Android News
Should developers launch their own Market?
March 8, 2009 | by Andrew Kameka
Android, Google
Google angered many Android fans when it revealed that unlocked G1 developer phones cannot access copy-protected paid apps. Many questioned how the very people who create apps for an “open-source” platform can be locked out of Android’s premiere content. And what about the consumers who spent $400, twice as much as the average T-Mobile subscriber, to obtain a G1? Should they all to be left out in the cold?
Maybe not.
Now that Cydia has announced plans to open an app store for jailbroken iPhones, I wonder if Android developers should form their own marketplace to reach the consumers shut out by Google’s restrictions on the Android Market. There are already third-party sellers of Android apps in OnlyAndroid and Handango; however, neither site has nearly the amount of apps available in the Android Market, and the slim pickings are also more expensive.
Developers could benefit by creating a central website or service that could offer the same guarantees and relative ease of use as the Android Market. A strong selection of paid apps and a simple tutorial on how to install an “.apk” might make the service a viable alternative for dev phone owners hungry for paid apps.
Of course, there are potential drawbacks in terms of security. Google likely blocked unlocked dev phones from paid apps because of piracy concerns, so some developers may fear that participating in this new service could lead to torrents and shady websites posting their content. Factor in legal, bandwidth, marketing, and other operational costs, creating a dev-phone-targeted app store could pose several challenges.
Still, an “Android App Flea Market” could help repair some of the damage done by Google’s Market policies. Plenty of Android’s early adopters and biggest cheerleaders were preemptively punished for a crime yet to be committed. They invested in expensive hardware, only to discover that it is technically inferior to a cheaper alternative. In a strange twist, dev phone owners have no choice but to pirate certain paid apps they want because they cannot obtain them legally. It’s an ethical, legal, financial, and technological problem that Google has chosen not to immediately address.
Cydia’s success could serve as a model solution for dealing with this problem. If successful, it would be a proven example of how to bring paid apps to unlocked developer phones and compensate creators fairly. Connecting a seller and his product with customers is what a market is supposed to do after all.
You forgot to mention SlideME (www.slideme.org). This is an alternative store solution for Android developpers, and definitely worth consideration.
I’m already in the process of setting one up. My store is a little more specific though, in that it will have one application.
The application is a customised E-Book reader, and my service will allow independent authors to publish their own books on the site in a .bfd (book for droid) encrypted format. They can sell the books at their own price point. The end user simply downloads the .bfd file, puts it onto their SD card and then opens it in the program.
The main reason I started it though was due to the age and content restrictions on the Android Market – the first book that will be published has strong and sexual language.
At the moment, it’s just me working on both the Android app and the website, so I’m looking to launch at the end of April, although this is not set in stone yet.
That’s a good idea, Tane. Whether Apple or Google want to admit it, mature content is something that people want. We watch violent movies, listen to aggressive music, read books not suited for kids, etc.
There should be a way to obtain that content for phones if people display a demand for non-obscene/illegal content.
The biggest problem is that Market has a de-facto monopoly because it comes on every Android ‘phone consumers can buy, and so many developers see it as the only place they need to list their apps.
I’m the co-founder of the company behind AndAppStore which is bundled in Koolus distribution of Android for FreeRunner which they expect to be running on over half a million devices by the end of the year, so hopefully this will help show developers that Market is not the only distribution channel they need to look at.
We’ve signed up for some space at uservoice (http://andappstore.uservoice.com/) so developers users can now give direct feedback on what they want to see and what they think of the service.
Building one off markets won’t solve the problem…. Google just needs to fix it’s existing infrastructure to support dev phones. I vote for revamping the the entire google app market! It’s a great first cut but honestly I want to see something like itunes.
Btw, as an owner of an android development company I’m happy dev phones were blocked….for obvious security concerns.
What I would find more interesting as a developer with a dev phone, is a market place for open source/free (not freeware) software only. Since I am actually not interested in proprietary (paid or unpaid) apps, I could care less about missing out on them from the marketplace. But, what I want is a place that I can get apps that I know are free/open source. So far, I am having a hard time finding such apps. There is this site: http://andapps.org/news.php but there is no content there yet. Hopefully a free/open source platform will breed some free/open source apps.