Amazon have finally launched their Android Appstore in Europe. The Appstore has been available in the US since March 2011 – now Android addicts from the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain can install it too.
It offers a wide selection of games and apps, localised content and popular features like the ‘Free App of The Day’ which, unsurprisingly, offers a paid app for free every day.
Apps and games purchased from Amazon can be used across all your Android phone and tablet devices – pay once and use them everywhere. Other features include personalised recommendations, customer reviews and 1-Click payments.
The full press release includes a list of the most popular developers who are part of the Appstore – they include the big boys like Rovio, Popcap, EA, Sega, ZeptoLab, Halfbrick etc.
There’s not a huge difference between Amazon’s Appstore and Google Play – the most popular apps will likely be in both markets but some may be unique to the Appstore and the daily free app is probably worth a look in its own right.
Just as important as the announcement itself is that it lays the groundwork for a European launch of Amazon’s popular Kindle Fire. The Kindle Fire tablet has been on sale in the US since last year – although Android-based it is heavily customized and uses the Amazon Appstore as a marketplace, not Google Play.
Rolling out the Appstore to major European countries should therefore allow Amazon to start selling the Kindle Fire there in the near future. Amazon are holding a press conference next week which many predict will announce the new Kindle Fire 2 – that could also be a good time to announce plans to launch it in Europe as well as the US.
Amazon Appstore Installation
To install the Amazon Appstore you will need to ‘allow installation of non-Market (i.e. non-Google Play) applications’ – full details and an illustrated guide are given in the links below.
Note: this Android setting is a security feature designed to protect you from fake/malicious apps in rogue websites/stores on the net – by disabling it you are effectively trusting (hoping) that Amazon’s Appstore has at least as good security and vetting of apps as Google Play.
See the following country specific links for more info and how to download/install.
UK – Amazon Appstore www.amazon.co.uk/get-appstore
Germany – Amazon App-Shop www.amazon.de/app-shop-download
France – Amazon App-Shop www.amazon.fr/app-shop-download
Italy – Amazon App-Shop www.amazon.it/scopri-app-shop
Spain – Tienda Apps de Amazon www.amazon.es/obtener-tienda-apps