Unlike iDevice owners, Android users are free to download apps from stores other than Google’s official Android Market. There are quite a few alternatives to the official app store, such as GetJar, out there. Recently, esteemed developer Koushik ‘Koush’ Dutta of CyanogenMod and ClockworkMod Recovery has released information that points towards future plans of a whole new app store.
This purpose-built app store would welcome all the apps that have, for some reason or the other (or none), been kicked out of the app store. On his Google+ page, Koush asked readers what they thought of his idea of an open app store that would host all apps that got removed from the Android Market. This was after the developer’s own app ClockworkMod Tether got blocked following AT&T’s demand. Earlier, all of his blocked apps were available from his Google+ page.
At present the developer interface (app submission page) of ‘ CyanogenMod App Store’ is extremely simple. There’s not much more than a title, description and change-log. Even a field for uploading the APK file is nowhere to be seen. This means that developers can’t exactly upload their content yet, if they wish to. However, it’s probably not too long a wait and we expect the store to be fully functional soon, once it is officially confirmed.
The news of this store should be very welcome to the developers community. Sadly, it isn’t unusual that an app get blocked from the official store for no reason at all. Carriers, like AT&T, often get perfectly legal apps removed to protect their own interests, such as tethering and visual voice-mail solutions. Programs that have been thought of as fair for years get pulled. One instance of this is when Google axed emulator apps developed by Yong Zhang and suspended the developers account without any satisfactory reason for having done so. Once the dev Koush confirms the project, and it doesn’t change radically change along the way, it could end up being a giant hit- especially if it ends up being ROM agnostic, as hinted by the dev himself.
[ Liked it? Don't forget to +1 this ]
