Amazon’s actually free app store for Android was met with mixed reactions when it launched earlier this month. While it offered customers a great opportunity to get paid apps for free and developers to make money upfront, the app also asked for a lot of access in return. Specifically, it wants permission to track how much time you spend in its participating apps and games. This is a necessary feature in order for Amazon to pay app creators on a per-minute basis. However, it’s an aspect that many users are wary of, as outlined in a recent article from Android Police.
To give you a better idea of how this works, let’s take a look at some of the apps available through the Underground app and what each one requires. We’ll also explain why that is and give you a few reasons to think twice about giving each of them your permission.
The bottom line is that apps aren’t as simple to monetize as they once were. Revenue streams now include app downloads, ads, subscriptions, and in-app purchases. Developers have to consider all of them and how each one impacts their app’s user base when choosing to launch an app in both Google Play and Amazon’s app store.
It’s worth noting that Apple’s App Store doesn’t allow developers to offer freemium apps. As a result, it’s unlikely that any such apps will appear on the iOS version of Underground.
