Vodafone app store announced

Vodafone has announced ambitious plans for a new mobile application store, due to be opened later this year.

Applications will be web-based rather than developed specifically for a mobile OS.

This means that software developers will have access to Vodafone's 285 million customers worldwide, although of course the framework running these web applications still has to be made to work with each operating system.

The first handsets to take full advantage of the store will be Series 60 devices - but they plan to roll it out to more phones later in the year.

The system will offer an industry-standard 70/30 profit split for developers and will allow customers to purchase the apps through their Vodafone account rather than using credit or debit cards.

A myriad of applications are promised, including location-based services, and Vodafone says that if people change their handset, they will still own the applications they've previously bought. This is quite unlike most rival solutions that tie the user to one handset.