Verizon app store to be mandated; new BlackBerry sells well
As Verizon’s relatively quiet launch of the BlackBerry Tour proved successful, the nation’s No. 1 wireless carrier also stirred up criticism by declaring that all Verizon-sold phones will, by default, have access only to the company’s own application store.
Since the successful launch of Apple’s App Store one year ago, most all major handset models – Android, BlackBerry, Nokia, Palm and Windows Mobile – have come to feature their own application stores.
Verizon, instead, hopes to create a carrier-specific application download destination, run and maintained by Verizon itself. To bolster their own offering, all handsets sold by the wireless carrier will have the Verizon application store installed – and only the Verizon application store.
Based on Verizon’s plans, users who buy a phone will still be able to install the device-specific application store, such as the BlackBerry App World, if they so choose.
In an effort to kick-start their own application store, Verizon has planned an event on July 28 in hopes of courting developers to write software for their platform.
Ryan Hughes, VP Partner Management with Verizon, told GigaOM that the Verizon store will allow developers to tie applications into subscriber data for info about location, or to bill a customer for the purchase of software. Any applications must go through an approval process with the company.
Hughes said that the Verizon app store should be launched to consumers before the end of the year, and more details are forthcoming at the Verizon Developer Community Conference in San Jose, Calif., later this month.
Of course, the prospect of a carrier (and not platform) specific software store would be a major shift from the direction the wireless industry is currently headed. Writing about the news Tuesday, PC World’s Ian Paul speculated: “I think it's a safe bet that Verizon's app store will make it very difficult for the post-AT&T iPhone to make the jump to ‘America's Largest and Most Reliable Network.’”
But the nation’s largest network did find success with Research in Motion’s new BlackBerry Tour, which sold between 275,000 and 300,000 units in its first 24 hours. The device was also released on Sprint’s network, though numbers were not immediately available.
Released on Sunday, the new BlackBerry managed to compare, in terms of sales, with the debut of the original iPhone in 2007 - a product that arrived with a great deal more fanfare.
However, Apple’s recent launch of the iPhone 3GS managed to move over one million units in its first three days.
The BlackBerry Tour sells for $199 with a $100 rebate and two-year contract.
Since the successful launch of Apple’s App Store one year ago, most all major handset models – Android, BlackBerry, Nokia, Palm and Windows Mobile – have come to feature their own application stores.
Verizon, instead, hopes to create a carrier-specific application download destination, run and maintained by Verizon itself. To bolster their own offering, all handsets sold by the wireless carrier will have the Verizon application store installed – and only the Verizon application store.
Based on Verizon’s plans, users who buy a phone will still be able to install the device-specific application store, such as the BlackBerry App World, if they so choose.
In an effort to kick-start their own application store, Verizon has planned an event on July 28 in hopes of courting developers to write software for their platform.
Ryan Hughes, VP Partner Management with Verizon, told GigaOM that the Verizon store will allow developers to tie applications into subscriber data for info about location, or to bill a customer for the purchase of software. Any applications must go through an approval process with the company.
Hughes said that the Verizon app store should be launched to consumers before the end of the year, and more details are forthcoming at the Verizon Developer Community Conference in San Jose, Calif., later this month.
Of course, the prospect of a carrier (and not platform) specific software store would be a major shift from the direction the wireless industry is currently headed. Writing about the news Tuesday, PC World’s Ian Paul speculated: “I think it's a safe bet that Verizon's app store will make it very difficult for the post-AT&T iPhone to make the jump to ‘America's Largest and Most Reliable Network.’”
But the nation’s largest network did find success with Research in Motion’s new BlackBerry Tour, which sold between 275,000 and 300,000 units in its first 24 hours. The device was also released on Sprint’s network, though numbers were not immediately available.
Released on Sunday, the new BlackBerry managed to compare, in terms of sales, with the debut of the original iPhone in 2007 - a product that arrived with a great deal more fanfare.
However, Apple’s recent launch of the iPhone 3GS managed to move over one million units in its first three days.
The BlackBerry Tour sells for $199 with a $100 rebate and two-year contract.
Comments
...handsets sold by the wireless carrier will have the Verizon application store installed ? and only the Verizon application store.
I guess talks between Apple and Verizon have failed
more details are forthcoming at the Verizon Developer Community Conference in San Jose, Calif.
I really want to see photos of that taken by one of the half-dozen developers (or morbidly curious reporters) who attend. I imagine it will be in a small function room in a Holiday Inn (with the main draw being 'Murph And the Magic Tones') holding around twenty chairs and a whiteboard, with most of the chairs being empty.
It would be nice if Apple could just sign in with a wireless data carrier... and then offer unlimited data plans. Anybody wanting voice could do Skype or Fring. Voice is just too overpriced. We need something radical like WiMax.
Based on Verizon?s plans, users who buy a phone will still be able to install the device-specific application store, such as the BlackBerry App World, if they so choose.
Did anyone read this line? If true all they are saying is that only their store app can be installed when the phone is sold but the phone vendors store app can be installed by the customer.
I agree that Apple will tell Verizon "Hell No" if they try to insist on this and my bet it that Verizon would give in. Unless some iPhone killer come out that Verizon is selling there is no way they'll let the iPhone get away from them again.
Computer companies/phone makers compete vigorously with new models, lower prices, and choice.
Carriers buy rivals, consolidate, and raise prices, while attempting to strangle their use of networks.
And they pull sh*t like this where they try and force everyone to use their app store (which will suck - which developer wants to write for their cluster of random phone models?)
The sooner networks become dumb pipes, the better.
This is essentially the equivalent of MS bundling IE with Windows to the exclusion of other browsers, and that would have turned out very differently if the DoJ had not been crippled for the past 8 years. Not including alternate app store apps on the devices they sell is an obvious abuse of monopoly power, and a flagrant abuse at that. Well, too bad for them but they will make an interesting test case for the industry.
"Upon first sync between your computer and iPhone, the App Store icon will appear on your main screen. Any other online commerce sites will have their icon shifted to a spot in the very lower-left corner, with size reduced to 2x2 pixels, rendered entirely in black."
Seriously, if Apple can face off with China, I don't think they have anything to worry about with Verizon's demands.
I guess we can forget about a Verizon LTE iPhone. It will give ATT negotiating leverage against Apple once their current contract expires unless they already signed one. If ATT balks, Apple can always do a deal with T-Mobile. In addition, it would be too hard to make a CDMA EVDO iPhone for Sprint. Both these carriers are laggards and would sign a deal.
It would be nice if Apple could just sign in with a wireless data carrier... and then offer unlimited data plans. Anybody wanting voice could do Skype or Fring. Voice is just too overpriced. We need something radical like WiMax.
Tmobile is a joke. On vacation now with my wife, mom and son. Two iPhones, two blackberries and mom's cheapo tmobile cell. My sprint bb curve barely has a roaming signal. Wife's vz bb is also roaming. iPhones are on edge but the speed is faster than 3g in NYC. Laptops have sprint and vz data cards which are painfully slow here in the poconos.
And moms tmobile cell is now saying ATT when you turn it on since tmobile has a crappy network
Also, FYI, I don't think there will ever be a Sprint or Verizon iPhone - Apple isn't going to waste their money making a Verizon specific and a Sprint specific phone that don't work anywhere else in the world (Sprint is specific because of their chosen 4G protocol)
It's going to come down to whether Apple wants to grow more via other carriers or how badly Verizon wants the iphone.
Much of this also hinges on the direction the company goes with how well the company could provide service with iphone type users. My guess is that Verizon's store might be more about control of the type of app available than making a buck. Consider what we're seeing with AT&T and the iphone in how AT&T is being cast as an even more slow company than before in providing good 3G service to all iphone users. It could very well be that Verizon knows how tough it is to ramp things up for that kind of demand and this is their way of taking the bull by the horns before the iphone or any other new smartphones start opening the doors for Verizon to look just as bad at not keeping up with demand.
Bad timing on Verizon's part from an antitrust enforcement perspective -- although, there probably wasn't really a "good time" to do this. This will certainly draw the attention of people at DoJ, as well as everyone else currently investigating the wireless carriers.
This is essentially the equivalent of MS bundling IE with Windows to the exclusion of other browsers, and that would have turned out very differently if the DoJ had not been crippled for the past 8 years. Not including alternate app store apps on the devices they sell is an obvious abuse of monopoly power, and a flagrant abuse at that. Well, too bad for them but they will make an interesting test case for the industry.
That all sounds a little too dramatic and I don't think we're going to see this unless a significant number of consumers are affected by it. Keep in mind that app purchases have been pretty insignificant until Apple came along and drew attention to it. The real question might be how the various phone developers feel about this.
BTW, as an aside I can understand your feelings on the justice dept supposedly being crippled the past 8 years but consider from other points of view that...
*Had MS been broken up, we might have seen much quicker and efficient companies created from such a division. Companies that just might have made things alot tougher for Apple to make the progress they did.
*At the time I believe the economy played a role in the decision as at that time it was looking pretty bad and splitting up such a huge company could have had terrible repercussions on the economy.
I use to think that MS got off lucky but since then having considered the above I think it's actually worked out best and at the expense of those riding the MS boat. MS really hasn't done very well in most areas since the final verdict.
I mean, if they even so much as threatened to enforce such a decree across all serviced phones, imagine how that would play to the FCC investigation into carrier shenanigans.
Screw Verizon.
Did anyone read this line? If true all they are saying is that only their store app can be installed when the phone is sold but the phone vendors store app can be installed by the customer.
I agree that Apple will tell Verizon "Hell No" if they try to insist on this and my bet it that Verizon would give in. Unless some iPhone killer come out that Verizon is selling there is no way they'll let the iPhone get away from them again.
You beat me to that. I read this information on another site earlier.
Verizon seems caught in between its well known desire to control, and the new open attitude that Apple started.
With their statement that people could download other stores, Apple shouldn't have a problem. Unless, of course, Verizon tries to force all of Apple apps to be on their own store as well as Apple's.
Neither article I've read on this addressed that question.
Their other stuff is.... very very lame.
Otherwise Verizon store is a lame idea.