Android Market officially opens
Published: 24 October, 2008
Google officially opened its Android Market online store this week, with 50 applications available at launch, all free. From the first quarter of next year, the Market will also support paid-for apps, with developers keeping about 80% of the revenues.
Programmers pay a $25 registration fee and then can upload and publish their apps. Google will give the remaining 20% of revenues to carriers, minus billing settlement fees. "Google does not take a percentage. We believe this revenue model creates a fair and positive experience for users, developers, and carriers," the search giant said.
Google has used video service YouTube as its model, taking a hands-off approach to the choice of apps in the Market, and letting the user base decide. So there is a search function to help consumers find what they want and user ratings to bring good programs to the forefront.
Applications that violate Google's terms of service can be removed from the Market and even from the phones themselves (Android's kill switch, which enables the latter, was discovered last week). But the system is largely self-managing, which means Google is keen to stress the security aspects of its platform - for instance, the file system is kept inaccessible, and applications cannot access one anothers' data.
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