Third Party Mobile App Stores Take Over Android
AT&T announced early this month that it’s Samsung Infuse 4G will be the first smartphone to allow apps outside the Android Market, and we’ve suspected there’d be more to come. AT&T finally cleared all doubts and decided to implement this on all devices sold on May 15 and onwards.
AT&T software updates will be available on select handsets running on Android 2.2 and higher. The list includes HTC Aria, HTC Inspire 4G and Samsung Captivate. As soon as the update hits the phones, users will be free to access the Amazon Appstore, Getjar and direct downloads. Though it’s still unclear when exactly these updates will roll out, it seems like it’s going to be pretty soon.
Talking about third-party app stores, Amazon recently got an exclusive deal with Popcap to offers Chuzzle and Plants vs. Zombies. The games will featured free first on its Free App of the Day before it gets priced at $2.99. Chuzzle will be offered starting Tuesday while PVZ will be offered sometime later. Openfeint’s also planning to join Google Android mobile platforms’ application ecosystem by launching new free-to-play games on its platform called OFX platform for Android. It will enable developers to launch freemium games where users play for free and pay real money for virtual goods.
Meanwhile, Gameloft has finally stopped being stubborn over its DRM policy. They decided to be more flexible by allowing users to re-download their games at a later time when they upgrade or downgrade their device, which they didn’t allow before. Some of their biggest titles can only be downloaded from their site, posing major difficulties for someone that’s purchased a game, but got a new device. Gameloft’s finally releasing these games in the Android Market as well, where users can manage them similarly to the iTunes App Store, and re-download at any time.
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