Amazon App Store for Android

Appstore: Amazon App Store for Android

If you're an Android user, you now have a second in-phone source for apps. Aside from the Android Market (standard with every Android OS version), you can also download Amazon's Android Appstore.

Amazon Appstore for Android is an application, and thus takes up memory: unless you're running app2sd, weight the value of taking up phone memory with another app store. Amazon is trying to sweeten the deal by offering one free app per day; at the moment, it's Angry Birds Rio (Note that the basic Angry Birds game is always free on Android).

You can also shop the Amazon Appstore via a regular web browser, but obviously the download will have to be consummated on your handset, at which point you download the Appstore itself.

Test Drive an App

One striking feature of the Appstore: a try-before-you-buy feature called Test Drive, which allows you to try out an app in a simulated Android environment before you commit to downloading it. 

Predictably, Apple is suing Amazon over the name "Appstore", arguing that it's too similar to "iTunes App Store", leaving aside that the two are OS-specific and therefore impossible to confuse in daily use.

How to Install Amazon Appstore for Android

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Amazon Appstore for Android

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uploaded by Jordan Yerman

If you want to install Appstore, here's what you have to do:

1. Enter your phone number or email address on the Appstore landing page
2. Go to Settings--> Applications and allow apps from "unknown sources"
3. Retrieve the email or text message from Amazon (triggered by step 1); click the link
4. Install Amazon_Appstore.apk; it will appear in the notifications bar once it is downloaded.

Amazon's app store is another avenue for developers to share or sell their applications to mobile users: eventually each developer will figure out which relationship works best: Android Market or Amazon Appstore. This is not possible with the iPhone, at least unless you jailbreak it: the iTunes store is the only game in town. Jailbreakers already know about Cydia.

Currently, the Appstore for Android is only available via SMS through Amazon.com (US) for US carriers. The email link is location-agnostic: it works in Canada. If you're an AT&T subscriber, even in the US, the Appstore won't work. Sorry.