LG to open 'App Store' in July, invites Apple's wrath
It's no surprise that LG has announced plans to open an app store next month. Given that Apple, RIM, Nokia, Palm, Samsung and now Sony Ericsson all have app stores either up and running or in the pipeline, it was only a matter of time before LG pulled its socks 'app' and made an entrance at the app party.
What's surprising though is that LG has decided to go with the potentially litigious and not to mention unoriginal name of 'LG App Store'. Legal ramifications aside, there's no indication of what sort of apps will be available from launch, or even how many. All we know is that the portal will be called 'LG App Store' and is due to launch in July.
Contrast this with the announcement made by Sony Ericsson last week. We learned that some 45,000 free apps were be prepared to be launched through Sony Ericsson’s PlayNow Arena portal, and that they would run on a plethora of operating systems, including Windows Mobile, Symbian, and Sony Ericsson's proprietary OS.
Nokia's Ovi Store launched with some 25,000 apps, but if you head on over there now, there's not much going on - you can practically feel the tumbleweed rolling by. We expect more details to emerge closer to the time, and we hope that LG has a better start than Nokia did with Ovi.
The LG Arena, with its rotating customisable menus, multi format video play back and total memory of 32GB is a great phone that would really benefit from access to a decent app store. Dare we say it, the Arena could well take some of the shine off the recently announced iPhone 3GS…
