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Android Market update: support for priced applications (android-developers.blogspot.com)
27 points by swapspace on Feb 13, 2009 | hide | past | favorite | 7 comments


I have a feeling: since Android is porting it's software to many hardware manufacturers, it will have long term wide-spread consumer adoption ( ala Microsoft Windows, back in the day ).

Forgive me if this was as obvious as 'water is wet'.


But no support for developers outside the US/UK selling apps. Very disappointing :\

My app can't run on an iphone and I'm from Canada, so I can't use Android's priced market. Maybe I'll be able to finally hawk my wares at the BB Store whenever they launch it.


You can still sell and distribute your applications through your own channel. There's nothing to stop an Android device owner from downloading and installing an App directly from the internet.


They say that support will come for other countries by the end of the quarter.

However, if you don't want to wait and see what they do, maybe you just need a partner in the US who can set up an Android Market account and pass you the money ? It would work best for you if you had a relative you could trust in the US, they could set up the account and give you the password, and you would work everything from there, and when the money hit the US person's account you would have them transfer it by whatever means were most convient.

If you don't have such a person, maybe ask here on YC and see if you can find someone who would be willing to do it, and sign a contract to deliver the money.

If you don't mind telling us, what is your app and what feature does it use that stops it from running on the iPhone ?


No support for anything besides Google's official hardware, though. Screw Google and the 'open' Android platform.


What do you mean? It's working on the OpenMoko Neo FreeRunner hardware, albeit with some driver difficulties, but Google is perfectly happy to work with them and include drivers in the mainline Android development tree.

Not to mention there is no "official Google hardware." The T-Mobile G1's are produced by HTC, and are simply the first Android platform to hit the market. There are multiple other manufacturers looking at, or already planning devices based on the Android platform.

As for being "open", it's always still a problem of device makers and carriers insisting on digital restrictions of user freedoms, such as not allowing unsigned firmware to boot on the device. But as far as everything else goes, Android is by far the most "open" platform available for consumer grade devices as we know them.

Note that as an owner of a Neo FreeRunner, I don't yet consider it a consumer-ready device; hence the reason I have purchased myself a G1, as it is the next-best alternative until Openmoko, or some other group, can get their acts together and actually release a worthwhile mobile distribution.


Yes, I know that Android works on many different platforms. However, the Market is not available for any of them. I contacted Google myself and they said they had no plans to make it available. That makes these ports pretty much useless unless you get the .apks yourself, and most apps will just go for the store.




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