History
The Android Market was announced on 28 August 2008 and was made available to users on 22 October 2008. Priced application support was added for U.S. users and developers in the U.S. and UK in mid-February 2009. UK users gained the ability to purchase priced applications on 13 March 2009.On 17 March 2009, there were about 2,300 applications available for download from the Android Market, according to T-Mobile chief technical officer Cole Brodman.[2]
By December 2009, there were over 20,000 applications available for download in the Android Market.[3]
By August 2010, there were over 80,000[4] applications available for download in the Android Market, with over 1 billion application downloads.[5][6] Recent months (in 2010) have shown an ever increasing growth rate, recently (in May 2010) surpassing 10,000 additional applications per month.[7]
A report in July 2010, a company named Distimo showed that the Android Market features the highest percentage of free apps, with over 57% being free to download, double the amount of Apple Inc.'s App Store, in which only 28% of apps are free. Other competitors, such as Nokia's Ovi Store and Blackberry's App World had 26%, with Windows Marketplace only having 22%.[8]
In December 2010, it was reported that the Market would shortly receive an update, which will, alongside some minor updates, will add content-filtering to the market, and will reduce the purchase refund window from 24/48 hours to 15 minutes. Google has said that the new update would be available to all devices running Android 1.6 or higher[9], and arrived on unlocked HTC Desires in the UK on 16th December.
On December 31, 2010 the Android market reached the 200,000 app milestone. [10]
Priced applications
Developers of software (apps) receive 70% of the application price, with the remaining 30% distributed among carriers (if authorized to receive a fee for applications purchased through their network) and payment processors.[11] Revenue earned from the Android Market is paid to developers via Google Checkout merchant accounts. T-Mobile, the first carrier with an Android device, recently updated the market to allow Google to directly bill app purchases to a customer's cell phone account that show up as a charge on the bill.Availability for users
Users outside the countries/regions listed below only have access to free applications through Android Market. Paid applications are currently available to Android Market users in following countries:| Country | Users can purchase apps[12] | Developers can sell apps[13] |
|---|---|---|
 Argentina | Yes | Yes |
 Australia | Yes | Yes |
 Austria | Yes (except MVNO) | Yes |
 Czech Republic | Yes | No |
 Canada | Yes | Yes |
 Belgium | Yes | Yes |
 Brazil | Yes | Yes |
 Denmark | Yes | Yes |
 Finland | Yes | Yes |
 France | Yes | Yes |
 Germany | Yes | Yes |
 Hong Kong | Yes | Yes |
 India | Yes | No |
 Ireland | Yes | Yes |
 Israel | Yes | Yes |
 Italy | Yes | Yes |
 Japan | Yes | Yes |
 Mexico | Yes | Yes |
 Netherlands | Yes | Yes |
 New Zealand | Yes | Yes |
 Norway | Yes | Yes |
 Pakistan | Yes | No |
 Poland | Yes | No |
 Portugal | Yes | Yes |
 Russia | Yes | Yes |
 Singapore | Yes | Yes |
 Sweden | Yes | Yes |
 Switzerland | Yes | Yes |
 Taiwan | Yes | Yes |
 South Korea | Yes | Yes |
 Spain | Yes | Yes |
 United Kingdom | Yes | Yes |
 United States | Yes | Yes |
- Simyo and Jazztel Móvil,[14] Spain.
Availability for developers
Early on, only developers in the U.S. and UK were able to publish priced applications. In an email to Android Market developers on 2 April 2009, Google wrote: "... we are hard at work to enable developers in Germany, Austria, Netherlands, France, and Spain to offer priced applications in the coming weeks. Once merchant support for priced apps are live in these countries, we will announce our plans for launching support for developers in additional geographies."This was partly realized and, for the time being, developers from Austria, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, UK and the U.S. can sell priced applications on the Android Market.[13]
Unlike with the iPhone, there is no requirement that Android applications be acquired from Android Market. Android applications may be obtained from any source including a developer's own website or from any of the 3rd party alternatives to Market which exist and can be installed on Android devices alongside Market.
Banned applications
On 31 March 2009, Google pulled all tethering applications from the Android Market.[16] Google later restored the applications for Android Market users, except those inside the T-Mobile USA network:[17]On Monday, several applications that enable tethering were removed from the Android Market catalog because they were in violation of T-Mobile's terms of service in the US. Based on Android's Developer Distribution Agreement (section 7.2), we remove applications from the Android Market catalog that violate the terms of service of a carrier or manufacturer. We inadvertently unpublished the applications for all carriers, and today we have corrected the problem so that all Android Market users outside the T-Mobile US network will now have access to the applications. We have notified the affected developers.[17]As of 20 May 2010, PDAnet, Easy Tether and Proxoid were all available in the U.S. market for T-mobile users.
Implementation details
The applications themselves are self-contained Android Package files. The Android Market does not install applications itself, rather it asks the phone's PackageManagerService to install them. The package manager can be seen directly if the user tries to download an APK file direct to their phone. Applications can be installed to the phone's internal storage, and can also be installed to the owner's external storage card under certain conditions.[18]Application security
Android devices can run applications written by third party developers and distributed through the Android Market or one of several other application stores. Once they have signed up, developers can make their applications available immediately, without a lengthy approval process.When an application is installed, Android displays all required permissions. At that point the user can decide whether or not to install the application. The user may decide not to install an application whose permission requirements seem excessive or unnecessary. A game may need to enable vibration, for example, but should not need to read messages or access the phonebook.
App permissions include things like:
- Accessing the Internet
- Making phone calls
- Sending SMS messages
- Reading and writing to the installed memory card
- Accessing a user's address book data
Known issues
As of May 2010[update], a widespread issue has been reported by hundreds of users which inhibits their ability to download apps from the marketplace. Some user issues are related to the migration of UK users from googlemail.com addresses to gmail.com,[22] but the majority are still unresolved, despite a number of suggested fixes.[when?] The two most popular questions on Android technical help relate to the issue, with hundreds of unanswered queries.[23][not in citation given]Hundreds of users across multiple networks have experienced the market place app disappearing after updating to Android 2.2. So far, the only solution Google has offered is to hard reset your phone. However, doing so will delete contacts, text messages and apps from the phone. One other way that can work is to make sure the Google Chat app on the device is signed in to your googlemail/gmail account - and then the Market Place app should allow downloads (OS 2.2), may be fixed in later versions.[citation needed]
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar