The Amazon Appstore

Amazon:

You may have seen the buzz in Android blogs and forums about Amazon doing something… appy!  Today Amazon.com launched the Amazon Appstore Developer Portal.  You can find the Portal at developer.amazon.com.  It is a new self-service tool that allows mobile application developers — Android developers in particular—to join our Appstore Developer Program and submit apps for the upcoming launch of the Amazon Appstore for Android.

My guess is that this will be much more successful than Google’s Marketplace. Amazon knows how to sell stuff. Here’s their FAQ (but you have to be signed into an Amazon account to see it). Same terms as Apple — 70 percent cut of the selling price, and $99 a year to join the developer program. Regarding DRM:

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.

Sidenote: months ago, I heard from two separate iOS developers who were contacted by Amazon. The pitch: Amazon wanted them to port their iPhone apps to Android, specifically for inclusion in Amazon’s app store. I’m curious to know how successful this outreach has been for Amazon.

★ Wednesday, 5 January 2011