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Android Market Details Emerge

Maybe you've already picked up your G1 and are now tearing through the Android Market. Once you're done rocking to TuneWiki, and playing Pac-Man, you may wonder what's going to happen next.

Fortunately, Eric Chu outlined some concrete details on the future of the Android Market for end users and developers.

With Android Market, users can easily download apps to their Android-powered phone. Users can also rate the apps they've downloaded and leave comments. These users' ratings along with anonymous usage statistics help determine how apps are ranked and presented within Android Market.

If you're a developer, you will be able to register and upload your applications starting next Monday, 2008-10-27, when we've wrapped up a few final details. In order to make sure that each developer is authenticated and responsible for their apps, you will need to register and pay a one-time $25 application fee. Once registered, your apps can be made available to users without further validation or approval.

Starting in early Q1, developers will also be able to distribute paid apps in addition to free apps. Developers will get 70% of the revenue from each purchase; the remaining amount goes to carriers and billing settlement fees -- Google does not take a percentage. We believe this revenue model creates a fair and positive experience for users, developers, and carriers.

There are a few interesting things here, as it seems there was a perception that it would be completely free and developers would get to keep all the profit from their creations. The application fee is perfectly acceptable, but it's a bit disappointing that developers get the same amount of revenue in the Android Market as they do from Apple's App Store. I'm sure that it's necessary, though, as the carriers aren't in business to give away free service.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to some innovative Android apps. Any G1 users out there yet? What's your favorite app and what apps are you looking forward to?

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