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Amazon Appstore details leak – will undercut Android Market

by Scott Bicheno on 17 March 2011, 10:21

Tags: Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)

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App and down

An eagle-eyed journalist for androidnews.de speculatively entered http://www.amazon.com/apps into his browser yesterday, and was surprised to be presented with a list of 48 apps, with prices. The links led merely back to the Amazon homepage, and the apps are no longer visible, but it seems that Amazon has inadvertently given us a sneak preview of its rival to the Android Market.

Like a true professional, the German hack wasted little time in taking screenshots, which he has published in full together with a spreadsheet comparing the prices of the apps and games with those on the Android Market.

Apart from the preview of the kinds of apps, and publishers, we're likely to see on the Amazon Appstore, this leak is especially intriguing with regard to pricing. There are quite a few instances where Amazon offers an app for significantly less than Google.

For example Scan2PDF Mobile 2.0, was listed at $3.99 on Amazon, while it will cost you $6.44 on the Android market. There are a few other examples of major discounts although, it must be said, most apps show price parity or very small deviation in pricing.

There are also a few apps exclusive to Amazon, although the one that has been officially confirmed - Angry Birds Rio - was not listed. But it does look like games will be where the stiffest competition will be, as among the Amazon Appstore exclusives is an official-looking Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Force Recon.

It's hard to tell how accurate a preview of the final Amazon Appstore this is, but it seems like a genuine leak. As we had previously thought, it looks like the app marketplace is about to get a lot more competitive.

 

HEXUS Forums :: 8 Comments

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Posted by deleted - Thu 17 Mar 2011 10:52
Fantastic!
Posted by deleted - Thu 17 Mar 2011 10:59
And this is why Android will win over iOS eventually. Competition and having options. Google won't be complaining either - They get the ad revenue they want either way (which I expect is worth a lot more to them anyway)!
Posted by deleted - Thu 17 Mar 2011 11:02
Woo the free market!

Android doesn't tempt me at the moment because it is very much Google's play thing, but the more others compete the better. Despite the user interface been shoddy at times and very inconsistent, but the more people bring realistic alternatives to the monopolistic practices of marketplaces the better.

I think its a matter of time before Apple and Microsoft are forced to allow others to compete in a free market manner.
Posted by deleted - Thu 17 Mar 2011 12:59
Yup..this is great news for andorid fans :) The more choice the better in this situation.

I agree that MS and Apple will eventually have to open up their app stores - just have to hope that when they do, they are allowed to enforce restrictions on the model that those stores follow. Specifically so that they have to enforce the same stringent checks/tests on the apps that Apple do.

If anyone can open up a legit iPhone app store and just sell untested, unverified apps..that completely wipes out one of the biggest advantages that Apple has compared to android.
Posted by deleted - Thu 17 Mar 2011 14:18
Deleted
I agree that MS and Apple will eventually have to open up their app stores - just have to hope that when they do, they are allowed to enforce restrictions on the model that those stores follow. Specifically so that they have to enforce the same stringent checks/tests on the apps that Apple do.
If they want to appeal to the corporate market, then I think that MS will have to allow competing app stores, (Though perhaps not ones that charge money).

Suppose for example your are a large insurance company. You want to create a smartphone app that will allow your field representatives (loss adjusters, sales reps etc) to interact with your corporate systems without the need to carry around a laptop, so you hire a mobile app developer and get an app written. You won't want that app leaking out to the public or to your competitors, so you need a way to distribute it only to your field reps. At present iPhones and Windows Mobile 7 devices can only load apps from their respective app stores, so any corporate apps uploaded their would become public. It would be possible to prevent the app from being used with passwords etc, but that would not stop competiors or crackers from knowing the app exists, and trying to decompile or crack it. At the moment the only platform that supports private app distribution is Android, because it allows alternative app stores or side loading.

Deleted
If anyone can open up a legit iPhone app store and just sell untested, unverified apps..that completely wipes out one of the biggest advantages that Apple has compared to android.
That is a double edged sword from the user's point of view as it allows Apple to refuse apps that might harm their profits, for example the recent controversy over them taking their 30% cut for Periodical subscriptions charged through in app billing.

In any case, the security is mostly an illusion anyway. Apple don't read every line of source code checking for bugs or exploits (There are loads of very buggy iPhone apps out there), they just do a superficial review, and then use their ban hammer later on if an app turns out to be a trojan or suchlike.

Banning after the fact could easily be done with multiple app stores as well. For example you could have a system where each registered developer could buy an app store certificate that is signed by the smartphone vendor's root cert. With that certificate they can sign apps that they can distribute any way they like (App store, side loading, email attachment, etc). If any app from that developer is a problem then the smartphone vendor just add the certificate to a revocation list, and all devices automatically un-install the app when they next sync.

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