It's coming; it's coming. The long-awaited in-app purchasing feature is coming to Android in May, according to a report in TechCrunch on Tuesday, March 1.
TC's report bases its info on an email that Jambool began sending, also on March 1. Jambool is a company that was acquired by Google last August. The company has a product called "Social Gold" that, as described by Wikipedia, "enables developers to create and manage their own white-labeled virtual currency, to provide an in-app payments experience to their users, and to optimize their virtual economy using analytics."
The email to Social Gold users said:
In-app payments are of course, important for mobile developers, so they can add levels or additional functionality or content. Apple certainly recognizes this, and so does Rovio, who went and established its own system after waiting (and waiting).
TC's report bases its info on an email that Jambool began sending, also on March 1. Jambool is a company that was acquired by Google last August. The company has a product called "Social Gold" that, as described by Wikipedia, "enables developers to create and manage their own white-labeled virtual currency, to provide an in-app payments experience to their users, and to optimize their virtual economy using analytics."
The email to Social Gold users said:
Hello,The email is pretty clear: the Social Gold product is going away, at the end of May, Android's new in-apps payment system will replace them, but it won't offer all the functionality of Social Gold (which obviously isn't good for developers who are already using that system).
Thank you for your use of the Jambool Social Gold platform. As you know, Jambool was acquired by Google last August. This acquisition meant that some changes to our business were inevitable, and we’d like to share them with you today.
First, the existing Jambool Social Gold product will be discontinued in favor of a new Google in-app payment product in May 2011. Rest assured that you will be able to sign in to the Jambool merchant console through September 2011, and you will receive year-end financial statements in February 2012.
Second, we’d like to invite you to participate in the pre-release beta of the Google in-app payment system. This system will enable developers to accept payments within an app, but it will not have the full functionality of Social Gold at launch. We understand that this will not meet the needs of all developers currently using Social Gold, but we highly encourage interested developers to join the Google in-app payments beta by submitting your information at http://google.com/checkout/inapp.
Again, we thank you for your flexibility during this transition period. Please feel free to respond to this email with any questions about your Jambool account or the new Google in-app payment product.
Sincerely,
The Jambool Team
In-app payments are of course, important for mobile developers, so they can add levels or additional functionality or content. Apple certainly recognizes this, and so does Rovio, who went and established its own system after waiting (and waiting).
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