Intel is closing down its AppUp online application store as it sees a shift in the market and consumer needs. Designed originally for netbook computers, the Intel AppUp center was first unveiled in a beta program in 2010, with plans to expand its scope to smartphones, TVs and other consumer devices that use Intel processors. The application store aimed to help develop the market for the products, attract developers to the platform and support customers.
So much for Intel’s bid to get hip with our app-filled times: the company is shutting down its consumer-facing AppUp, its app store for Windows-based PC apps. “The world’s largest app store that nobody’s ever heard of,” in thewords of AppUp boss Peter Biddle, a description that in hindsight may have been tempting fate. The service will be closed for good on March 11, with the apps from the store that communicated with the AppUp client no longer working by May 15 — or earlier if you uninstall the store client. (The large, full list of affected apps is here.) Other apps that did not communicate with the client should still work, Intel says, although they will have to be launched separately.