Amazon Appstore is now live, Apple is suing for the name

The Amazon Appstore is now live - and is already in trouble. First things first though, you can download Angry Birds Rio from the Amazon App Store today while it's free (it won't be tomorrow). And as for the trouble, Apple's lawyers have something to say about the "App Store" name.

The Amazon Appstore is accessible from two places - their website (it should be working now) and from their app. We snapped a few screenshots of the app to give you a feel for it - you can download it here (it was gone but is working again) if you want to take it for a spin.

The Amazon App Store client

Whichever way you choose, you'll have access to about 3,800 apps. Not bad for a launch day count, considering more and more devs will probably put up their stuff in the Amazon Appstore.

You can sign in with your Amazon account, which already knows you and will be able to offer app suggestions based on your purchase history. Amazon will also be offering a free app every day to promote their Appstore.

Amazon App Store

Right now, Angry Birds Rio is free (it'll cost $0.99 tomorrow). We tried to download it but something went wrong - maybe you'll have better luck. Something that annoyed us is that Amazon wants payment details even if you're just downloading free stuff.

Amazon offer an interesting Test Drive option - you can try out an app for 30 minutes in your browser. That's right, in the browser (Amazon's cloud services at work).

But the Appstore has gotten Amazon into trouble - with Apple's App Store and their lawyers. The "App Store" patent is Apple's and they filed a suit against Amazon. Microsoft is opposing the "App Store" patent too.

Speaking of the new Angry Birds, here's a funny video of the evil bad bird, featured in the movie Rio(or who knows, maybe he'll show up in the game, too), rapping his wings off. Our favorite angry birds show up as well.

Source 1, Source 2