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Move over, Apple: Symbian preps app warehouse

The Symbian Foundation has been waxing lyrical about its application warehouse, now titled Horizon, which will be available to all and sundry come October. Horizon won't be an application store, but is intended to be a warehouse from which application stores can select their stock. The Symbian Foundation will sign applications, …

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James 47
Thumb Up

"The Symbian Foundation will sign apps"

Praise Jesus!

I assume they'll want to see source code, which is understandable. It leaves me to wonder who the network operators will sue if an app goes tits-up and takes down a cell.

Anonymous Coward
FAIL

Monopolistic iPhone app store?

Man, you are scraping the barrel for "journalists". How can a store that's sells applications that are designed and compiled specifically for one platform, that is controlled and maintained by the hardware manufacture be "monopolistic"? Inconsistent, maybe, but "monopolistic"? Do you even know what a monopoly is? It doesn't look like you do. You could suggest anti-trust at a strech, but it'd be inadvisable to push that notion. If Apple perhaps sold apps for another platform too...

foo_bar_baz
FAIL

@AC: If Apple sold apps for another platform too ...

iTunes would still be a monopoly. I cannot sell my iPhone software anywhere else -> iTunes has a monopoly on distributing software for the iPhone.

I hope you feel like the idiot you come across as.

Dan 55
Boffin

@Monopolistic iPhone app store?

Of course platform-specific app stores are monopolistic. It's you had to go to the "Big PC Software Shop" to buy all PC software on disc and publishers of said software couldn't sell anywhere else.

Although Symbian's version is less of a problem than Apple's, Symbian publishers can still choose to sell their software through their own channels. They still won't have their icon on the main menu though, which is what counts.

Daniel 1

This month's top download from the Symbian App Store

Hardware Abstraction Layer - write code that doesn't involve basic endian maths and descriptors.

STL - finally! Write C++ like everyone else was doing it in the 1990s!

Somebody Must Have Signed It - Can't get something working on your Symbian software? 'Someone Must Have Signed It' allows you to hook up to our network of Chinese servers and locate an unmaintained digital signature that will unlock the Power of Symbian OS!

We believe these fun, compelling apps will increase your enjoyment and productivity on our antiquated software architecture.

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

Desktop

I can actually see the AppStore approach coming to the desktop, particularly from a player like Apple (who could easily integrate an AppStore with their signed apps framework and Fairplay DRM to offer developers a significant advantage in increased exposure and lower piracy – two advantages that make up for the closed nature of the iPhone, even if they are anathema to most of us).

And a lot of the on-line payment processors used by small software firms take a cut similar to Apple’s AppStore without offering hosting / delivery / etc.

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