Google Android Market is live

by Brad Linder Oct 22nd 2008

The Google Android Market is now live. What's the Android Market? It's sort of like the App Store for the the iPhone. But for cellphones running the Android OS. Right now, that means the T-Mobile G1. Because the G1 isn't locked down as tightly as the iPhone, you're free to install applications that don't come from the Android Market. Handango and MobiHand have already launched their own Android stores with free and commercial software.

But if you prefer to go through the official channel, the Android Market now has about 50 applications including WikiMobile for mobile access to Wikipedia, SplashPlay for learning to play the guitar, and iSkoot for making Skype VoIP calls on your Android phone. There's also a weather map program called iMap and a mobile client for streaming music service iMeem.

There are still far more applications for iPhone, Symbian, Palm, or Windows Mobile devices than there are for Android phones. But considering today is day one, there are already some pretty impressive apps.

All of the apps available in the Android Market today are available as free downloads. Starting Monday, developers will be able to upload their own software after paying a $25 application fee. And next year Google will allow developers to sell commercial applications in the Android Market.

Tags: android, android-market, app-store

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Quikboy said 9:51PM on 10-22-2008

At least it looks much better than the iPhone App Store. I don't know about other people, but the App Store on the iPhone is ugly. Hopefully the "kill switch" isn't too bad.

I hope this encourages Microsoft to make its own application store, to help with the discoverability of the many WinMo apps. I dislike Handango and the other cruddy stores a lot, and it wouldn't hurt MS to give it's users a little more of an "experience". I really am anticipating WM7. I know a lot of people dislike the usability of WinMo, but if you have a great phone, and a good search engine, there shouldn't be a prob.

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