After phones, gaming devices, e-readers, televisions, netbooks, tablets, PC’s and smart pens now even cars will get their very own app store. Ford revealed they will soon start an in-car application store. This announcement was made on the South By South West Interactive conference in Austin Texas. The store will allow developers to build software that will run in customizable displays in Ford’s new web-enabled cars.

Given the statistics already gathered by the cars’ software like the way you drive, purchased apps could provide you with geo information or social features for connecting with your nearest friends. Interesting opportunities presented by Ford encouraged drivers to drive ‘greener’ by playing a game where you could earn points by driving more fuel efficient and compare your score to your friends.

Ford indicated that the policy for publishing in the app store will be managed by Ford, which is comparable with many of the current mobile app stores.

More and more appstores recently see the light of day, all trying to get a piece of a market which will, according to research2guidance, hit the 15bn USD in 2013. However, the development of the new appstore of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is most likely less financially motivated. A couple of days ago they announced that an apps marketplace will be created to enable innovation to meet user needs based on collaboration between the development community and the involved communities of end-users.

DARPA chose the Android platform for the initial implementation. They already ruled out Windows in an early stage and recently dropped the iPhone platform as well. According to the announcement: “DARPA is seeking applications to fill a diverse set of needs, including the tactical battlefield, humanitarian missions, disaster recovery, and other mission areas. Example functionalities include command and control, reporting, mission planning, intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance, real-time collaboration, geospatial visualization, analysis, language translation, training, and logistics tracking. Special attention must be paid to the apps’ user interfaces and usability functions, as well as striving towards general simplicity and ease-of-use”.