Steam, the popular online service for distributing video games has been out for several years, but has not tapped into the mobile market yet, so fans and third parties are creating their own apps.
Steam for Android is developed by IBF Programs and allows Android users to browse game sales, get a summary of their Steam profile, keep up with friends and groups from the website, and view stats for all the games they play.
Kudos to the developers on the interface, which is very reminiscent of the recently released Android 4.0 operating system (Ice Cream Sandwich); it’s easy to keep track of everything and interact with your existing Steam community. Speaking of which, if you don’t already have a Steam player ID you’ll want to grab that first as you really can’t do much with the app without it.
If you spend a lot of time discussing games on Steam this should be a handy app, but if you don’t care about the community and just want to play you can safely skip it. iOS users can use the third-party app Gears.
Steam for Android is a free download from the Android Market.
Zombie_Plan
Monday, January 2, 2012 at 8:32 AMDoes it allow you to chat with your friends? That’s something that was missing in Gears.
Dracs
Monday, January 2, 2012 at 3:59 PMUntil Valve opens up an API for Steam Chat no application can do that.
mitch156
Monday, January 2, 2012 at 6:26 PMYet somehow imo does.
hellboy1975
Monday, January 2, 2012 at 9:12 PMNot sure what version of imo you’re using, but the version on my Android phone doesn’t have Steam chat…
mitch156
Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 8:20 PMOh okay, all I know is the web browser version does.
Kinemortophobia
Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 10:55 AMHere’s a web app that lets you do steam chat http://dev.pocketsteam.com except the only thing is that you have to share your password to it as I believe it uses the steam client on the server to do the chat
There was a apk for it too somewhere but it was very buggy last time I checked
duster
Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 3:36 PMShare your password? Can’t say I’d ever do that, my steam account is too valuable to me :(.
hellboy1975
Monday, January 2, 2012 at 12:53 PMI’d love a good steam app for Android, but as mentioned above without chat it’s kinda useless to me.
light487
Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 10:20 AMThe only thing this will do for me is make me jealous of those thousands of people who are not working while I am :)
Dan
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 11:59 PMI honestly don’t know why Valve haven’t released an Official Steam app.