It's all fun and games, that is until a major association throws its weight around and tells everyone that your game sucks. That's basically what the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) is doing to Amazon. In an open advisory about Amazon's Appstore distribution terms, the IGDA said it "applauds Amazon's efforts to build a more dynamic app marketplace," but voiced "significant concerns about Amazon's current Appstore distribution terms and the negative impact they may have on the game development community." What exactly has the IGDA so riled up?
If you've ever, for whatever reason, wanted to run an Android app without an Android phone, a company called BlueStacks is looking to fill that need. By utilizing some fancy virtualization technology, BlueStacks will let users run Android apps side by side with native Windows apps. 
The music app on Android has been an embarrassment since the platform launched back in 2008. But thanks to a recent leak, we're getting a gander at Google's new music app for phones complete with cloud syncing. A developer version of the Android Market app miraculously showed up on a handful of phones, and allowed access to the new app. You can grab a copy, but it will overwrite your current Music app and may not work, so be warned.
You know what sucks about the iPhone? If you said the walled-garden approach to applications, you're correct. If you said "Apple's fanatical devotion to industrial design," you're less correct. If you said, "dealing with the steaming pile of masticated vegetable matter and half-cooked industrial byproduct that is iTunes every time I want to add something to my iPhone or remove that thing from my iPhone," you win!
Our insane stat of the day involves Rovio's Angry Birds Rio app, which has been downloaded a whopping 10 million times in just 10 days following its March 22 release. That includes downloads for both iOS and Android. Angry Birds Rio is a $0.99 download via iOS, but was made available for free on Android through an agreement with Amazon on its new Appstore for Android.
We're all familiar with stories about Apple pulling an app from its App Store for suspect reasons. Even Google has gotten in on the fun as of late, but now its Microsoft's turn. An app called Imagewind is in imminent danger of being pulled from the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace. The developer was originally told the app was being pulled immediately, but has now been given a grace period of indeterminate length.
Amazon last week rolled out its Appstore for Android, and there a couple reasons why you should check it out. One reason is that Amazon offers a different paid app for free each day as its featured 'free app of the day.' But the much more compelling reason to give Amazon's Appstore for Android a spin is an awesome feature called "Test Drive." Just as it sounds, this allows you to test drive certain Android apps, free or paid, on your PC before committing to purchase and/or download.
A few weeks back, Google let it be known that in-app billing was coming to the platform. Now, the Big G is letting developers take a closer look at the system during a closed test. App devs will be able to upload in-app content and set a price for testing the system. Google says it will work for the developers just like it will for users when the service launches.
Android users on AT&T were disappointed earlier this week when it became apparent the Amazon Appstore would not be available on their devices. The problem stems from the fact that AT&T restricts non-Android Market apps from being installed on devices. This is often called side-loading, and it is what the Amazon Appstore relies on. Now we're hearing that AT&T is actively working to resolve the issue. 
According to a report in the U.K.'s Guardian, a 29-year-old British man will spend two years behind bars for hacking Zynga and stealing 400 billion virtual gaming chips. Ashley Mitchell made off with more than $11 million in chips by muscling his way into Zynga's mainframe and stealing the identity of two employees before transferring the chips to his own account. It almost worked.
