In The Cards: Why Amazon *Has* To Make An Android Device Now

When I first heard that Amazon was going to be making an app store for Android ( we broke the news in September of last year ), I laughed. Just what Android needs, another app store, I thought. Further, I didn't see what Amazon could bring to the table with such a store that Google themselves couldn't. That was stupid. I was wrong. Now that Amazon's Android Appstore is out there in the wild , and I've had a chance to play with it, I see the brilliance of the maneuver. In many ways, Amazon just came out of nowhere and beat Google at their own game — on their own devices. At the same time, some of the processes involved in Amazon's Appstore are laughable. And they point to a very obvious fact: Amazon needs to build their own Android devices. Pronto.