Handango filling in for Android Marketplace?
Handango to Offer Paid Apps for Android
I’m not sure what is more interesting — the fact that the Android Marketplace won’t offer paid apps to start with, or that Handango is trying to step in and take that role. All this talk about “competing marketplaces” is fine and dandy, but who loses here? The consumer does. The average person doesn’t know about Handango, won’t know, and frankly doesn’t care about competing marketplaces.
Mobile devices are a different breed, and I think everyone is looking at “multiple marketplaces” with rose colored glasses. Is a consumer really going to install and search 3 different marketplaces just to find what they are looking for? No, the average person isn’t. They don’t care about that.
Also, the Handango marketplace is going to be web based (only initially, I assume). That seems a bit ridiculous. They’ve provided a similar service to Blackberry(+esque) devices for years, yet can’t move fast enough to anticipate a development like this?
It’ll be fun to watch this play out, but for now I’m staying in the app store. Having just one marketplace is important to me not only as a developer, but as a user too.
One last thing - if the iPhone weren’t exclusive to AT&T right now, not many people would care about Android at all. The last remaining barrier to the question of “Why don’t you have an iPhone” is carrier selection. When’s that contract up again?
