Amazon Underground Offers Thousands of Dollars of Free Apps

— -- Amazon is turning the idea of an app store upside down.

The retailer is taking aim at the Google Play app store with its latest venture called Amazon Underground which claims to offer more than $10,000 worth of Android apps free of charge.

"Many apps that are marked as 'free" turn out to not be completely free. They use in-app payments to charge you for special items or to unlock features or levels," an announcement from Amazon said.

Many popular Android titles including everything from premium services such as PhotoSuite 4 and OfficeSuite Professional 8 are available via Amazon Underground, along with a slew of games that may otherwise have in-app purchases, including Angry Birds Slingshot Stella and Frozen Free Fall.

Amazon said it was able to work out the new model for an app store by reaching a compensation agreement with developers.

"We're paying them a certain amount on a per-minute played basis in exchange for them waiving their normal in-app fees," Amazon explained in a letter to customers. "To be clear, we're the ones picking up those per minute charges so for you it's simply free."

According to documentation on Amazon's website, the retailer will pay $0.0020 in the US for every minute a person uses a developer's app, with aggregate usage time being calculated every day down to the millisecond and then rounding the total payout to the nearest penny.

Want to check it out? Users can download the Amazon Underground app, which will act as their portal to the free bounty of apps.

While free may sound nice, users can still expect to see some advertisements on occasion when launching or resuming the app.