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Thursday, May 12, 2011

App Stores for all...



And what I really mean is almost for all. The idea behind the success of the iPhone has left the exclusivity of the mobile phones and has spread on pretty much everywhere. The last addition to the e-shop club is Nintendo's 3DS e-shop which is expected to debut on the 6th of June for the fellow Japanese players and one day later for Europe and the US.  It took them a long enough time to make everything since there was a need for an update on the devices but everything is almost ready with the final touches being made as we speak. So if you want to go on vacations in June make sure there is a WiFi hotspot nearby.

Back to our subject then, e-shops for all. And by all I mean every single device that is capable of a. connecting to the internet and b. running applications has or will have an e-shop. There are two facts about e-shops. The first one is that they changed the way we search for applications. In the not so old days, we used to search the internet using keyword relative to the app we were after, then spot the app we though as best and finally search for reviews or even download a demo. Now things are different. We enter the store, go to the category that interests us, we look at the apps, some of their reviews and we download the one we thing is tailored to our needs. Everything is pretty much the same, where is the difference? The difference is in censorship. Through the above process all apps downloaded should comply with a set of rules set by the e-shop. And if you ask if this is bad there are two answers. No if the store is made for a console since an app had to comply with rules either way. And yes if you have another type of device since the e-shop could cut-off a piece of software for a trivial reason and allow another ignoring the same trivial reason. The same thing happened with a series of apps with nudity in the app store. The Penthouse app is still on while others have bitten the dust.

The second fact is that they are darn good. What I mean is if I want a simple egg timer I can have an egg timer downloaded on my phone/browser/portable device/e.t.c. in seconds. And of course without all the fuss of searching for an app, for reviews and spending half your day on an egg timer.

If you really now want a good piece of advice you should use the store for anything trivial but if you want something good or an app with a specific characteristic google it.

More on the Nintendo eshop here (Engadget).

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