Blackphone to launch its own app store next month

Himanshu Arora

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Just a couple of months after co-founder Jon Callas dropped hints about it, Blackphone has confirmed that the company is launching its own app store, which will be available starting next month.

The result of a joint venture between Silent Circle and Geeksphone, Blackphone claims to be the world's first smartphone to place privacy and control directly in the hands of its users. It runs a hardened version of Android called PrivatOS and comes loaded with security-minded tools and subscriptions like Silent Phone, Silent Text, Disconnect, SpiderOak, and Smarter Wi-Fi Manager.

The new app store will also be privacy-focused, and will only contain apps that have been thoroughly examined by the company. “We’ll have a few degrees of vetting,” said Blackphone CEO Toby Weir-Jones. “We’ll validate that the apps will do what they intend – call it the Apple model. If you have an app to manage your social media accounts and it wanted access to your microphone and your camera we might ask why and get on a first screening.”

He also clarified that the company is not aiming to create a "mass-market app store", which means that they won't be focusing on, for example, gaming apps or their own versions of social networking apps. Instead, the emphasis will be on quality apps with "things that have a broad alignment with our privacy and security focus".

And since Blackphone currently doesn't have access to Google Play (although users can download apps from the Amazon App Store), the company is hoping that having its own app store will also help it reach a wider audience.

Alongside its own app store, Blackphone will also roll out a new feature, dubbed Spaces, allowing users to separate work data from personal information on their smartphone.

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I have a question to people that would consider buying this. Do you feel like you are being watched/spied on and/or have surveillance on you? If so, what makes you think this?
 
I have a question to people that would consider buying this. Do you feel like you are being watched/spied on and/or have surveillance on you? If so, what makes you think this?
People are overreacting to being spied upon. I think the pair of goons dressed in dark suits and a bulge under the armpit, wearing shades and earpieces and who never smile, who have have been parked outside my house in a dark SUV for the last month and who follow me everywhere I go are actually lost tourists who are trying to pluck up the courage to ask me directions.
 
People are overreacting to being spied upon. I think the pair of goons dressed in dark suits and a bulge under the armpit, wearing shades and earpieces and who never smile, who have have been parked outside my house in a dark SUV for the last month and who follow me everywhere I go are actually lost tourists who are trying to pluck up the courage to ask me directions.
this is happening you? This is why you would get the phone? What do you do to trigger an interest from certain groups that they would be willing to go to great costs to have you spied on/surveillanced?
 
this is happening you? This is why you would get the phone? What do you do to trigger an interest from certain groups that they would be willing to go to great costs to have you spied on/surveillanced?
No. Of course it's not happening to me but it would make an adventurous tale if it did. As for the phone, I'm not interested in it but I'm sure the paranoid or those who had something hide would be and that's who it's targeted at.
 
No. Of course it's not happening to me but it would make an adventurous tale if it did. As for the phone, I'm not interested in it but I'm sure the paranoid or those who had something hide would be and that's who it's targeted at.
yes, I often contemplate on suspending my morals to cash in on fears like this but I think I would feel too guilty by doing it. Being a snake charmer/miracle water vendor just has a bad vibe to it for me.
 
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