T-Mobile To Open App Store For All of Their Phones 103
tsa brings news that T-Mobile will be developing their own application store to compete with Apple's popular distribution scheme. Their aim is to be capable of bringing new services to all of their customers. Excerpting:
"Developers will submit their applications online; the revenue-share agreement will be based on how much the application uses the network; and the applications will be presented to the user in order of popularity, not according to T-Mobile's preferences. It's all pretty straightforward, but the more interesting aspect is that this will apply to all the carrier's platforms from upcoming Android to Java to Sidekick and Windows Mobile."
Re:Need a standardized platform! (Score:4, Informative)
How is this different from Desktop Software? It's the same reason I have limited selection of games on my Mac....
Developing for Windows is easy. There is only one platform.
But OS X, Linux and Java are three completely different platforms. That's not to mention BSD, Solaris, even. Developing for an individual Desktop OS is easy, but to reach the entire market, it's very difficult.
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Now what you should do as a developer is determine which market segment your software will sell to the best and target the platform that segment uses the most.
Business Users still goes for Windows Mobile (though iPhone rumors persist)... but Blackberry's based on the old OS??? are still out there in force but not for long as their contracts are nearly up and they will upgrade rapidly. Here you're stuck with WinMobile APIs (which are great for some things and poor for others).
Consumers who actually buy and use apps are going for the iPhone (the rest just want a phone that might play mp3s and take pictures). Also the best experience is on the iPhone so if you want people to enjoy using your app.. it's the way to go though you have to know and accept the limitations of the SDK/License (though the SDK is very robust for what it allows you to do).
Developers like the Nokia because it's now running Linux... or later Android when it comes to market. Nokia phones support a wide range of apps with few limitations.
Re:already full of fail (Score:3, Informative)
No, they're basing the cut on how data-heavy your app is, not the number of people using it. So, T-Mobile would take a smaller cut from GTalk, and a bigger cut from SlingPlayer. The number of users is irrelevant. Also, all of T-Mobile's data plans (from the $6 tZones to the $20 BIS and "Total Internet") are unlimited. If you don't have a data plan, then it is by usage.