FREE MOBILE CLOUD COMPUTING CONCEPTS - TRAINING_MODULES_WITH_TONS_OF_VIDEOS
Post by Shelly
Harris with Mt Pallin Cloud Storage Providers, St Louis Mo.
Amazon Appstore
Topics.....
The Amazon Appstore is officially open for business. At this time there are 4,134 apps
available and 2,435 of them are free. There are 29 categories to choose from along with top rated, new, and coming soon. The
one exclusive app I know of is Angry Birds Rio.
I signed
in this morning and downloaded my first app, Angry Birds Rio. It was fairly easy. You will need to get the Amazon Appstore
App directly from Amazon because it is not available in the Google Market. I signed up using my desktop.
You will then receive a download link on your device
for the apk. You must enable 3rd party apps on your device by going to settings / applications
and clicking “unknown sources.”
If you are
on AT&T you will not be able to do this which means the Amazon Appstore will not be available
to you until AT&T changes their policy on 3rd party apps. After the apk is is downloaded
and installed you will then open the app and sign in using your existing amazon account.
You can search and install apps from either your device or you desktop, but when you do it from your desktop it will
not start downloading to your device automatically like the official market.
You need to open your appstore app on your device and there will be a notification within the app telling you that there
are downloads that you need to accept. You can also hit menu / my apps and there will be a tab called “new” that
will show you all apps that need to be downloaded.
After the app is downloaded you still need to accept again to install. It would be easier if there were notifications
on your home screen so you can accept the download quicker. I did not find anything in the settings on this so hopefully it
is something they will add later.
Along the topic of notifications,
you will not receive any on the home screen when an app has been updated. You will again have to go in to the Amazon Appstore to find out. In the “my apps” section there is a tab called “updates”
that will list any apps that need to be updated.
Apps that
are downloaded from Amazon will have to be updated through Amazon. I downloaded an app that is in both Google and Amazon and
of course it does not show up as installed in the Google Market so therefore there is no way to update it through Google.
Furthermore, it appears that the apps are either titled differently or the developer has a different name to create differentiation.
For example I found Pulse News
Reader in Google, but in Amazon it is Pulse News. I found that WeatherBug Elite is titled the
same, but the developer in Google is Weatherbug mobile and in Amazon it is AWC
Convergence Technologies. These are the same exact apps, but this forces you to download updates through Amazon.
If you want to uninstall
any Amazon apps you will have to do it manually by going to menu / applications / manage applications.
I do not see an easy uninstall link within Amazon.
I did uninstall an app manually on my device and when going back to the Amazon Appstore,
it was still listed in the “my apps” section with “install” next to it just like the Google
Market. Hopefully they will add an uninstall link in the near future.
One interesting feature is the test drive feature. You
will see the following link when looking at the app’s main page:
You can actually see and
try the app using your mouse to control the app on your desktop to see what it is like.
This did not work at all in Chrome. I was able to get it to work in Internet Explorer,
but for some reason I no longer see the link in either browser. They might be trying to fix it. I cannot tell you if this
feature is available for every app or only a select few.
I tried it with a very simple dice rolling app which worked well, but I am not sure how well it will do with something
more complex. It is a good idea and I am sure it will evolve over time.
It has already been reported that it is all about price with Amazon. It looks like they will be offering a free app
of the day and today it is Angry Birds Rio. You will also find a deals section. Right now there are 22 apps (11 games) and
they range from 17% to 50% off.
The first
app I noticed was Flashlight Shaker. It was listed at 50% off and upon checking it with the Google Market it was indeed 50%
off. Google had it for $1.99 and Amazon for .99 cents. After spot checking a few apps it appears that if it is not on the
deal page the price will be the same as Google. Amazon obviously wants you to check back regularly to see what is on sale.
One concern I have is purchase history. Right now all my apps I have downloaded
(both paid and free) are tied to my gmail account.
If I get a new phone all my apps are easily found and downloaded. For those that download a number of apps from Amazon,
you will have one extra step in that you will have to log in to reinstall those apps. That is not a big deal, but what happens
if Amazon decides to close the market?
You will
have to re-purchase the apps from the Google Market. I think the chances are slim, but it is something that needs to be considered.
The Amazon Appstore seems easy to use, but I am not
in love with it. The fact that the app name or developer names are different, you cannot easily uninstall
apps, and there are no proper notifications makes it quirky. Do I plan to use it? I guess time will tell.
The only thing that will make the Amazon store successful is price and exclusivity.
If they are much cheaper on a particular app, I will definitely consider it. I can’t see myself downloading free apps
from Amazon unless it is an exclusive or if it is free because it is on sale.
It is easier to keep most of you apps tied to gmail. Amazon is in this for the long haul
so I expect it to get better. I still think it is nice to have the choice and that is what Android is all about.
