Android gets a Web-based app store and manager with Dazzboard 2.0

I recently wrote about Dazzboard in considering what it would take for the iPod to be fully replaced by a non-iPhone smartphone. The Web-based media manager filled the gap between the desktop and the portable device where iTunes has been such an invaluable bridge.

It allows the user to plug in his mobile device to pretty much any Windows computer with Internet Explorer or Firefox and transport photos, music, and videos simply by accessing a Web-based interface. I have personally grown quite fond of it because it offers support for a significant amount of smartphones, including Android and WebOS devices.

At CES this week, Dazzboard launched version 2.0, which addresses a complaint users have had about Android since the platform launched almost two years ago: the lack of a real Web-based Android Market.

Frequently, when people who have never used an Android device want to check out what the platform has to offer in terms of apps, they go to android.com/market, Google's official presence for the app store on the Web. Unfortunately, it is a completely inaccurate representation of the content available in the market that users are accessing on their Android phones.

Dazzboard 2.0 now features full Android application support, which means when you hook up your Android device to Dazzboard's webtop media manager, it recognizes all of your applications, and you can then back them up, move them around, or uninstall them. But it also includes an app store of its own, where you can browse and install new applications. It's not Google's Android Market, but instead a third party one with different apps you may not find in Google's. Dazzboard CEO Tero Salonen told us that content partnerships are developing, and Dazzboard's built-in app store will grow considerably as the year progresses.

So far, Dazzboard supports Windows XP, Vista, and 7, Internet Explorer version 6 (XP only), 7 and 8, as well as Firefox 3.X. The company says it will also release APIs to let developers link their Web sites and services with devices connected to the Dazzboard webtop.