An Experiment In BlackBerry Development

ballwall writes "We've all read the stories about how lucrative selling apps on the iPhone can be (or not), but what about other platforms? BlackBerry accounts for twice as many handsets shipped as Apple, according to Gartner, so I decided to find out. I wrote about my experiences developing my first BlackBerry application including sales, platform issues, and a bunch of other things I thought new mobile developers might want to know about."

Comments

UTMA accounts

[tepples]

there are a proportion of users for both platforms that are weary of giving out credit card information, either A) they can't get a credit card because they are too young (and there are large amount of iPhone/Blackberry users who are 16/17)

In most cases, a seller who asks for a credit card will take a debit card. Banks in most U.S. states will open a checking account in the name of "$adult as custodian for $child under UTMA" which reverts to $child a few years later, and checking accounts nowadays tend to come with VISA check cards.

or B) are afraid that their identity might be stolen

Do they pay cash for groceries? For car payments?

Re:UTMA accounts

[Darkness404]

In most cases, a seller who asks for a credit card will take a debit card. Banks in most U.S. states will open a checking account in the name of "$adult as custodian for $child under UTMA" which reverts to $child a few years later, and checking accounts nowadays tend to come with VISA check cards.

Yes, but these aren't the "financially responsible independent working for all the fancy phones" kind of kids, but rather, "mom and dad are never home so to compensate buy their kids all the fancy gadgets" type who usually have iPhones and Blackberries.

Do they pay cash for groceries? For car payments?

The thing is the media has them so convinced that their identity will be stolen to the point where buying anything online sounds risky to them. I don't know how many times I've had to convince someone that no, wal-mart isn't going to steal your identity when you buy online from them (over HTTPS of course) nor that some E-Bay seller when you pay with PayPal will hack into your bank accounts. On the other hand these people have no problem with handing credit cards to a waitress for them to do whatever with it. But the fact that its online scares them. I've never really understood it myself considering that more people have been scammed in person than online.

fail

[binaryseraph]

So I just tried for the last 5 Minutes to make a joke out of this, as I do with every other post... but I failed. There is nothing funny here. *shakes fist*

Move along... this is not the comedy you are looking for.