Times change. In the past three and a half years, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson had nothing but kind words for Apple and its ecosystem. However at MWC this week, he took aim at Apple’s App Store.
“You purchase an app for one operating system, and if you want it on another device or platform, you have to buy it again,” he said. “That’s not how our customers expect to experience this environment.”
Clearly. That’s why all of AT&T’s App Store apps are coded in HTML5 so I can open them on my Verizon iPhone and Wifi iPad. UVerse is awesome that way.
Instead, he’s pushing the aptly named WAC or Wholesale Applications Community, which is a platform that acts as one app store. The apps are then sold by a variety of different phone companies around the world, in stores that carry their own brands.
WAC is endorsed by AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp., T-Mobile USA, Boise St. and Hawaii.
