AT&T has been selling more phones with Google"s Android operating system lately. That may be due to the fact that the company lost the exclusive rights to selling the iPhone earlier this year when Verizon also started selling Apple"s phone. However, when AT&T decided to start selling Android based phones it would not allow those phones to access third party stores for the Android system. That meant that those phones could not access things like Amazon.com"s app store.
That"s now changing to the delight of AT&T"s customers. Android Central received an inside note from its developer program announcing that all future Android phones will now allow for "sideloading" to those third party app stores like Amazon.com. The updates to previous Android phones for "sideloading" support are already being pushed via a software update to customers with phones like the HTC Inspire 4G, the Aria, and the Samsung Captivate. The new Samsung Infuse 4G phone already supports "sideloading" out of the box.
The Amazon.com App Store is growing into a place where Android users can get apps that are not available on the regular Android market. One interesting timed exclusive that"s coming up soon is the Android debut of Plants Vs Zombies, the mega-popular tower defense game from PopCap. As we reported earlier this week, the Android version of the game is set to show up on Amazon.com"s Appstore sometime in May. The game is supposed to be free to download when it shows up for a limited time and then it will be sold for $2.99.