Will a Multitude of App Stores Hurt Android?

07.05.2011
GetJar, Opera, Amazon and now Barnes & Noble-seems like these days everyone has their own Android app store with their own apps that can't be found anywhere else. While the joke these past few months has been that , the real joke may be on the consumer.

Think of when you shop at the grocery store. You can't possibly find every brand represented in a single store. The big names like Coca-Cola and Kraft show up everywhere, but other smaller brands may not be on the shelves.

The same thing will soon be happening to Android. Big companies like Rovio, maker of the amazingly popular Angry Birds games, will release their apps across all kinds of markets, but smaller indie-developers will pick and choose where they want their applications to be sold. The reasoning behind this is that, while the big name apps will always dominate, indie-companies will gain better visibility in these new markets.

So while a small indie-game would be buried in the traditional Android Market, that same game could be the number one app in China under a third-party app store. , but is there any such thing as having too much choice?

Another thing to consider is malware. As we see more and , what is there to stop a third party from creating an app store that distributes malware? The showed us that any app could potentially be infected with malware. Who knows if that copy of Bebbled you are downloading is a legitimate copy, or an evil clone set out to steal your data. Not everyone is going to be vetting Android apps before they go on sale.

At the recent Appnation developer conference in San Francisco, the biggest problem developers said they faced was getting their apps out so people could find and download them. However, the strategy of selectively choosing which app stores to support--a concept that many developers favor--may be more hurtful than helpful. Making people dig through multiple app stores just to find your product sounds like a convoluted way to market your goods. In his keynote Trip Hawkins, founder of , gave the conference the sound advice that simplicity and convenience are the best way to reach new customers. In my opinion, making potential customers go on wild goose hunts for apps is by no means convenient for users.