VCast Apps is Verizon's own app storefront on handsets. The carrier populates the store with apps that have been tested for security, usability and power and bandwidth efficiency. It works with developers to help them meet those standards and create better apps, said Kyle Malady, Verizon's vice president of network and technology. He described the new app-store effort in an interview at the opening of Verizon's Application Innovation Center (AIC) in San Francisco, where the carrier plans to work with developers and connect them with potential hardware and software partners.

"The first VCast Apps store missed the mark a little bit," Malady said. For one thing, consumers found it slow to browse the store and download apps. Developers also ran into delays, he said.

"We had a hard time ingesting a lot of the apps into the system in an efficient way," Malady said, because the process involved a lot of time-consuming manual effort. Also, the carrier has been more stringent than it needed to be in the past. "We're not looking for perfection," he said.

Verizon has now addressed both issues, he said.

"It's going to be a much better system for developers to use," Malady said. The goal now is to get apps onto the store within two weeks. The company has already started talking to developers about the new store, and it should be ready around the time of the developer conference, which is taking place in Las Vegas on Sept. 13-14, he said.