Today, Google flipped the switch on paid app purchases in more countries, such as India, Sweden, and Denmark, just as promised, and with that came another subtle, yet important, change. Instead of showing prices in developers' native currencies, all application prices are now converted on the fly into your own currency.
Here's what the Market looks like for me in the US now - notice the tilde (~) symbol next to converted prices:
Here is Sweden:
And here's Denmark:
After months and months of waiting for a voice-enabled Skype to be out on Android and giving Verizon users an evil eye for that exclusive deal Skype signed with the largest US carrier, I am here to tell you that less than 2 hours ago, Skype officially hit the Market. This time, the long-awaited app is no longer restricted to Verizon, so download away (Android 2.1+ required)!
Without further ado, fire up that download and then read on for the details.
GrubHub, an online food delivery and ordering company, just dropped an Android application into the Market. The app lets you find out which restaurants in your area deliver and place an order online or over the phone. Here are the areas with current GrubHub coverage:
According to the application description, this translates into support for over 13,000 menus.
GrubHub founders have this to say about themselves:
Founded in 2004, GrubHub is the number one place on the interwebs to find out who delivers to you and allows you to order food online.
A guest post by Eric Chu just went live over at the Android Developers blog, officially announcing the expansion of the Android market to 20 new countries. While we can't exactly say we didn't see this coming (and have an idea what countries it was coming to), it's nice to see nonetheless. It looks like Distimo's estimation was pretty dead-on, too: 11 of the 13 countries they listed are confirmed by Mr. Chu's post. The full list:
Support for paid application sales is now expanded to developers in 29 countries, with today’s additions of Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland and Taiwan.
That new Android app store that Amazon is rumored to be working on? Yeah, SlashGear just landed a copy of the Terms & Conditions for it, and it confirms just about everything we'd heard earlier:
Okay, some details:
For each sale of an App, we will pay you a royalty equal to the greater of 70% of the purchase price or 20% of the List Price as of the purchase date (70/30 is standard, this 20/80 split is somewhat odd and confusing)
The List Price is apparently in place so that you can’t sell your app cheaper on other “similar services” — meaning other app stores, presumably
The “similar services” should also include the forthcoming Chrome Web Store, if I’m reading this correctly
There is a $99 fee to be a developer in this program (the same as Apple’s iOS developer program)
It seems like if your app is available on other platforms, you have to make sure to update it at the same time on Amazon’s store that you do in any other store (this will piss off a lot of developers)
Apps will have to be laced with Amazon DRM — meaning they will only work on devices they approve (obviously)
Amazon has the right to pull any app for any reason (obviously)
Apps can also be shown on amazon.com (this is up to Amazon)
You can offer free apps
The app store is U.S.-only (at least for now)
This part is interesting too: “We have sole discretion to determine all features and operations of this program and to set the retail price and other terms on which we sell Apps.”
Some pretty lame requirements there, no?
On Saturday, Google revealed that they are planning on bringing access to paid applications to more countries, but didn't actually reveal which countries they have in mind. Enter Distimo (their name may sound familiar thanks to their App Store analytics reports), who thinks they may have a clue as to what countries are on Google's list.
The way they came up with their guesses? They noticed a number of new countries where paid apps have been added to the Market:
- Argentina
- Belgium
- Brazil
- Finland
- Hong Kong
- Israel
- Mexico
- Poland
- Romania
- Russia
- Slovakia
- Singapore
- South Africa
They're not sure if people can actually purchase the apps yet, and they point out that the list may be incomplete (or inaccurate).
Those of you following the official @AndroidDev account on twitter may have spotted a cryptic tweet sent out yesterday, urging developers to check their e-mail inboxes. Contained within was an e-mail with some exciting news: Google will be bringing access to paid applications to more countries. The when and the where have still yet to be determined, but Ireland bleedin' better be one of those countries.
Considering the fact that the Android Market is currently available in a pitiful 14 countries, listed below, any increase will make for a dramatic improvement. However, when you look at how many countries the iTunes App Store is available in (90), there is still a lot of ground to be made before catching the Apple juggernaut.
From the day I eagerly removed the cellophane wrapping around the artful, Google-themed box which contained my Nexus One, I have had only one real gripe with Android: volume management. For a while I just dealt with it - the only way to adjust in-call volume was during a call, and other volume settings had to be controlled via the sound settings menu, or in their proper context.
It was a hassle. Reaching the settings aside, remembering if I had quieted my phone (unless it was silenced) or turned down the alarm volume was up to me, the user.
With the release of Froyo, Google promised to start decoupling applications bundled with the Android at the core - we've already seen it done to Maps, Navigation, Street View, and other programs. Today Gmail joins the party with the rollout of a new version 2.3 that can now be installed from the Market.
What does it mean? Well, previously, the Gmail app was only updated when you upgrade the whole operating system. Now that the app is downloadable from the Market directly, any updates will be available immediately.
Unfortunately, only users of Froyo and above are able to install the standalone version - everyone else is out of luck.
If you're like most Android users, you may run into slight space issues when it comes to available internal storage for apps. The daunting task you face, then, is to go through each of your apps and locate the major megabyte offenders. What a pain.
Alternatively, you may discover that your precious SD card is suddenly refusing to write a new episode of the Stuff You Should Know podcast (which is awesome), so now you have to drop everything to figure out where the fat is.
Enter DiskUsage.
DiskUsage is really quite a simple application: upon being opened, you are prompted to select a storage location to view (internal storage or SD card).
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