In the new era of App stores, if you purchase an app that you do not like, there is little chance of being able to return it. In most cases, you cant even try a demo version of the application either, so what did Amazon do? They created a virtual machine that allows you to test out any app from their store in your browser before you buy.
Amazon refers to the feature as Test Drive and it is a great solution to a issue that end users currently face. The one downside to Test Drive is that you have to be at a PC and it currently does not work if you are browsing on your mobile device. Amazon states, via Engadget:
Clicking the "Test drive now" button launches a copy of this app on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), a web service that provides on-demand compute capacity in the cloud for developers. When you click on the simulated phone using your mouse, we send those inputs over the Internet to the app running on Amazon EC2 - just like your mobile device would send a finger tap to the app. Our servers then send the video and audio output from the app back to your computer. All this happens in real time, allowing you to explore the features of the app as if it were running on your mobile device.
This feature should be popular among consumers and will help to drive users to Amazon"s new App store. In a market where features drive consumers, Amazon has unleashed a top notch product that may draw users away from Google"s own Marketplace.
Image Credit: Engadget
