Unified online store for Symbian apps around the corner?

Symbian Foundation is about to start Symbian Horizon, an initiative to help developers offer their Symbian software to the wide public more easily and provided the app prove to be successful, the agency would get down to making it available in a large number of online stores. The good thing is developers won´t be charged for the service. Naturally, customers are to benifit as well, as they would have more interesting programs to choose from, irrespetive of the handset manufacturer or the carrier they are with. Symbian Horizon is currently offerring a limited number of available applications, but its creators are expected to hit on all four cylinders in October this year. Among the website service partners are companies like Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and the American carrier AT&T.

We do like the idea a lot, because many developers tend to start their own stores and the sheer number of online shops can create certain troubles in terms of handset compatibility, so ending up with a newly purchased application that just won´t run on your device is not an unlikely scenario now. Other possibilities include cases like, say, you have a Symbian-based cell phone manufactuered by Samsung, but you are not alowed access to Ovi Store, not to mention the carrier may have prohibited the phone from opening any other online shops than their own. On the other hand, developers must account for the whole variety of requirements imposed by manufacturers, platforms and carriers, so as their products may be useable by as many customers as possible.

source: Symbian