Premium Android Marketplace?
Late last week Google announced that Android Market is now accepting priced applications from US and UK developers. Developers from these countries can go to the publisher website at http://market.android.com/publish to upload their application(s) along with end user pricing for the apps.
The announcement said that priced applications will be available to end users in the US starting mid this week and that they will add end user support for additional countries in the coming months.
Well, it’s Thursday and I have not seen any announcement that the premium market has gone “live”.
I did read, however, that Google released its Android Market Business and Program Policies, with some interesting elements. One of the most interesting is an application money-back guarantee – buyers of applications from Google’s Android Market will have 24 hours to claim a full refund. I don’t believe Apple has a similar policy so it will be interesting to see if this changes over time.
As for the rest of the policies, pretty standard stuff regarding what type of content is allowed, etc. One other interesting control mechanism is that Google “retains the right at its sole discretion to remotely remove applications from your Device that violate the Android Market Developer Distribution Agreement or other legal agreements, laws, regulations or policies.”
We will be bringing our first premium Android Application to market soon so I’ll let you know how that process compares/contrasts to the Apple App Store process as soon as we’re done.