Hi Ars!
Just wanted to say a quick Hello! to Ars readers who followed the link from the MemoryUp story. (For my 2 cents on the whole MemoryUp mess, read on..)
I think the situation is much simpler than it is being made out to be: Google is both overworked and slow-moving. This may prove to be a bad thing for the platform, or it may not, but the fact is that right now they couldn’t handle the workload of app vetting. It might also seriously undermine adoption of the platform – the lack of delay or restriction in publishing is one of the big selling points for developers choosing between Android and the iPhone.
And remember that Android is not limited to 1 single appstore – just because Google rejects an application (for whatever reason) doesn’t mean that Handago, AndAppStore, or any of the others won’t pick it up. It is much more like publishing desktop software than it is like a traditional phone model. (Just because you can’t get it from your vendor doesn’t mean it isn’t readily available.)
Bigger problems than the appstore vetting is that apps can do harm without any security warnings, and even when there are warnings the users simply see “click yes to make this application work”. These will take much more time to solve, as they are architectural problems inherent in the (imho flawed) security design.
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