Today the folks from Verizon have confirmed some sad sad news. That sad news being that their extremely unpopular and widely forgotten VCast Verizon App store will be shutting down and closing its doors early next year in January. Verizon original set out to offer an app storefront but it never took off, and is now throwing in the towel.
Verizon has announced via their developer portal that the store will be shutting down, and most likely many users won’t miss the bloatware that came pre-installed on all Verizon Android smartphones. Hey, at least we’ll have one less icon now right guys?
Originally launching the VCast Verizon App Store in 2010 for Android and BlackBerry users, Verizon wanted a storefront that could offer apps, security, and peace of mind for developers and users alike. Sadly it appears that their success wasn’t widespread and they had a hard time getting developers, and customers to partake in their offering.
Originally it allowed subscriptions and carrier billing, something that just recently arrived on the Google Play Store for Verizon — but still it never was something people were interested in. Starting on January all Verizon smartphone will start getting OTA updates that removes the Verizon App Shop, and they expect that to be completed by March. We’ll likely see this as one of many changes in multiple software updates over the coming months. This was probably a good move Verizon, another app store really isn’t needed.
[via AndroidPolice]
