By Eric Zeman
Read the Original Article at InformationWeek

The Official PlayStation App for iOS and Android devices will be available "very soon," according to Sony. It will work on the iPhone and iPod Touch running iOS 4.0 and up. Android devices will need to have a minimum of Android 1.6 Donut in order to use the PlayStation apps.

Sony says that the application will allow users to:

1. Check out your PlayStation Network trophies and keep up to date with your friends’ games and online status. 2. Discover all the latest games, news and hardware for your PlayStation 3, PSP and PlayStation 2. 3. Read all the announcements on the European PlayStation.Blog. 4. Share your favorite products or news with your friends on Facebook, Twitter or via e-mail.

If you're wondering where the games are, you're not alone. Based on the screen shots on the PlayStation blog, it looks similar to how the PlayStation Network does from a PS3. Sony blew a big opportunity here.

Apple's iOS-based devices are excellent gaming platforms. The number of games targeted at them numbers in the tens of thousands. They are threatening Sony's own PSP mobile gaming device, as well as the DS line of portable gaming consoles from Nintendo.

Rather than provide Apple and Android devices with a Sony-branded gaming experience, it plans to use the app mostly for marketing purposes. I think gamers are smarter than that. They can get all the same information from their PS3, and what's more, they can actually make game purchases from their PS3.

Perhaps the only appeal is the social networking angle. The PlayStation app will allow PlayStation gamers to interact with one another 00 and their Twitter and Facebook friends -- from their phones (i.e., when they're not parked in front of their gaming console).

The app will be limited to a handful of European countries (UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and The Netherlands). Sony didn't say when or if the app will be made available to iPhone and Android users in the U.S.