If you praised the Amazon overlords for pooling almost all their retail offers, both physical and digital, into a single Android app, you might start hurling profanities at this latest development. Though you might be hurling them at the wrong people. Amazon’s revamped Appstore was apparently removed from Google Play Store because Google subtly changed one of its criteria for allowing apps on Google Play Store. Now the Amazon app has returned, sans the ability to buy apps and games.
Last October, Amazon acknowledged, though it seemed only in passing, that its app on Google Play Store now also allowed users to buy apps directly within it, a functionality previously only found in a separate Android Appstore app that you will have to manually download and install from Amazon (unless you’re already using a Kindle Fire or Fire Phone, in which case this probably shouldn’t matter to you). But suddenly the app disappeared from Play Store listings. Some say Google kicked it out, Amazon says it pulled it out itself.
Whoever did it, the reason was a change in Google’s “Developer Distribution Agreement”, the contract that stipulates which apps will be allowed on Google Play Store. Previously there was a part there that said that an app’s primary and sole goal should not be to distribute apps and games on Android devices outside of Market (previous name of Google Play Store). This clearly forbids any direct competitor to Google Play Store, though it doesn’t specify if it should be selling or just distributing apps. Now the Agreement is more generic, covering apps that distribute apps and game even just as a sideline. Obviously, this covers the new Amazon app.
And so the new, now old, Amazon app with Appstore inside has been replaced with the old, now new, Amazon app dedicated solely for shopping. The Amazon app with apps and games, however, can still be downloaded from Google Play Store via a direct link. You just won’t be able to search for it. You can also download the Amazon Appstore directly from Amazon as well.
This development is rather intriguing and perhaps a bit worrying to some extent. On one hand, it’s only reasonable to expect that Google doesn’t want any competition from its Play Store, which is actually also a way to enforce security (by discouraging installing apps from third party sources). On the other hand, Google is perhaps casting too wide a net just to get Amazon’s new app out, potentially affecting even small apps that try not to outdo Google, but offer more convenience and even a bit of security (downloading from a single app rather than from random web links) for apps that aren’t or can’t be available from Google Play Store.
VIA: SlashGear
