Android Market on the Web

JEK

Senior Insider
http://market.android.com/


Google Fixes Its App Store
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER
Updated 5:50 p.m. with additional reporting from the event.

For a company that is all about organizing and searching information, Google’s Android Market app store has been surprisingly unorganized and hard to search. That changed Wednesday.

At an event at Google headquarters, where Google showed off Honeycomb, its newest version of the Android operating system made for tablets, Google introduced the Android Market Web store. For the first time, Android users can search and buy apps from Web browsers, not just from cellphones. And the store can be searched and is and much easier to navigate, with a more sophisticated design with pictures and user reviews.

When users click to buy an app, it simultaneously downloads to their phone. That is when “some of the real cloud magic happens,” said Chris Yerga, Android’s engineering director for cloud services. “There’s no wires, no syncing with computers, none of that sort of nonsense.”

People can also share apps via Twitter. And, addressing an ongoing frustration for developers and Android users, developers can now set prices in each currency instead of charging American customers in euros, for instance.

Finally, Google announced that it will offer in-app purchases, so developers can sell things like virtual goods or premium versions of their apps. Disney, for instance, showed an Android version of Tap Tap Revenge that is coming this spring, once in-app purchases begin.

The new online app store comes as Google prepares for Android tablet computers to hit the market. Google first previewed Honeycomb, its version of Android software for tablets, at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. On Wednesday, it showed it off again on a slim, black touch-screen tablet made by Motorola.

All Android cellphone apps that have been built in accordance with Google’s recommended guidelines will work on the bigger-screen tablets, said Hugo Barra, the Android product management director. Honeycomb offers additional features like the ability to move around pieces of an app and open windows within an app.

For example, in the Gmail app, when someone clicks on a message, the inbox moves to the left-hand side and the message fills the center of the screen. In the Pulse news reading app, clicking on a story opens it in a window, but readers can still scroll through all the stories on the main page.

There are also improved graphics, so people can simulate flipping through the pages of a book, for instance, or view 3D buildings on Google Maps. Google showed a game involving a monster barreling through the streets and hurling cars that looked like a movie.

The camera — which can take outward-facing or front-facing photos and enable video chat — includes settings for things like the flash, exposure and white balance. One of the new mobile apps, from CNN, uses a bunch of the new features so people can flip through stories, move around pieces of the app and submit their own photographs or video footage.

“From a user’s perspective,” Mr. Barra said, “what really matters is despite all of the computer science we have to enable what you just saw, it’s really just about quick and easy access to important information.”
 
"cloud magic", aaargh, scr*w the cloud.


But the installation thing is pretty cool, I clicked the "Install" icon on the web and right away the phone started to download the app over 3G. Look mom, no hands! I don't understand why Apple is sticking to the USB cable, it should have happened over WiFi since day 1.

I do hope they'll improve the web store, it's still quite primitive and basic, doesn't sell the apps too well.

PS. I just ordered a third ZTE Blade yesterday. I'm actually going to sell the phone and put the SIM on the iPad. That gives me about 1.5 years of free, unlimited mobile data :D
 
WHarding said:
Help me out here - How does the PS: last sentence work again?

You mean my third ZTE Blade?

Mobile phone subscriptions with subsidized phones aren't the mainstream here. A lot of people have company phones, some get a subsidized phone (apart from the iPhone they're all unlocked), some buy a phone and the subscription separately.

One carrier (the largest) offers a 24-month deal; for 5.90 € a month you get an unlocked ZTE Blade Android-phone, the basic subscription and unlimited data. I received the phone last week and put it on a local auction site. The auction will finish tomorrow evening and the price is now at 140 €.

In the 24 month deal I pay 141.60 € for the phone, the subscription and data. If I get 140 € for the phone, I pay 1.60 € for two years of unlimited data. That's right, about $2 for two years of unlimited mobile data.

I can cut the SIM card into MicroSIM and put in on my iPad 3G. Actually it's already there as I upgraded my existing iPad subscription to this 24-month deal.

PS. Why is someone paying 140 € for a phone that they could get for 141.60 € with the services? No idea. I'm surprised about the 140 € price, I was ready to sell the phone for 80 €.
 
The auction just closed a few hours ago. For 160 €.

For the next two years I'll be surfing free on the iPad and there's even extra 20 euros to spend on beer. Not bad!
 
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