Free Apps from Amazon
For a long time, Amazon offered the Free App of the Day promotion for Android tablets and smartphones. The catch was that customers needed to sideload Amazon’s Appstore onto their device to take advantage of the daily promotion. Those days are gone, replaced by a new Amazon service called Underground.
Like the Appstore, Amazon customers are required to sideload Underground on their Android device. The good news here is that customers can still download free apps—over $10,000 worth according to the company. Amazon says that it’s making this giveaway possible by using a new business model with app and game developers.
“Many apps and games that are marked as ‘free’ turn out not to be completely free. They use in-app payments to charge you for special items or to unlock features or levels,” the company states. “In Underground, you will find 100 percent free versions of popular premium titles like OfficeSuite Professional 8, Goat Simulator, and PhotoSuite 4.”
The business model that allows an app to be totally free consists of a per-minute played scheme that pays developers for time played, allowing them to nuke in-app fees. Amazon said it will pay these developers “a certain amount,” and that it’s picking up the charges so that the app is totally free to users.
According to Amazon, the Underground app will automatically be installed on Fire HD and Fire HDX tablets. To download the free apps and games, customers merely log into Underground with their Amazon account credentials and locate apps that have the “Actually Free” banner in the app’s icon.
So, how long will this promotion last? Amazon says the program will be “long-term” and that the company will continue to “invent and add more benefits” to the Underground app over time. To kick things off, Amazon Underground is offering a number of apps for free, including Inside Out Thought Bubbles, Cars: Fast as Lightning, Looney Tunes Dash!, OfficeSuite Professional 8, Duck Tales: Remastered, Toca Kitchen, Cut the Rope 2, Goat Simulator, and more.
To get the Amazon Underground app, simply head here and provide your email address. You can find the free apps by clicking the “Actually Free Apps and Games” banner when you first load up the app. You can also purchase these apps, if the whole per-minute scheme is just too weird for you.
From maximumpc
from http://bit.ly/1hg4YFE
