Amazon launched its Appstore for Android back in 2011. Since then the company has been giving away one paid app for free every single day. After every two or three months Amazon runs a promotion in which it gives away a plethora of paid apps and games for free. All of this hasn’t been able to make the Amazon Appstore too popular but if reports are to be believed the company has a plan to turn this around.
An internal presentation leaked to TechCrunch shows that the company is working on a new plan called Amazon Unlocked. Basically it will be like Amazon Prime for apps. Unlocked will give users access to free paid apps as well as all in-app purchases for no extra charge.
Examples cited in the presentation include Sonic Dash from Sega and Monument Valley from UsTwo. With Unlocked all in-app purchases in these games will be free. Even the paid title, Monument Valley, will be available to Unlocked users for free.
If this is anything like Amazon Prime Video then available apps and games for Unlocked will rotate. One day Monument Valley might be supported by Dash. The next day the app could cost money again regardless of whether or now you use Unlocked.
It isn’t clear as yet if Amazon Unlocked will be launched as a standalone service with a monthly subscription charge or if it will be included in the $99 per year subscription fee that Prime users pay to get access to Prime Music, Prime Instant Video, unlimited cloud storage as well as free two day shipping for all supported products on Amazon.
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