Check Out the Amazon Appstore
Yesterday Amazon launched their very own Android AppStore. This is a huge move for Amazon and now put’s a lot more pressure for Google to improve their own Market. As a consumer this release can only be a good thing.
Lately Google has gotten a lot of bad press for their Market App. Technically it works fine. You can easily select apps and download them like you would expect and if you have a google shopping account, payment is a breeze. It begins to runs into issues when you are trying to find new apps that weren’t extremely popular.
Currently you are able to search by a multitude of categories but once there, you can only view the Top Paid, Top Free and Newest apps. These list are great when you first get your device but after a few weeks you will most likely want to see something new. Since the apps at the beginning of the top paid and top free apps are the easiest to see, it makes sense that they would continue to be downloaded and be able to maintain there top position. This makes it extremely hard for new apps to have lasting appeal and not become buried among the thousand of other apps.
Google has made some moves to make the Market better by launching https://market.android.com/. This make’s the experience a lot better and even allows you to download apps directly to your phone from your computer’s web browser. The only issue with this is that they have not ported this type of interface over to the Android platform. This problem has been solved by some third party applications such as AppBrain and Chomp. I personally use AppBrain for all of my Android app needs and recommend it to any Android user.
The next issue is actually a positive and a negative. Google allows almost any app to be posted without regulation. Because of this you can find some really cool apps that Apple would never allow. This is one of the best reason’s to own an Android phone. The downside is that since no one is checking these apps, apps with malicious intentions can be posted on the Market. This unfortunately was done a few months ago (CNN Article). Google responded to that specific event by removing the applications from the Market, remotely removing the malware from infected devices and fixing the security hole within a day.
One of the best features of the Amazon store is that they do review the apps for anything malicious or harmful before listing them in their store. This allows the consumer a piece of mind that they will not be downloading anything harmful. This does however, put you in the same boat as iOS users who allow for Apple to dictate what they can and can’t have on their devices.
The next great feature is the free app of the day. Each day Amazon selects a paid app and makes it free. To compensate the developer of the selected app for making it free, Amazon will give them 20% of the list price for every download. As long you are okay with Amazon slashing your price for a day this is a great way to gain publicity, ad revenue and allow the developer to cross-promote their other applications.
On their website you can “Test Drive” the apps. Users can run a Flash based version of the apps directly through their computer’s browser. This allows for the users to be able to instantly try out many of the apps before they buy them. Unfortunately I was unable to find any live examples of this but the AppStore is only 2 days old so I am willing to wait a little longer for this feature to be released.
Amazon must have been listening to the Market users and came up with a business plan to fix most, if not all, of those issues. Unlike AppBrain and Chomp which is just a reskinned Google Market, they released their very own store. This means that they have complete control over what apps are listed in the store and even how much they cost. The developer can suggest a list price but ultimately Amazon get’s to decide what it sells the app for using a variety of market factors and the developers suggestion.
I expect this to be highly profitable for Amazon. They are taken then industry standard of a 30% cut per app sale and charge a $99 yearly developer fee. The service is free for consumers to use.
The Amazon AppStore will never replace Google’s Market for me but it will greatly compliment it. I am glad that I can have the free for all of Google Market and the safely monitored Amazon AppStore. Android is now getting the best of both worlds.
