OpenAppMkt is a new App Store alternative that takes full advantage of iPhone web apps, which means that no jailbreak is required.

Remember when the iPhone first came out and Steve was praising those web apps? Well OpenAppMkt gathered some of them and packed them up in a nice and convenient web app.

To install OpenAppMkt simply point Safari to http://www.OpenAppmkt.com/ and follow the onscreen instructions.

Installing OpenAppMkt won’t install anything but a Safari bookmark on your iPhone homescreen. Hitting the bookmark will take you to OpenAppMkt web app from where you’ll be able to browse web apps and install their bookmarks on your homescreen.

To be clear, these are just web apps. by installing any of these apps, you aren’t actually installing anything but a Safari bookmark on your homescreen.

I love the concept and its implementation. You sure are limited to what you can do with a web app but OpenAppMkt is a nice and convenient alternative to the App Store or even Cydia.

Update: A few people are missing the point here. I’m going to quote Mike Masnick from TechDirt who sums up why OpenAppMkt is good and different:

Overall, this fascinates me for two reasons. First, it’s good to get more people realizing that HTML is already pretty damn good at creating app-style experiences, without having to create special compiled code and, second, it’s a really clever way to totally route around Apple as a gatekeeper (without requiring a jailbreak), and is a reminder that even on “closed” systems, openness will often find a way.

[TechDirt via B00b1]