As part of a refocusing process, Funky Android Ltd. had been looking to sell AndAppStore, and, when approached by a representative of Seavus, they felt Seavus could provide AndAppStore with the resources it needed to grow beyond where Funky Android Ltd. were able take it.

Everyone at Funky Android has found working with developers and users via AndAppStore thoroughly rewarding, and we will continue to be involved with it as and when Seavus ask us to.

Funky Android Ltd. are always willing to work with Android OEMs to make AndAppStore available on their devices even if it is alongside the OEMs own application store, and look forward to helping Velocity Micro provide its customers with access to an even wider range of Android applications than they previously had access to via the Cruz Market.

Binatone had not reached an agreement with Google for the use of Google suite of Android applications and so were looking for an easy to use Market alternative which fitted in with their business model. The AndAppStore client, which OEMs can use royalty and contract free if they wish, suited their needs and so was an ideal candidate.

Funky Android Ltd. looks forward to offering users of Binatones devices a wide range of Android applications via AndAppStore, and continues to welcome Android developers who wish to gain access to users who they could not reach via Googles Android Market.

Pre-installing the AndAppStore client will provide users of Yifangs MIDs with access to a growing catalogue of nearly 1,100 Android applications straight out of the box and will increase the number of users developers can access by listing their applications at AndAppStore.

Funky Android Ltd. is always willing to work with OEMs and porting groups to help them offer applications to their users via AndAppStore and welcomes Yifang to the list of groups shipping who make AndAppStore available to their users.

Augen have recently been in the news for mistakenly shipping their devices with Googles Android Market without Googles permission. To correct this mistake Augen have chosen to make AndAppStore available to users of their devices via their support site.

Al Sutton, Director of Funky Android Ltd., said “We are always willing to help OEMs and hardware distributors by providing them with a royalty and contract free alternative to Googles Android Market and we are happy to have been able to assist Augen in resolving this issue.”.

Users of Augens GenTouch devices can download the version directly from Augens help site, and any Android user can download the latest version of the AndAppStore client from AndAppStore directly.

In early 2009 we developed an RSA secured licensing system for Android and made details of it available to the android community (one of the earliest posts about it can be found here). We could tell that it addressed an issue Android developers were facing and in late March 2009 we offered it to Google as a starting point for a cross-platform licensing solution which would allow developers to have write-once, use-anywhere licensing for their Android applications.

In early April 2009 we were told, by a member of the Android team, in a private email, that the Market team were “looking at a slightly different route”. We were disappointed, but we had hoped that the route would be open for use by third party Android application directories.

During the rest of 2009 the AndAppStore licensing system was used by developers and we saw some very positive public comments indicating the AndAppStore licensing system was considered a robust solution. During this time we also made it clear that the offer was still on the table for Google to work with us on developing the AndAppStore solution further.

Given this history it was with great sadness that we read the Google announcement yesterday that they chose to use the same RSA secured licensing design we developed a year and a half ago (and offered to them 16 months ago), provide some extra client-side functionality via a library (the LVL), make it a closed solution which is only available to apps distributed via their Market, and added a requirement that their Market client to be installed in the device in order to operate.

We would have hoped that a company such as Google, who like to promote “openness”, would, when working on solutions which could benefit all Andriod developers, would have worked with, and created something usable by, any group, such as AndAppStore, who are trying to promote Androids’ use, but alas it would appear this is not the case.

The Highscreen Zeus is a compact Android device with a WQVGA screen, slide out keyboard, and support for Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, WiFi, and all of the major cellular standards. The device is targeted at the Russian market and to support this the AndAppStore client was modified to include a Russian translation of the user interface.

The AndAppStore client is a royalty-free client and is available to any company or group who wishes to pre-install it on their device or in their Android distribution. Funky Android can provide customised versions of the client if required.