Friday, March 11, 2011

Amazon Appstore for Android will let you buy apps without a device

No Android device? No problem! Turns out Amazon's upcoming Appstore for Android -- which has been in the works for some time -- will allow you to purchase apps even before you receive the device you intend to install them on, presumably so that you're stocked up and ready to go by the time the phone (or tablet, or whatever miscellaneous gizmo) arrives on your doorstep. As AllThingsD points out, the concept appears to go partway toward mimicking Amazon's Kindle business model, which does a decent job of decoupling content (which is associated with your Amazon account) from the actual hardware you've got it installed on. We still don't know exactly when the Appstore is launching, but considering Amazon's retail chops, these guys might actually stand a chance at cutting into the Android Market's revenue by some noticeable margin.