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Leap pushes Cricket app store onto BlackBerry, Android phones

August 19, 2010 — 9:34am ET | By Mike Dano

Cricket provider Leap Wireless (NASDAQ:LEAP) is pushing its own applications storefront onto its new smartphones, an effort the carrier said is to ensure customers can purchase digital goodies through their established billing relationship with the carrier, rather than having to set up a new payment mechanism through PayPal, Google Checkout or other third-party offering.

Leap spokesman Greg Lund said the carrier will push the storefront onto all its smartphones, regardless of the gadget's operating system. The flat-rate, prepaid carrier recently began selling the BlackBerry Curve 8530 and the Android-powered Kyocera Zio, both for $229.99. Lund said the Cricket app store will be accessible "via an already familiar icon from the homescreen of the device" and will offer ringtones, graphics, ringback tones, games and applications.

"Cricket's storefront supports purchases facilitated via Cricket's Flex Bucket product, a familiar purchase mechanism for Cricket customers that's in line with value proposition," Lund wrote in response to questions on the topic.

Lund said that "most" of Leap's current partners are supporting the effort, and that, "until such time as the OS application storefronts will support carrier billing," Cricket will continue with its own storefront.

Lund was not immediately available for several follow-up questions, including whether Cricket's app store would replace other stores and how developers can get their wares into the store.

The action reflects a wider push by the world's carrier community to get in on the smartphone app store game, sparked by the success of Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone App Store. Indeed, Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) in March introduced its V Cast Apps store, initially rolling out the service across selected BlackBerry smartphones. The offering is intended to sit alongside the app stores of OS vendors like Research In Motion and Google. Further, a collection of the world's largest carriers earlier this year teamed under the Wholesale Applications Community banner to create common systems for the creation and distribution of applications, with an eye toward inserting themselves into the app store value chain. Part of their goal is to ensure app store shoppers can purchase content via their billing relationship with their carrier.

Currently, most established app stores--such as Apple's App Store, RIM's BlackBerry App World and Google's Android Market--rely on billing mechanisms outside a carrier's purview, whether it be iTunes (Apple) or PayPal (RIM). However, both Google and RIM have said they plan to work to integrate carrier billing functions into their application storefronts.

Other carriers, though, seem content to play in those established stores. AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T), for example, offers several applications through Apple's App Store, and T-Mobile USA manages a similar effort through Google's Android Market.