Looks like the Wall Street Journal got it right. The Android Market is now accepting priced applications with availability starting next week.
According to the official Android Developers Blog, Google Checkout will act as the payment and billing mechanism for Android Market. Can’t really say that’s a surprise there. It will be interesting to see how many people are even set up with a Google Checkout account to make purchases. These next few weeks could be very telling in how viable the Market becomes.
If you are a developer who still doesn’t have a Google Checkout merchant account, go grab on on the publisher website http://market.android.com/publish
Also mentioned in the blog post, the US will be seeing paid apps in the middle of the week with other countries following over the next few months.
We will also enable developers in Germany, Austria, Netherlands, France, and Spain to offer priced applications later this quarter. By the end of Q1 2009, we will announce support for developers in additional countries. …Android Market for free applications will become available to users in Australia starting February 15th Pacific Time and in Singapore in the coming weeks.
Froogloid is pumped! I’ve blogged about it here http://froogloid.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/android-fee-based-downloads-game-on/
Anybody who is purchasing Android apps already has a Google ID. After that, it is simply a matter of putting in your credit card number and expiration date, to become a Google Checkout customer. After you have keyed in that information once, you don’t have to key it in again (unless you change credit cards). So, it’s not a big deal at all…
interesting to to see Google Android accepting price applications. Good Checkout carts area must have.