A few hours ago, I talked to a friend who’d just purchased the T-Mobile G1 phone this morning in Atlanta. He was pleased with it so far and said he was impressed to see Bank of America available on day one through Google‘s Android Market.
Apparently, BofA was the only app in the Finance section this morning (see inset). However, that will change rapidly as the store opens to other developers next week. Thanks to Alan Martin for the screenshots.
The bank’s Android app looks like the other mobile versions. It includes online banking access and an ATM/branch locator that uses built-in, location-based services (see pictures below).
I also read several blog reports of successful downloads of the BofA app. However, when visiting the Android market website, the BofA app is not shown amongst the 40-some programs currently available. Apparently, the public market website is different than the app market accessible through the phone. I guess I’ll have to hit the T-Mobile store tomorrow to see for myself.
Congratulations to BofA for again beating its U.S. competitors in mobile deployment. It now has a three-peat in recent smartphone application launches:
- First iPhone application in Apple directory (non-native) in Nov. 2007
- First bank with iPhone native app via app store in July
- First bank with Google android app in app market
For more info on the market, see our Online Banking Report on Mobile Banking.
