AT&T takes a jab at Apple with its own cross-platform app store

AT&T continues to live the good life as the exclusive U.S. mobile carrier for Apple's iPhone, riding the wave of customers attracted by the App Store. That could all change at any time, though, with speculation that Apple plans to drop its exclusive deal and bring the iPhone to new carriers sometime this year. AT&T isn't going to take that lying down, though: they're teaming up with other mobile carriers, including Orange and Telefonica, to launch their own app store.

The announcement is scheduled for tomorrow at the Mobile World Congress, according to the Times Online. AT&T's app store won't just be iPhone apps, either. It's reportedly a cross-platform app store that will introduce a single standard for apps across many devices that the partner carriers support. With almost 2 billion customers between them, that's a pretty sizable audience.

Developers, don't start drooling just yet: we don't know whether the actual dev software for this new platform will be announced tomorrow, or whether we'll just see some kind of statement of future plans. Is this the ultimate kiss-off to Apple, or will the new apps run on the famously-closed iPhone too? Oh, the drama!

[via Mashable]

Tags: app store, AppStore, att, cross-platform, developer, mobile