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up vote 4 down vote favorite

(And by "General Public" I mean, people who aren't paying $30 a month for data transfers, and just using wifi instead.)

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Not sure what you mean here. Who pays Google $30 a month? Android is completely unconnected to carriers. – Arda Xi Oct 13 '10 at 22:14
@Arda Xi The key word in the question is "Keeping", The questioner is concerned that carriers will put presure on Google to only allow the market to be used of 3g and not wifi. – trampster Oct 13 '10 at 23:12
@trampster Actually I was just trying out the Android SDK to see what Android was like, and the default system image doesn't come with anything...not even a calendar. Then I found out that you needed the Android Market to get some of the applications and it appears that you can only get Market outside of a phone carrier by taking the risk of bricking your device. – leeand00 Oct 14 '10 at 1:02
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You do not need the Android Market to get applications at all. You can install them manually. – Arda Xi Oct 14 '10 at 4:51

1 Answer

up vote 5 down vote accepted

You can download applications over a wifi connection without any phone plan. For example, I recently removed an HTC Hero from my phone plan and was able to download applications to the phone over Wifi with no problem.... even though I could not make calls.

Since Android is not limited to phones or devices with wireless data plans, requiring a phone plan would not be possible for all Android devices.

Additionally, with competion in the works like Amazon's upcoming Android applications market, there will be too much disincentive for Google to require a monthly fee for market access.

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So when is that Amazon Android Applications market due out? – leeand00 Oct 14 '10 at 1:01
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According to the WSJ article link I just added above, they haven't announced a date yet. – BrianCooksey Oct 14 '10 at 1:25
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FWIW, this has been out for a while now: amazon.com/mobile-apps/b/… – Amanda May 16 '11 at 12:42

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