Mobile apps need a laptop marketplace

Two observations and a hypothesis:

1) People use mobile apps on mobile devices

2) People discover mobile apps on their computers (it’s just a significantly better medium for exploration - pick your reason: screen size, ease of input, connection speed, etc.)

Therefore, to create a strong app ecosystem, you’d better have a strong online marketplace

So now a question: why doesn’t Palm have an online marketplace? I’m not saying you have to package or police it like Apple, but when I’m browsing for things to buy, I want lots of multimedia information fast. Sure, Palm lets me browse a few screencaps, but why not let me buy? Give me the ability to explore apps and make it easy for me to buy them, and you will get my money. Promise.

And one more thing: why is the Android marketplace so shallow? Just because you want people to have access to apps however they want doesn’t mean you shouldn’t build an access point of your own. Build a deep, iTunes-like storefront and take a reasonable cut of the apps sold there. No one ever accused Linux of being closed off, but that community brought a centralized app marketplace to the masses.