There are all kinds of apps in Google Play, including video game emulators and apps that are designed to get around carrier tethering restrictions. Today a brouhaha surrounding an app in the Play store has surfaced, but it concerns an app that you might not think of as a big deal.
Amazon’s main shopping app has disappeared from the Google Play public listing, though it can still be found through a direct link. Amazon explains that this is because Google altered its Developer Distribution Agreement at the end of September, just a couple of weeks after Amazon updated its main app to allow customers to purchase Amazon’s digital content, including videos and apps. Android Police suggests that the change relates to Google disallowing apps whose “primary purpose” is to distribute apps outside of the Play store to disallowing apps with any purpose to distributing apps outside of the Play store.
As a result of Amazon’s main app disappearing, Amazon has launched a new Amazon Shopping app for Android that looks similar to the original app. However, the app is missing the Amazon Appstore.
It’s not really surprising that Google made Amazon’s old app disappear, resulting in a new Amazon Shopping app’s launch. After all, Google doesn’t like other app stores being so readily available in Google Play, especially when they come from a major player Amazon and they make it so easy to get apps onto their device.
