Hasta La Gadget!

Google has pulled an app that ran PlayStation games. The app's creator blames the release of the upcoming Xperia Play phone (above), which plays PlayStation games.

By Ben Kuchera, Ars Technica

Google has yanked a PlayStation Emulator from the Android Market and the developer is claiming his program is being targeted due to the upcoming release of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. After all, why would someone pay for official copies of PlayStation games when they can download and play pirated, or legal backups, for free?

“PSX4DROID v2 was pulled by Google due to ‘Content Policy violation’ as noted here. Trying to determine what can be done,” the emulator’s developer wrote via Twitter. “Sony’s Xperia Play must be coming soon.”

The developer also complained that he was working on an update for the program, and is looking for ways to allow those who have already downloaded the program to access the improved version of the emulator. He thinks this is a larger issue, however. “This isn’t about emulators. This is about Google letting Sony rule their ‘open’; marketplace,” he continued. What’s odd about this argument is that, as of this writing, the FPSE emulator is still available.

Here are the reasons Google may remove your application from the Market:

• Illegal content
• Invasions of personal privacy or violations of the right of publicity
• Content that interferes with the functioning of any services of other parties
• Promotions of hate or incitement of violence
• Violations of intellectual property rights, including patent, copyright (see DMCA policy), trademark, trade secret, or other proprietary right of any party
• Any material not suitable for persons under 18
• Pornography, obscenity, nudity, or sexual activity
• Emulators themselves don’t run afoul of any of these policies, and they’re certainly not illegal. It’s a different story if you include copies of games with your for-pay application, but as long as the program is “bare” and it’s left to the user to find and play legally copied titles, the application should be acceptable.

We’ve contacted Google for comment, and will update this post if there is a clarification. This could be a misunderstanding, but the charges that Google is manipulating the Market in order to create a better environment for Sony’s for-pay games are serious and troubling.

See Also:

• Google pulls PlayStation emulator PSX4Droid from Android Market (pocketgamer.co.uk)

Android app developers can test in-app billing before it debuts next week

Developers and mobile gamers alike will be happy to learn that in-app purchasing for Android will be available starting sometime this week.

The Android Market’s in-app billing system is currently available for developers to test, but apps using the service won’t be able to publish until it goes live.

Android’s in-app billing will handle financial transactions and provide a standard purchasing ecosystem across all apps, while giving developers the freedom to control how virtual goods are purchased and tracked.

“This new service gives developers more ways to monetize their applications through new billing models including try-and-buy, virtual goods, upgrades, and more,” Eric Chu says on the Android Developers blog.

Until now, developers wanting to include in-app transactions in their app needed to go through PayPal, Zong, or develop their own solution, like Angry Birds did. Google announced its intention to provide an in-app billing service in January. Apple has offered in-app billing on its iOS devices since October 2009.

Perhaps the in-app billing system will help rejuvenate Android’s historically sluggish app sales. By lowering the barrier to entry — offering apps for free or at significantly reduced prices — more users may be willing to download apps, then make additional purchases within the app later on.

“I’m incredibly excited as a developer and a user because it opens the door to another avenue for revenue. This will increase the quality of apps you will see on Android and create more incentives for developers who aren’t targeting the platform to give it a shot,” said Andreas Schobel, CTO and co-founder of Catch.

Many iOS developers who have held off from committing to Google’s OS due to monetization concerns may also finally port their apps over to Android, so we could be seeing a slew of new apps in the coming weeks.

Android devices running 1.6 or higher will be able to access the new in-app billing system when it’s available (possibly tomorrow, according to AllThingsD). Apps in both Google’s Android Market and Amazon’s App Store will have access to the service.

“Some of the great free apps on iPhone are solely supported by in-app purchases of virtual goods. This will be another avenue for developers to make money,” says Schobel.

For detailed information about the release, visit Google’s In-App Billing Dev Guide.

See Also:

• Android In-App Payments Begin With Angry Birds
• App Sales Sluggish, Despite Android’s Popularity

There’s a lot of folks out there drinking and driving, and Congress sees DUI checkpoint location apps as enablers of all that cruising and boozing. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats have decided to use their powers of political persuasion to address the issue and ask Google, Apple, and RIM to pull such apps from their respective stores. The letter didn’t name names, but Reid and co. want offending software yanked or “altered to remove the DUI checkpoint functionality” to prevent checkpoint circumvention. Of course, the creators of one such app, PhantomAlert, claim it provides such information to deter drunk driving by letting users know the risk of getting caught (yeah, right). RIM agreed to comply with the congressional request while Google said no thanks, but mum’s the word out of Cupertino — time will tell if Apple gets on the banning bandwagon too.

Senator Harry Reid calls for DUI checkpoint app removal: RIM’s game, Google isn’t, Apple’s undecided originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Mar 2011 16:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A screen shot of part of the page you would see when visiting amazon.com/apps before it was taken down. Photo: androidnews.de

Android fans shouldn’t have to wait too much longer for Amazon’s anticipated Android App Store.

A sneaky Android fan typed http://www.amazon.com/apps into his address bar and discovered a horizontal sliding menu of 48 apps and their prices.

Popular titles and tools such as EasyTether, Wolfram Alpha, Zenonia, SetCPU, and The Moron Test appear to be among the app store’s premier lineup.

The link above has since been removed; it now redirects to Amazon’s homepage. Before its removal, you could view the apps as long as you were logged out of your Amazon account. If you were logged in, Recent History recommendations would replace the app suggestions.

Amazon’s Android App Store, which was announced back in September, will be an alternative to Google’s own App Store, and is reported to be curated more like Apple’s App Store: Amazon will select what goes in, rather than Google’s “anything goes” policy. Also unlike Apple, Google allows multiple app stores on its Android operating system.

The screenshots support the claim that Amazon’s Android apps will be competitively priced with Google’s app store. Most apps are priced identically across both markets, a few are slightly cheaper, and a handful are more expensive. A full listing of the apps and their prices are available at the source link.

Although a firm release date hasn’t been set, the service is expected to launch “very soon” and will exclusively feature the Angry Birds Rio game.

Amazon Appstore: Apps and Prices Leak [androidnews.de]

Contrary to reports floating about the web, the Motorola Xoom isn’t getting Adobe Flash Player 10.2 today — rather, the tablet is getting updated to support Flash, which will actually arrive in one week. Adobe now says that Flash Player 10.2 will be ready to download from the Android Market on March 18th, supporting only Honeycomb tablets (in other words, just the Xoom) to start, and will eventually be available for Android 2.2 smartphones — again, contrary to what we’d been told, but we can’t really complain on that count supporting Android 2.2 (Froyo), Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and a beta version for Android 3.0.1 (Honeycomb) at release. Froyo devices won’t get the full battery-friendly Stage Video rendering pipeline and deep browser integration like their Honeycomb tablet brethren, but dual-core phones will reportedly see a performance improvement nonetheless, and there’s a new tweak that’ll let Flash web apps pull up a virtual keyboard if needed for full functionality. PR after the break.

Update: Adobe contacted us to clarify that Flash 10.2 is, in fact, headed to all three of the most recent versions of Android on March 18th — the Honeycomb tablet version will simply sport a beta label, and the smartphone builds will lack full functionality as described above.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Flash 10.2 beta hits Android Market on March 18th, supports Honeycomb, Gingerbread and Froyo (update)

Flash 10.2 beta hits Android Market on March 18th, supports Honeycomb, Gingerbread and Froyo (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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