Amazon Launches Appstore, Gets Sued by Apple

NEW YORK (MainStreet) – Amazon (Stock Quote: AMZN) officially launched its own store for Android applications today, and was promptly served with a lawsuit from Apple (Stock Quote: AAPL).

To buy apps through the store, users will have to first install the Amazon Appstore on their Android phones, which seems to be an eight-step process. They will then be able to buy apps in one of two ways: Directly through the store on their phones, or by entering their phone number or email address on Amazon’s site and having a download link to the app sent to their phone.

Unlike Apple’s App Store, there’s no option for buying the application on your computer and downloading it to your phone at a later date, which Apple allows through iTunes.

Still, if you can get through that complicated process there are some perks to using Amazon’s store – namely, free stuff. The Android version of Angry Birds Rio (the sequel to the massively popular Angry Birds) debuted exclusively on the Amazon Appstore today, and for today only it’s free instead of 99 cents. Amazon has promised that this will be a recurring event, with one paid app offered for free every day.

The new store is not without its faults. In addition to the somewhat complicated installation and buying process, there is not currently any support for phones or tablets on the AT&T network (Stock Quote: T), a problem Amazon says AT&T is working on. And the Appstore is only available to users in the U.S.

But the biggest issue with the store could come in the courts. Almost as soon as it launched, Apple filed suit over the use of the Appstore name. According to the Wall Street Journal, the complaint argued that “Consumers of mobile software downloads are likely to be confused as to whether Amazon's mobile software download service is sponsored or approved by Apple.” Still, the names are styled differently – Apple calls it an “App Store” (and trademarked it as such) while Amazon calls it an “Appstore” – and Microsoft earlier this year challenged Apple’s trademark as it developed its own platform to sell mobile applications.

Whether or not Apple is successful in securing exclusive use of the term “app store,” you will have until Midnight PDT to grab Angry Birds Rio for free.

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