Notes On A Revolution

Well, everything just changed. Again. Amazon announced on their blog today their own Android app store, at least the plans for it. The “AA” Meeting is, of course, Android and Amazon.

Developers can now sign up and begin adding apps to Amazon’s store. Amazon will take care of all payment, removing some of the hardships of selling internationally as pointed out by All Things D:

Amazon will handle all the bill processing, which is complex, especially on a global basis. Google learned this the hard way, and continues to support only paid apps in some countries. 

Because they had to, Google looked at the role iTunes has come to play - a piece of software that this Sunday will be 10 years old - and try to hit that note off the bat. Of course they didn’t - nobody does. I imagine they (probably by design) have avoided something like iTunes being a part of Android given its central role on the Mac OS, but at some point, they are going to need to make a play for that central repository that makes it so easy to manage all of your media and information. Perhaps that will arrive with their Chrome Operating System…perhaps not.

Yesterday, your friend and mine Matt and I were were having lunch. Matt, if you ever meet him, is the illegitimate child of Steve Jobs, at least he must be if his devotion to all things Apple is to be taken even remotely seriously (you’ll struggle, I promise).

Nevertheless, he is lovely and smart in equal measure, and conversation inevitably turned to the following: Apple, developers, the central role of iTunes, how Android can’t match it. My response to everything he said was to add “…right now.” onto the end of every sentence. For example “Google doesn’t get the importance of the app to the device,” “…right now.”

What does it all mean? Well, we know is Amazon’s MP3 offering has failed to make a dent in iTunes’ strangle-hold on the digital music market. We also know is that Amazon is better than even Google at generating money from users, pulling $189 per unique user which is more than 7.5x as much as Google manages to do.

The no-brainer here is for both Google and Amazon to let each other do what they do best: for Amazon, that is online retail, the digital piece they now have a few years of experience on thanks to Kindle and their music store. Google needs to get its developer relations up to scratch, it’s marketing in place, and take the fight to Jobs & co.

Until that happens, Apple’s lead in the market place looks beyond rock solid*.

*right now