The Google Android application store is taking over from conventional methods of software distribution. The marketplace available on Android devices allows you to install applications such as Winamp for playing music and the Opera Mobile web browser, which is superior to the built in web browser on the Huawei S7, which does not allow image uploading on websites. And allows you to save web pages for later reading as well as the start page with easy access icons for your favourite web pages. I have installed a copy of Dante`s Inferno, the Divine Comedy which details one man`s trip through Hell. The Android marketplace merely requires a Google account, then you may install any application you wish. The Google Play website allows you to keep track of your purchases through the marketplace and allows you to read books on-line, but I had problems with this using Google Chrome 20. The Divine Comedy works well as a readable book on the Huawei S7, but it has Google ads at the top of the page that partially obscure the text, but if I read the book on portrait mode instead of landscape that will not be much of a problem. I installed Firefox from the Android marketplace, but the application would not load at all. I sent a bug report from the Google Play website and I hope that will be sorted out very soon.
The Google Store/Devices page: https://play.google.com/store/account is the one stop shop for managing your purchases. I wondered initially what the Google Play website was, I thought it was a website with on-line flash games and films. But countless other websites have that type of content and Google would need to be very creative to put up a website like that. Conventional software distribution channels like the Debian apt repositories and the app store styled Software Centre for Ubuntu will still be around, the latter service for Ubuntu is becoming a application store rather like the Android marketplace, but it remains to be seen which will prevail in the end. The Android store is more popular and will certainly be around in the future. With all the cheap books and applications available on the Android app store, it is obvious why this Linux based operating system from Google is the most popular mobile operating system apart from the Apple IOS platform. Even some traditional UNIX/Linux software such as VIM is available for the Android operating system and an ARM version of the Debian based Ubuntu distribution that may be installed on Android devices. I would prefer to keep the Android operating system instead of installing another OS and having to go through all the hassle of rooting the device and performing all the steps required.
Nokia had the OVI store that allowed users to install apps for the Symbian operating system to their mobile phones, and there was software that you could install on a Windows machine to manage your apps and OVI maps, but the software was so bloated it made Itunes seem slim in comparison. I was initially against the Android platform, but now that I am using an Android device I can see how good the operating system is. Miles ahead of the Symbian operating system and more reliable as well. I had problems with my old Symbian phone when using the Opera Mobile browser, it would run out of memory and the Symbian experience is dated in the extreme. The views I held on Android in the past: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/everything-else/59490-super-jamies-super-cellphone-discussion-split-from-kitten-blog/ do not hold true now.