I installed the Amazon Appstore on my Android. Even though I don’t live in the US, I can get around that by having a US credit card on my account. The reason for installing the Amazon Appstore is because Plants vs Zombies is being released on Android in June, and Amazon is supposed to be giving it out for free (and they have a 2 week exclusivity agreement).

With the Amazon Appstore, that makes 3 different “android markets” on my phone. The official one, the Amazon one, and AndroidPit.com. I have an AndroidPit account because I wanted to download a LCD density changer for my tablet, and for whatever reason that was the only place that had it available (or maybe my tablet filtered it from the Android Market). Even though the app was only $1, I had to put $5 on my account, so now there is about $4 sitting in that app store…

I’m hesitant to buy anything from a non-official app store. First, that means I have to check different places for updates to my apps. Plus, apps are not often updated as quickly on some of the stores (as a publisher, I would be annoyed to have to upload my app to 5 different app stores). I don’t think multiple app stores are beneficial to me as a customer (I only got Amazon’s Appstore for their freebies, I don’t intend to really use it).

I also checked up on the Amazon Appstore publishing requirements, and you have to pay $75 per year (first year waived). I guess that means you need to be serious about generating income. The Android Market’s $25 for life fee is much more palatable.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: amazon, android, androidmarket