The Apple App Store, the Android Market and BlackBerry’s AppWorld have a surprising new competitor.
The United States government.
According to a story at Gadgetwise, the government announced a Mobile Apps store at USA.gov, featuring four new free apps to accompany 14 others that the government created while the marketplace was presumably under development in stealth mode.
The four apps are seasonally inspired. They include My TSA, an iPhone app that offers, among other things, updates on wait times at security checkpoints of airports; UV Index, for BlackBerrys and Android phones; Product Recalls, for Android phones; and My Food-a-Pedia, which offers nutrition information on about 1,000 foods.
My Food-A-Pedia isn’t strictly an app, since the information is presented in a mobile-friendly Web site, but since it’s the government, we can give it credit for trying.
In a news release, Jeffrey Zients, the Office of Management and Budget’s deputy director for management, and Vivek Kundra, the Obama adminstration’s chief information officer, did not say which categories or specific apps might come next, but given the store’s creation users can expect more free software.
Photo by USA.gov.