Handago announced today, as part of its bi-annual Handango Yardstick, that BlackBerry has taken Windows Mobile’s place as the dominant platform in its content catalog for smartphones for the first time. 44% of all apps sold in the first part of this year were for BlackBerry phones. The 5 best-selling BlackBerry apps are. . .

SMobile is putting out some software to protect your G1 called VirusGuard. Android is a very open OS and plenty of people have thought about how to keep it secure. While Google has a kill switch for apps, that doesn’t stop you from downloading and running malware. This new application aims to protect Android from more »

Sure, the Android Marketplace is nice and convenient and seems to be easy to use, but it does have one option missing that may make some developers stay away. The ability to charge for applications. We first heard that Handango was stepping up to take care of this issue a few weeks back and they have just officially confirmed the upcoming launch.

They will have their market available when the G1 launches on October 22 and users will be able to purchase the apps through a web interface and then download them directly to their handset for installation.

While the official Android Marketplace is going to launch supporting only free applications there are plenty of developers that will most likely hold off and wait for an option to charge for their work. Unfortunately, there has not been any announcement as to just when Google is planning to put a payment system in place. However, thanks to the openness of the platform, there seems to be nothing stopping others from opening an Android Marketplace of their own and allowing developers to include paid applications.

With that, Handango has stepped up and announced their own Android Marketplace for paid applications. They are already accepting applications into the store with plans to have it ready for the G1 launch on October 22. They expect to have roughly 100 applications ready to go for the launch. Another nice part about this alternative marketplace is that Handango is going to allow for a variety of payments options to include one-time, monthly and annual.