“Manufacturers and software vendors are constructing their own app stores. Gadget maker Archos launched an independent Android app market, called AppsLib in September. Insyde Software, which makes embedded software for companies like Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Dell, opened an online store for Android netbook apps in late October,” Woyke reports. “Even handset makers are opening Android app stores. Brooklyn-based General Mobile has one called Storeoid. Motorola is said to be planning a market called SHOP4APPS. Several third-party app stores, like GetJar and Handango, also offer Android apps.”
Woyke reports, “The Android apps free-for-all is the opposite approach of Apple, which maintains a central store for iPhone and iPod touch applications. Google spokeswoman Carolyn Penner declined to comment on the company’s app store strategy.”
MacDailyNews Take: That’s either because they don’t have a strategy or they know it’s not a winning one.
Woyke continues, “Frederic Balay, Archos’ vice president of marketing, says the company wanted to use Google’s Android Market for its Android-powered Internet tablet, but couldn’t because it altered the device’s software to support high-resolution screens and high-definition content. ‘Devices that don’t fit Google’s requirements will have to go through third-party portals,’ he explains.”
MacDailyNews Take: Fragmented mess. In other words: PlaysForSure failure.
Woyke continues, “Many apps developed for Android phones aren’t suited for Android tablets or netbooks. Archos’ tablet lacks a camera and the vibration feedback popular in some Android games. Insyde’s netbooks don’t have accelerometers or global positioning system (GPS) technology.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Android is a clusterfsck. More info here.
@OpJ:
As a matter of fact, I *do* have a Sanyo MBC-550 in my garage! It was my first computer, bought in high school. And you are correct that it was only partially IBM compatible (mostly because it used superior bitmap graphics) and thus had to have versions of software modified to specifically run on that platform.
I really liked that computer and did tons with it (I learned how to program on it) but that all changed in 1988 when I got a job where I was given a Mac SE to work with. Soon I was staying late at work to do stuff on the Mac because doing the same thing at home was far more cumbersome and a fraction of the quality. I started saving and bought my first Mac in 1989 (a used Mac II for a mere six grand). I’ve bought Macs ever since (I only own eight now, including that Mac II [in my garage] and I’ve sold at least half a dozen over the years).
Your comparison to CP/M is spot on, BTW. The first computer I ever used was an Osborne I. It was incompatible with anything else (the Kaypro’s where the exception but they were Osborne clones).
— Marc
@ OpJ and zmarc
I moved from a 3rd floor to a 2nd floor office a couple of years ago. There was a CP/M 5.25″ disk back in the bottom of a file cabinet I was cleaning out — it made a great frisbee.
My 1st computer was an Ohio Scientific maxed out to 8K of ram. We used to code in the snow, barefoot, compiling both ways; the kids these days just don’t understand…
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