Android Amazon UK MP3 store: Where the hell is it?
We woke up this morning in the mood to buy some MP3 music from Amazon on our HTC Magic. Sadly, Amazon doesn't offer a music store for the UK, so we couldn't
If you know anything about Crave, you'll know there are two phones in our universe right now. The iPhone is one, the HTC Magic is the other. We love these phones because we no longer have to carry around dozens of devices to keep us entertained on our pathetic public transport. Speaking of that, we're also massive fans of the Amazon MP3 store, because it allows us to legally download music without the need for a slow, ungainly and annoying piece of bloated software. So why is there no Amazon MP3 store for Android handsets in the UK?
We ask, because we know US Android phones have a built-in app for the Amazon music store. It's pretty logical to use Amazon because it's a DRM-free, open, Web-based system that really lends itself to phone use. There are no rights issues, because there's an MP3 store in the UK we all use on a pretty regular basis. We can't imagine there would need to be much changed from the US version for it to work here -- we suspect Amazons US and UK use similar hosting and payment systems for their music stores.
What's more, the astonishing app Shazam -- which finds out what tune is currently bathing your lug-holes -- offers the ability to buy songs via Amazon MP3 in the UK. It ties directly into the app, so there's no need to view the site in a clunky browser window and faff about with insecure log-ins and all that nonsense. Quite simply, it's the easiest possible way for people to discover and pay for new music. And you can get them while you're drunk and happy to spend money on music you may very well hate the next morning.
So we can't see any good reason for the lack of MP3 store via UK-based Android handsets. We'd understand if there was no UK store, but there is, and has been for some time now. More importantly though, if Android is to succeed, it needs to compete with the iPhone. When you've got a massive force like the iTunes music store to beat, the competition needs to be fierce and impressive. But even simpler than that, there's a market here for people to buy music on their Android phones and okay, that's a pretty small market at the moment, but it's just being ignored.
We contacted Amazon UK for a comment on this story, but at the time of publication, it has not responded.