Seriously, can manufacturers handle AppStores?

June 12th, 2009

So seriously, can manufacturers handle their AppStores? Lets look at the situation right now at the three main AppStores: Nokia OVI Store, Apple AppStore, and Android Market.

OVI and AppStore are pre-moderation stores, where it takes some time before your company gets approved, and it also takes some time before your application gets approved. But very recently, there is an overwelming interest in being registered, so for instance my company, and some of my friends companies, it is taking over 2 months already to get registered, and we have signals are apps will take several months to launch.

Some applications, can take even weeks to launch, maybe even a month, not talking about if it gets rejected for some interesting reason, and you have to re-do part of the application. Both Nokia and Apple are running into the same problem. With Nokia, it’s slightly more understandable, as there is not one application version, but tens and hundreds of the devices.

Now remember one of the supposed benefits of the AppStore? You come in and your product gets launched fast on the market, that time to market is reduced? Yeah, it is definately reduced, but can manufacturers handle the overwelming interest of applications being put in the stores?

Now Android is a different story, as an open platform, you come in, your register, launch your application - and boom, it’s live in the AppStore the next day. But can Android handle things like updating spyware? Viruses? How quickly can these things be post-moderated?

What is your view on this?

2 Responses to “Seriously, can manufacturers handle AppStores?”

Václav Hodek Says:
June 12th, 2009 at 7:08 pm

Maybe, neither way is the right one. The whole process should not be so slow, but on the other hand, no approving at all is not the best way too. Maybe, some automatic tests for spyware, etc. in connection with some kind of black list, where being listed means no chance to distribute anything via the store, should be enough to force developers create quality products without any “side effects”.

Nokia is in worse situation in comparison with iPhone or Android as their are not pushed to take care about so many devices as Nokia is. And be frank, some of Nokia devices are having (at least) bugs, so nobody can be sure about proper function.

Volker Says:
June 15th, 2009 at 10:37 am

You are forgetting Blackberry App World and, maybe more importantly, the newly announced Sony Ericsson store, which will be powered by GetJar (cf. here: http://tinyurl.com/md5rxf). This latter approach shows a way for carriers and OEM to get around the “moderation” bits: mandate someone to do it for you. And, alas, it looks more like the classic publishing model indeed… The difference would still be to be able to publish a (potentially) unlimited number of apps vs a very small number every week/month as is done by most carriers today.