Amazon launched their App Store yesterday, providing a new way for Android developers to sell their apps. The terms are what was expected, and similar to Apple’s App Store terms: $99/year fee, and Amazon takes 30% of the revenue.
One notable difference is that Amazon is leaving it up to the developers to use DRM or not:
For each app that you submit to the Appstore, you can choose to apply DRM or make your app available without any rights management constraints. If you do choose to apply DRM to one of your apps, you must use the DRM system provided by Amazon through the Amazon Appstore Developer Portal.
This sounds like a great move by Amazon and good news for Android developers and users. Google’s Android Market hasn’t proved very successful for devs or users, but Amazon will almost surely be much better at this. Giving developers a solid platform to make a living developing for Android will only accelerate the platform’s growth, though it will make the “everything in the world should always be free!!!!” crowd lose their minds (again).
Developers can get started with the program here.
Sooo. What are their terms of service? And will they carry the Wikileaks App?…
Developers can already charge for apps sold through Android. So the only benefit here is it allows them to add bullshit DRM?
I’m not part of the “everything in the world should always be free!!!!” crowd. I’ll happily pay for software (or other things) that improve my life. But I won’t pay someone money to put broken controls on my device that then restrict what I can or can’t do with a thing I’ve already paid for.
Google prefers Android apps to be ad-supported, because that’s where they make much of their money.
“One notable difference is that Amazon is leaving it up to the developers to use DRM or not:”
That’s not a difference! There’s a radio button, right there in the Google Market app portal that says whether or not to turn on DRM. It’s up to the developer. (Although, that form of DRM is deprecated and they are encouraging folks who do want DRM to use their licensing server, but hey, that’s completely optional too.) I’m not sure you really know anything about Android. Stick to the Apple beat there.
@4 – The notable difference is between this model and Apple’s model. Apple applies DRM to all apps.
@2 – Sure, you can charge for apps. But the market doesbt have very many success stories of paid apps making a lot of dough. Amazon is very good at selling stuff, Google makes its money from ads. I think Amazon will do a better job of marketing and promoting apps in their market, because they have more incentive.
Are you just relying on the anecdotes out there for success stories? Because that’s an incredibly poor way to evaluate Apple’s App Store versus Google Market, given the ability of Apple’s PR to push anecdotes into every corner of our lives. Since neither company releases any kind of data for us to do meaningful comparisons, I don’t think there’s any way to really say that the Market doesn’t generate success stories on a level with the App Store. But, you want an anecdote? We know Robo Defense has sold at least 250,000 copies at $3 per, and it was above 250,000 probably a year ago, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that it’s done much better than that. Speaking as a mobile developer, I’m happier with the Market than I am with the App Store, especially as the Market has been pretty aggressively evolving over the last few months.