Do We Need New App Stores for Android?

by Sam Dean - Aug. 24, 2009Comments (2)

As James Kendrick noted on GigaOm over the weekend, ARCHOS has set a date--September 15th--for the launch of its new ARCHOS 5 Internet Tablet. ARCHOS has made quite a few popular video-centric devices over the years, and this new gadget will have a 5-inch display designed for HD video, a fast chip optimized for video processing, and a 500GB hard drive. In conjunction, though, ARCHOS is also launching AppsLib, a dedicated app store for high-end Android-based devices. Do we really need fragmentation among Android app stores?

"What the folks at ARCHOS didn’t explain is why a second app store for Android is needed, and why they think developers should submit their apps to it instead of the Google Android Market," writes Kendrick. ARCHOS' move comes just as Android Market, which features thousands of applications, is mightily helping to contribute to the newfound momentum that Android has. And, of course, the huge success of Apple's App Store for the iPhone is evidence of the power that one centralized online repository for applications can have.

On the other hand, though, it's looking more and more likely that Android will spread out to non-phone devices. We've written about MIPS' and Japan's Open Embedded Software Foundation's (OESF) efforts to bring Android to home entertainment devices, and efforts are ongoing to bring Android to e-ink devices. These efforts show that Android is headed in very different directions from where the iPhone is headed, especially since it's an open source operating system. If MIPS can release its own distribution of Android for the device types it has in mind, which it has, why can't app stores arise that are dedicated to non-phone Android hardware?

ARCHOS' Android tablet promises to be a very different kind of Android device--definitely not a smartphone. "We believe in the future, and we are convinced that the future is about High-End Android devices," says' ARCHOS' AppsLib site. As more and more non-phone devices arrive based on Android, there will almost certainly be new, dedicated app stores, and that has everything to do with the open source nature of the operating system.
 


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2 Comments
 

No, we don't need two marketplaces - it's the worst idea ever! All they needed was something like T-Mobile's AppPack!


0 Votes

Hi,

I think it wil be a better idea if we opt for new market for Android. I think it will help to capture the market.


objectif


0 Votes
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