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PocketGear acquires Handango, becomes world's largest cross-platform app store
Now this is intriguing. PocketGear has just acquired its former competitor Handango in the cross-platform app store space, and can now claim a library of software that places it right alongside Apple's App Store in terms of the pure number of applications on offer. PocketGear has been busy providing the infrastructure for things like Samsung's TouchWiz widget store and Palm's Software Store for a while, whereas Handango used to be the largest independent app store out there, and their consolidated catalog will offer more than 140,000 applications on all the major non-Apple platforms: Android, BlackBerry, Palm, Symbian, and WinMo. The number of actually useful apps has not been disclosed, but we love the idea of an independent competitor nudging the proprietary stores along so let's hope things go well for them. Full PR after the break.
Handango beating Android Market to the paid app punch
Handango is certainly no stranger to the business of hawking mobile apps for cash, and it's using its expertise constructively to beat Google's own Android Market out of the gate this time around. They're getting pretty snazzy with the payment terms, too, allowing developers to offer apps for free (though why anyone would do this instead of just using the on-device Market is unclear), a one-time purchase price, or a number of different subscription terms. Seeing how they'll be the only name-brand clearinghouse in town for selling Android apps any time soon, we're thinking this is going to get some play -- but once the Market gets its act together, we're not seeing the value proposition. Call us lazy, but why would we want to drag ourselves over to a website when we've got the Market waiting for us in the application tab?
Street Fighter, Mega Man going mobile
How many times have we been sitting on the city bus, bored and without handheld, only to turn to our cellphone for some bastardized version of Snake or Bejewelled? It's not something we like to think about, being forced to drive down the nail of boredom with the Great Hammer of Meh. However, a new mobile partnership now looks to have us struggling to pull off dragon punches on our keypads as well.According to mobile content provider Handango, the company has partnered with Capcom to bring the Street Fighter and Mega Man franchises to its online store and mobile client on BlackBerry and Windows Mobile phones. Other franchises are promised as well, including miniaturized versions of Are you Smarter Than a 5th Grader? and the deal's underwhelming debut release, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? It will be interesting to see what other Capcom franchises make the jump to mobile phones as part of this agreement, though honestly we're more interested in how in the world we're going to pull off that dragon punch.
Handango newsletter reveals mid-September launch for XPERIA X1
While we're sure there's at least a few folks that'll be pleased to hear that Sony Ericsson's eagerly-anticipated XPERIA X1 will launch with Handango's InHand service on the device, we're guessing there's a tad more people that'll be interested in the other little detail revealed in the company's recent newsletter: that the X1 will apparently be launching in mid-September. Of course, we'll still have to wait to hear from Sony Ericsson to know for sure, especially given some of the launch date confusion in the past, but this latest word is at least in line with the company's most recent statement that the X1 launching in the second half of 2008, so it might not be such a crazy idea to start counting down the days.
