"Like all wireless carriers, T-Mobile needs its subscribers to start
doing more with their phones than just making phone calls and sending
text messages. So, perhaps inspired by the early success of Apple's
iPhone App Store, it's reportedly making a smart decision: Opening up
its phones to more mobile software, and making it easier to download
apps." .
It'll be interesting to see how they organise the UI - the iPhone appstore arguably has a few iterations to go . The article goes on to describe the benefits to T-Mobile's customers:
"What does this mean? In theory, more apps and a better shopping
experience. That's good news for consumers, and if it gets more people
to buy apps and sign up for mobile Internet access plans, good news for
T-Mobile, too.
This is a no-brainer for T-Mobile's smartphones, like the Sidekick
series, its forthcoming phone running Google Android, and whatever
Windows Mobile phones the carrier sells."
A few weeks ago I suggested we'll see other application stores after the iPhone launch; I expect there'll more of these. Being able to decouple a launch from an embed date and allow 'hits' a la the games industry are game changers.