the carriers tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to bundle their appstore with the carrier's phones (possibly to the exclusion of the official Android market). That's actually the opposite of competition. Amazon's market would be doomed to failure if the enduser had the choice between it and Android's.
Has there been any indication at all that that will happen?
Wow...I would never have imagined that you'd have to pay them a monthly fee to list your item. Especially when they're taking 15% of your sales already. Wow.
"Yes, it's much better to have a single organization that can decide for me what apps I can decide to buy and sell. One that can block apps for any reason or no reason at all."
And yet over 70,000,000 iPhones have been sold since 2007 all at $200+ (compared to free Android phones with contract) and there have been thousands of iPhone developers that have become millionaires due to app sales while even Angry Birds struggles with Android fragmentation with over a dozen Android devices Angry Birds will NOT work on.
I appreciate the spunky Android upstart trying to compete with the big dog iOS but Android has some huge obstacles to overcome if even major players like Angry Birds is frustrated with Android and EA offers 60+ iOS apps but only a dozen Android games.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
It's easy enough to share/sell an application on Google's Android App store...
Not if you're targeting Wi-Fi tablets and media players that run Android. For example, Archos 43 is supposed to be the Android counterpart to the iPod touch but doesn't have Android Market because it lacks 3G data, which as I understand it would have doubled the price of the device. (Compare the $250 Archos 43 to a $500 unlocked phone.) Is Amazon Appstore expected to work on these?
I guess you've never heard of Symbian, then.
Most cell phone customers in the United States have likewise never heard of Symbian. In this market, "smartphone" means BlackBerry, iPhone, or Android. Nokia has far less market share here than in the European Union market, and "Symbian" is confused with a sex toy.
Now, what are the chances Average Joe will use two Market apps rather than get into the habit of just using one?
What are the chances Average Joe will shop at both Sears and JCPenney rather than get into the habit of just using one? Or Walmart and Kmart/Target/Meijer/whatever else? Or Best Buy and... oh wait, its close competitor went out of business and sold its name to an e-tailer. Here's another one: Newegg and Monoprice. A variety of stores complement one another.
So in addition to the hardware fragmentation, there will be store fragmentation too. Sounds great.
Tell me.. Have you ever bought a loaf of bread?
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
"Need I remind you of what the state of the market was before Apple introduced the iPhone?
Considering the iPhone was introduced (January 2007) more than a year and a half before Android (October 2008), the state of the Android Market was obviously "nonexistent," so it's not surprising there were "NO APPS!"
Your point was...that competition from the iPhone invigorated stagnant Android application development???
Or, maybe, you're referring to the overall marketplace for PDA-type device apps, and conveniently ignoring Palm, RIM, and WinMo, even Newton, for which there were plenty of apps, especially when one considers the lower available bandwidth and higher data transport costs at the time. Even if you restrict it to smartphones, Palm, RIM and WinMo were out with available apps when there were NO APPS for the iPhone (i.e. before it was released).
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The multiple app store shenanigans are going to be the hardest thing for Android to overcome if google wants to take a serious bite out of apple. The iPads success isn't hardware as much as it is standardization. Of course google non-support for tablets is the reason...but google enabled the situation to get out of hand. Hopefully honeycomb will fix that.
Why don't they call it "fragmentation" when Chrysler parts don't fit on my Mazda?
Cars aren't upgraded the way smartphones are.
Maybe it would be easier if there were only one hardware platform for all cell phones and one hardware platform for all computers and one hardware platform for all cars. One operating system. One phone carrier. Then, life would be easy for the few hundred programmers and designers that would have jobs.
Yeah, the handful of console developers out there have it real rough.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
in the android world, we call it "choice".
Until Apple releases a version of iOS that doesn't work on older phones, then the Android World calls it fragmentation.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I'm an Android app developer, and under the terms Amazon's currently offering, there's no way in hell I'll put my app there. There are three very serious problems with it. First, Amazon controls the pricing, not the developer - they can use your app as a loss leader. Second, they require that you give them your app and each update 14 days before you publish it anywhere else (such as on the Android Market) for their review process. That means no emergency fixes, and delayed releases, even if you're mainly publishing on the Android Market and want to put it on Amazon too. And third, it's competing with Android Market, which is preinstalled everywhere, with no users. It would be one thing if they offered more than Android Market's 70% take, but there're simply no advantages to it whatsoever.
Maybe they'll change their terms, and I'll reconsider. But the terms they're offering now are simply a bad deal for developers, and I doubt many will bite.
Also I have heard that Apple mainly checks for "objectionable content" (and still lets the "baby shaker" through - no idea how Google deals with such apps), not for whether the app runs stable.
That is not at all true, I've been involved with developing over a dozen iOS applications at this point. ANY crash means you do not get accepted, period, until you fix the crash. And we're not just talking crash on launch, we've seen multiple cases where they find a crash deep in the app somewhere after they have been using it for a while. I've seen apple testers posting stuff from an application and otherwise exercising components that registered on a server the application worked with.
As I said I don't think it's possible to do a deep security review but Apple is very carefully making sure an app will run without crashing over a reasonable period of use.
The other thing I've seen get apps sent back for fixing, is UI issues - for instance some part of the screen goes blank, or (in one app I worked on) the screen became a jumble of UI elements when rotated. That also will get you sent back.
Apple also carefully reads through your description of what the application will do, and makes sure it does AT LEAST that. One guy I know had an app rejected because the description said it used the image of a penny somewhere and it was really some other coin! Once he corrected the text of the description to be accurate he re-submitted and was accepted.
Basically Apple is doing a ton of checking over apps to at least make sure they are stable and are what users will expect when they buy. That's the best anyone can do really, I hope the Amazon store is the same way for Android apps because they really need someone to help developers clean up the apps a bit.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Stores and websites, sure. But most people are resistant to learning multiple systems on electronic devices.
What's the line between "stores" and "systems"? For example, buying on Amazon, buying on eBay, and buying from an independent e-tailer all have different checkout procedures.
I write phone apps for a living. We'd love to exist on iPhone- but apple won't let us because we replace some of their functionality with better versions. They don't like that.
As for 70+M phones- Android is pretty damn close (hell, my company's app is on 20M+) its marketshare is growing, it sells more per month than iOS already, and it's branching into tablets and music players. Add that on to the fact you don't have the risk of Apple deciding to pull the rug out from under you and you'd be a fool to bet on iphone over android. You may decide to target both, but if you pick one Android is the easy decision.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Tell me.. Have you ever bought a loaf of bread?
Have you ever tried to run an Android App on your loaf of bread: it won't go. Thereby proving that variety is bad mmmkay ;)
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
What's the line between "stores" and "systems"? For example, buying on Amazon, buying on eBay, and buying from an independent e-tailer all have different checkout procedures.
That's true, and why people fall into using one of them far more often than others, only turning to other stores when they can't find what they want at the usual place.
In the real world, most people end up shopping for food at one place.
In the same way once an app store is decent most people would stick with that and not really look around. That's why most people do not care Apple has one official app store, because it works pretty well. The few that do need some things not found there have Cydia, and that works pretty well also.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
are you nuts? there were millions of apps before istore was even thought of. only those apps were called software, or programs.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
yup. because that is NOT choice. jobs has chosen for you.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Before the iPhone, there wasn't a consistent UI and putting everything behind a glass front and having a phone OS mediate everything, (rather than letting the application control the device.)
That means you were either a professional developer blessed in having contact to the OS developers, who were much less imaginative than the Apple staff, or you were a user playing Tetris on the phone.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Far too frequently in the Android world that you refer to the choice boils down to this: You can either choose to continue running a version of Android that is outdated, or you can buy a new phone and repeat the process in a few months.
I paid $500 for a T-mobile Vibrant, one of Samsung's top-of-the-line Galaxy S models, in July. So we're just barely at the five month mark and it's now two full releases behind mainline Android. The situation is particularly frustrating because the newly released Nexus S, which Samsung also manufactures, is merely a variant of the Galaxy S models. It has exactly the same processor as the Vibrant, and identical hardware specifications aside from the front facing camera and NFC capabilities.
So what do you call it when two nearly identical phones are separated by two major releases of Android? You may not want to call it fragmentation, but in the real world we call it "ridiculous."
Much like certain versions of Android not being compatible with older phones, or phones that are locked down.
Amazon has a lot more experience and success with it's market software than Google does. More than any other company for that matter. And it's not simply a matter of "the backend". It's the store that the customer sees and experiences that is most important.
If you're talking about the issue of writing an Android (or PC) app, that's almost trivial. Even if they didn't already have Android (or PC) developers on staff, they have the money to hire some good ones or outsource. The code monkey work isn't what matters, it's the design.
the "pipeline" to nowhere and get your product out to a store who might give you proper shelf placement, but that costs more.
Marketing a software product is a tough and expensive process which you must master, far beyond writing an app.
All of the software I have developed, since 1976, was used by enterprises and governments and was very, very expensive (as was I,) but development was a drop in the bucket compared to the "externalities."
Apps developed for multi-platform OSs for internet delivery get rid of "production, packaging, shipping, marketing (but not advertising, PR and promotion,) handling of recall/unsold product, A/R, and instead use the internet to cut costs by orders of magnitude.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Smartphone apps before iPhone were pretty much like computer apps before the IBM PC. They existed, but most people didn't know anyone who'd got one.
The jump of the significance of smartphone apps from an obscure niche to something that's casually mentioned on prime time chat shows, and is in use by masses of people on any train or plane you get on. It's been incredible to witness. I can't think of any other market that's grown so suddenly after such a long period of obscurity. Closest would be song downloads after the iPod launch.
Millions? No. In the low thousands, considering all smartphones and PDAs added together. And they were called applications or apps back then too.
(I used to be a Symbian OS developer in the days before iPhone, so I remember well.)
Heck there probably aren't a million mobile apps available now. iTunes is by far the largest vendor, and they have around 350,000 at the last count.
It's a reasonable way to reduce the number of time-wasters having a vendor account. If it's not worth $39 per month to you to be on the Amazon store, then to Amazon it's not worth the space you occupy on the store.
How many of those did you sell?
In the non iPod/iTunes MP3 download world they called it choice too.
How did that go? I cant think of many success stories, only failures.
That was a stupid comment.
The user has chosen either an iPhone or some other phone. He has choice.
If a later version of the OS comes out which doesn't run on that phone, he has no choice. Regardless of whether the phone came from Apple or someone else.
All of them. We sell to OEMs.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Good for you. But that makes your perspective quite different from most developers, who are going through stores. They tend to find that Android users wont pay for apps, whilst iOS users will.
figure of speech.
millions==lots
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
From my experience, nobody pays for apps. I've never bought a phone app. I don't know anyone who has. Plenty of using free versions (with or without ad support) but I've never known anyone to actually pay for one. One of the major problems there is lack of a trial version- I might pay for an app if I liked it, but I'm not going to pay for one without a trial. And while some apps do the light/full thing, if the light has everything I need I'll just stick with it. If you're looking to make money, focus on either ad supported apps or preloads. The markets are a waste of time and effort.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
This has nothing to do with parts of a car, you already bought the car. You bought the form factor the CPU/GPU, storage, monthly contract for Cell service if applicable. These car analogies have really broken down (no pun intended, well maybe a bit), this really is about what you can hold in your car, your trunk, your glove box, cup holders, etc. It's like saying you can only put Starbucks coffee in the cup holders and Amazon only products in the trunk. Amazon or any current or future app store will not care if your screen cracks, your phone gets dumped in water or you decide to stir up a batch of H3OCL with it. If they can make sure your product will only carry their products that means as your only mode of "transportation" you have to buy their toilet paper, soap and razor blades (only an example). No one cares nor do they want to get into repairing your car, handset or anything else they would rather you just buy a new one.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
They are. They aren't stopping Wikileaks from expressing themselves on whatever host decided to risk the Anonymous mob.
And I got it free on a contract, so it's not really clear how much it "cost".
It cost the difference between a phone plan including a subsidy and one not including a subsidy. Given the $20 per month price difference between T-Mobile's Even More Plus plan (bring your own phone or buy one from T-Mobile up front) and its 24-month Even More plan (choose your subsidized phone), I'm assuming this to be $480.
Apple fans/iphone users will call it fragmentation, Android users/fans will call it competition.
You sure about that ...?
For one thing, it's only been two weeks. For another, is this authorized by Google, or is it an infringing copy of the Market application? And is Google likely to block Market access from this app?
You certainly don't need a 3g connection to use the market app if you've got wifi!
Please see my reply to slim.
I thought the arguments were:
If iPhone has a single app store, that's bad.
If Android has multiple app stores, that's bad.
I drank what? -- Socrates
How dare anyone not provide full software support for all the hardware I have purchased, for all time!
I drank what? -- Socrates
What about pumperknickle? It works with everything!
I drank what? -- Socrates
I'm a mobile developer, and none of my colleagues or connections complain about Android fragmentation. With any development, you draw a line in the sand, target an OS version, and go.
Device manufacturers are creating choice, but I see no issues with fragmentation. The OS and APIs handle input from various keyboards, accelerometers, cameras (front and back). And there are tons of frameworks to help you along in the event you're unable to create screen objects with width by % rather than px.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
I stopped being able to receive software updates for my G1 about a year after I got it. While I was still under contract.
It is perfectly reasonable to expect software support for a device during a typical lifecycle for such a device. The time frame of a 'typical' lifecycle is certainly open to interpretation, but mobile manufacturers have interpreted it as far too short.
I don't see the problem, myself. If I prefer the Google store, I'll use the Google store. If I prefer the Amazon store, I'll use the Amazon store. You might also find features on the Amazon store (like buying an application as a gift for someone else) that don't exist in the Google store.
Competition is a good thing.
What you say is fundamental. I have an iPhone and basically like Apple's store (I also have wrote iPhone applications in the past..niche stuff that doesn't sell all that much and honestly is OLD). However, if I had an Android I think there are many reasons why an Amazon store would be useful:
I love the sound of distortion in the morning -- webcommando
F R A G M E N T A T I O N
iOS 4 doesn't support iPhone 2g and has limited support on iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G.
F R A G M E N T A T I O N
"But on Android that's choice!"
This is why you guys gotta settle on your terms. ;)
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
And I don't know anyone who has an iPhone that hasn't bought apps. Prices are so low there's little resistance to buying. I mean how much thought do you give to buying a coffee or a soda? Anyone who's even casually into gaming for example sees someone else playing Doodle Jump or Angry Birds, and they want it. The 99c is neither here nor there.
And yet that doesn't seem to be the case on Android.
I've bought a good number of Android apps for my Galaxy Tab, and I only bought it about a month ago. On the flip side, you won't get any ad revenue from me, as I use a hosts-file based adblocker.
A quick google search finds the AdMob metrics for May 2010, and according to that, the average purchase rate is one paid app per month per user, a rate roughly the same for both Android and iPhone/iPod platforms.
See: http://metrics.admob.com/
For me, the biggest problem with the market lies in the content. Google have gone to the opposite extreme of Apple, and let just any scammer put up their crappy apps, pretending to be other apps and rendering it virtually impossible to find the decent stuff. They need to exercise a little more control, or at least charge on a per-app basis at a rate that might discourage all the crud.
Or the old Palm OS
Or Windows Mobile
Or BlackBerry
It wasn't that long ago that our "app store" was located @ handango.com
I wish I was a neutron bomb, for once I could go off...
Just start the registration process and read all the small print. Do read it before accept it. Beware: If you accept you *must* *all* your applications within 14 days. The Amazon rules are very harsh indeed.
As a soon to be full-time mobile game developer, I had done some research into the Android platform and it turns out targeting version 2.1 and up is the way to go: http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html 12.6% are still running 1.6 and 1.7. Not only that 2.1 devices are much more capable with faster CPU and GPUs. In my case, I plan to make an engine that run OpenGL ES 2.0 only. Screw 1.1 and it's fixed function pipeline and its wimpy ARM 9 CPU's!
Many apps in the appstore require iOS4. Problem is iOS4 runs like shit on anything less than a 3GS. And it's not just the major versions. For every update they bring out there are apps that don't work with older versions, such as from 3.1 to 3.1.2 and to 3.1.3.
So even though many of these applications are really light-weight and trivial, they refuse to let you download it. Problem is you can't even download older versions which do work anymore, so gradually more and more of the app store becomes inaccessible.
With Apple's annual hardware update policy the effect is sweeping indeed.
Say what you want, but compatibility is certainly not a quality of the iPhone.
you mean like 4.2?
try running 4.0 on older ipods...
try running 4.0+ on the original iphone - yes it runs, but very badly. depends on your definition of "doesnt work".
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
meh, its not 2 different terms - its the same thing.
My original comment above is basically to say that what some people call "fragmentation", I refer to as the product of offering choice to users. Its a side-effect and one cant have it both ways.
I prefer the android platform with all its variations, while others prefer iOS with all its limitations. Its just your preference that determines how you see the issue...
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
So... you're confirming my point, then.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
it depends.
Mostly what people refer to as fragmentation is just that there are so many different devices. However I refer to this as "choice" because all of these devices run the same or similar version of android, and the user is informed of this before purchasing it.
If you choose not to go google, then you accept that you may not receive updates quickly, or at all.
However you are referring to those products which are not elligible for an update, like the initial run of android phones (G1, Magic/Dream etc). These are in fact still capable of running Android 2.2 through the likes of cyanogen, but to a degree this is the same as older iOS devices.
If you buy google, then Android has no fragmentation. people just need to be smarter with their choices if they are concerned about fragmentation.
but the numbers we are seeing point to most people not caring about fragmentation at all, making it a "non-issue" (for most people).
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.