Vodafone does a complete 360

MOBILE PHONE NETWORK Vodafone has opened the doors on its Android app store, promising developers access to punters everywhere.

The store, which is called the Vodafone 360 Shop for Android - a slow day in the branding department we think - will launch this summer on two handsets, the HTC Wildfire and Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro.

Vodafone said that users of these handsets will be able to access the store direct from the home screen, but then it was hardly going to hide away something that might have made it some money was it? Still, the focus is on developers, for the time being at least.

"Developers want to know that their app will be seen by consumers, and the 360 Shop on Android has been designed to maximise opportunities for content promotion," said Lee Epting, director of content services at Vodafone Group looking up from his big book of marketing lingo. "Initial data is showing that up to a third of the catalogue gets exposed in a single day. This is a market-leading approach which will allow both customers and developers to get great value out of the 360 Shop."

Helping handset users part with their freetime the 360 Shop will provide personalised recommendations for downloads, and other pointers such as best rated, top downloads, categories and filtered lists - but you know how these app stores work by now. Content is paid for on the users' phone bill, and Vodafone said it made regular payments back out to the developers responsible for the download.

The Android store is an addition to Vodafhone's 360 highstreet, and according to the firm it already offers some 8,500 applications on over 100 handsets. µ