Cell phones based on Google’s Android platform have a lot of potential primarily because of the option of downloading different applications to the phone. Like with Apple’s iPhone, downloaded apps allow the mobile phone user to highly personalize the phone so that it serves all of the functions that the user seeks to be able to access. With Android, the applications can be located through the Android Market where software developers have been allowed to make their applications available to the few users who have already jumped on the Android phone platform bandwagon.

The downside of this for the software developers so far has been that all Android applications sold through the market were free to the mobile phone user. However, it was announced not too long ago that the Android Market would start selling premium for-pay apps on the site sometime this year. The latest rumor is that “sometime this year” could be as early as next week.

This means good news for the software developers who want to have an option for monetizing their innovative ideas through the Android Market. It also means good news for owners of a Google Android phone since they will now have access to better phone applications (for a fee). So far the only Android phone out there is the G1 phone available through T-Mobile (which is soon to get an upgrade that could coincide with the release of paid apps through the Android Market) but many other Google phones are in the works so the timing is right for the application options to grow.