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RIM Attracts 15,000 Apps For BlackBerry 10 In 2 Days
CWmike writes "It's starting to look like the BlackBerry store will be well stocked with apps when Research In Motion launches BlackBerry 10 (see YouTube preview) at the end of this month. The company held an event over the weekend where it offered app developers incentives to port their programs to the BlackBerry 10 platform and managed to attract 15,000 app submissions. 'Well there you have it. 37.5 hours in, we hit 15,000 apps for this portathon. Feel like I've run a marathon. Thanks to all the devs!' wrote Alec Saunders, vice president of developer relations at RIM, in a Twitter message. The 'port-a-thon' event was held in two parts: One aimed at Android developers and the other at apps written in other platforms, including Appcelerator, Maramalade, Sencha, jQuery, PhoneGap and Qt. RIM was offering $100 for each app ported and subsequently approved for sale in the BlackBerry 10 app store, up to certain limits. Developers could also win BlackBerry 10 development handsets and a trip to RIM's BlackBerry Jam Europe developer event." It's hard to believe that many current iOS or Android users are leaping toward Blackberry, though. If you're in one of those camps, is that so crazy?
How many of those 15,000 "apps" are actually useful, and how many are just worthless single-site frontends?
instead of an iphone or one of the Galaxy phones?
do they do anything that iOS or Android does not?
The idea is that BB10 supports those frameworks already. Some ports are as simple as setting up the tools and clicking a button. Hopefully the more complex ones are given the time they need.
If you're a developer / company with an existing BB app, and you see that your product is about to be EOL'd because there's an new OS coming out, then it be prudent to port your app to the new version. Presumably at least some existing apps make money on RIM devices. I have no idea what's involved in the port - whether it's a refactoring of codebase or complete re-write, but 15,000 apps that want to keep pulling money in the door sounds relatively low compared to the total number in iOS or driod stores...
Be careful soon the RIM fanbois will be out saying bad things about you for admitting this. It can't possibly be that there is something wrong with BES, no it has to be every person to ever admin it was incompetent and untrained.
So essentially, BlackBerry have paid $1.5 million in order to have a few thousand apps (of indeterminate utility) in their store for launch.
FTFA:
"RIM was offering US$100 for each app ported and subsequently approved for sale in the BlackBerry 10 app store"
This isn't any indication that people are leaving their favorite fondle-slab for RIM's.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Be careful soon the RIM fanbois will be out saying bad things about you for admitting this. It can't possibly be that there is something wrong with BES, no it has to be every person to ever admin it was incompetent and untrained.
RIM fanbois?...thinks for awhile....you mean employees?
I am wondering how long will it takes to review all of those apps ....
is there a alt community store for FLOSS ?
because, mine is a meego's basic (but helpful) text editor and it is pending since sunday ...
and I am ready to share sources ...
--
http://rzr.online.fr/q/qnx
-- http://rzr.online.fr/
Everybody complains about new platforms not having enough apps (even if it's in the dozens of thousands already) so companies react by trying to attract lots of apps (no matter how bad they are).
Now everybody complains that the apps are crap. So what do you want: quality or quantity? Can't pick both.
I would rather go for a smallish app environment with decent apps than the load of crap there is in Android right now.
That's my thinking. If all you have to do is a quick rejig and recompile because the APIs are so close to the Android ones, then it's a near-zero effort situation. I don't know much about the new platform, but I thought I had read that it would support Android apps out of the box, so it may literally may be just pushing a button.
Not that there's a damned wrong with that. If Android compatibility or portability is good enough, then you already have thousands of apps ready to go and you don't need to put massive amounts of effort into convincing developers to support your platform (like Redmond is doing).
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Here I will call them out for you:
BES sucks, getting rid of it was a huge win for the entire sysadmin team. We no longer had to repush servicebooks or restart the BES just so one user could start to get emails again. Doing that last one was painful because then the other BES users, who did not read the email about the pending restart, would call in to inform us that they were not getting mail during the restart. We no longer have to send back devices that for no known reason will never allow themselves to be setup for BES or any of those other headaches.
That should get them going pretty good.
After going through hoop after hoop to try to release an app to their store including notarized this, and documented that... for a FREE FRIGGING APP, I gave up when they told me that I needed to submit a business plan to them. I couldn't believe it.
Our BES server was retired last year. First it was turned into a temporary camera server, until we decided a Win7 desktop with a good video card could handle it better. Then it was turned into some weird printer app server for a while, until we decided that a desktop could handle that better too. We thought about virtualizing it, just in case someone ever wanted to get a Blackberry again, then we realized how dumb that was and decommissioned it for good.
A shame, it was one of the least temperamental servers we had.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Because 100 dollars is a fortune! I mean, it would get you a whole hour of my time! I will EAT TONIGHT!
The smart developer doesn't restrict himself to one platform, especially in a market that already has seen major shifts.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I wonder if Angry Birds is one og those apps. The presence of an Angry Birds port on a platform is pretty much the barometer of whether that platform is worth a damn or not. BlackBerry was done in the past few years by a complete failure to effectively respond to the paradigm shift of the original iPhone. Compounding their problems, all their competitors are sporting MS Exchange capability, and some form of mobile device management without a high cost, dedicated 3rd party server. BB10 will need to kick ass to make a dent in the market...
Most of those "apps" are probably some kind of web content that was run through a packaging system to turn it into an "app".
Guess a typo in TFA got carried over into TFS. I was trying to search out all these SDK's and google got confused..
So for those interested, it's spelled exactly like the stuff you put on toast. Info here..
RIM is popular in Africa:
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21567977-its-devices-are-still-popular-there-africa-wont-save-rim-blackberry-babes
And for your amusement, check out this genius sketch from Ronnie Corbett, "My Blackberry is not Worlking" [Credit: BBC - thanks Beeb!]:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI
Android apps don't even work consistently between different phones and different versions of Android. I have no expectation that you could just hit recompile and have your app work flawlessly (or as well as it did on Android devices) on BlackBerry devices. It just isn't going to happen.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
And Nokia with Maemo/Meego, and Canonical with Ubuntu mobile, and so on. In the other hand, HP could join the effort having common api calls with Plasma Active, Sailfish and Ubuntu mobile. In fact, WebOS could too, and run basically the same apps in all those platforms (probably will require recompilation for/from BB). And a common ecosystem could provide a lot of apps for all the involved parties.
That's my thinking. If all you have to do is a quick rejig and recompile because the APIs are so close to the Android ones, then it's a near-zero effort situation. I don't know much about the new platform, but I thought I had read that it would support Android apps out of the box, so it may literally may be just pushing a button.
Not that there's a damned wrong with that. If Android compatibility or portability is good enough, then you already have thousands of apps ready to go and you don't need to put massive amounts of effort into convincing developers to support your platform (like Redmond is doing).
BB10 contains the Android Player, which essentially runs repackaged Android APK files (I'm don't know if the reason for the different package format is technical or not). This is different from the native APIs, but the user experience is quite seamless. I "ported" one of my apps to the Playbook, and it was not even a recompile - it is a package converter.
In all honest, Blackberry even as it stands now has better integration, infrastructure, and toe-holds in the enterprise market for mobile than Microsoft will ever get with respect to mobile. So, yeah - they'll do well and they'll steal market share that Microsoft might otherwise have gotten - and really needs. Look for BB to outsell MS in the mobile space once again with BB10.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Blackberry was the dominant smartphone. While many scoff at the keyboard, this phone was first and foremost meant for business. Whatever else you could say, it worked and depending on how you managed your apps and OS configuration, it had a superior life to any of today's phone. In this world everything is possible and Blackberry could get a boost in sales if their hardware and usability have kicked a notched up to match Android/IOS phones and most of all, have a superior battery life. I would go back in a heartbeat!
And you know this because you're an industry insider who's gotten a demo unit to play with? Oh wait, no you're not, you've never touched a BB10 device either and you're just talking out of your butt.
The only way they'll do that is if they skimp on the screen. A small or low res screen can be used with a smaller backlight. My Android phone will last nearly a week if I don't use it. It'll only go about 4 or so hours with the screen on. It's not like Blackberry have some energy saving magic no one else has access to. Their older phones with keyboards sacrificed screen size for the keyboard, giving them less screen space to illuminate.
RIM may not have the largest customer base, but BlackBerry users do actually *buy* apps (unlike Android...)
And the apps are a joy to develop, at least if you have a real BB10 to test with (I do: I have a Dev Alpha). I get a choice between Eclipse and QT Creator for my C/C++, and a huge range of libraries. The platform is QL, and now Nokia have sold that to Digia, QT is coming to Android and Win8 phone in Q3, so I can port even C++ apps between platforms easily.
What's not to like?
I figured someone would describe a bit about how to develop for the BB. Of course this being slashot we have instead fanboi rants from all directions. In any case, you can see it here:
https://developer.blackberry.com/develop/platform_choice/bb10.html
C/C++
Java
C++/QT
AIR
HTML5
are supported.
At this rate Blackberry will exceed Apple and Google's 700,000 applications in 73 days!
RIM is back on top!
I've never owned a Blackberry. But I like interesting OSes, and I like marketplace diversity. It's this sort of stuff that makes it interesting to own a device.
I have an iPhone 4. The only Android device that's tempted me at all so far is one of the recently announced Sonys (waterproof, ANT+, Sony's typically good camera) and that's about it. The current state of the market offers me very little that's meaningful in my day-to-day life, and so phones are kind of boring. Samsung vs. Apple. Android vs. iOS vs. WP8! It's Meh vs. Meh if you ask me.
I stick with iOS because it's a Mac household, I have other iOS devices, and my friends and family have iPhones. iMessage and Facetime are staples for me. It'll take an awful lot to pry me away from that.
But that said, if the new Blackberry is interesting enough, I'll give it a serious look. The small players have to work harder to make things interesting, and RIM is now a legitimate 'small' player in this market. It's a bit do-or-die, so I expect some interesting stuff.
It's voice technology that competes with SIRI would be fantastic!
"Hey hoser, in aboot 100 metres take a left eh?"
It's hard to believe that many current iOS or Android users are leaping toward Blackberry, though.
This is a very naive comment.
The author may have a point when it comes to technically aware and OS-loyal Slashdot readers, but the average consumer really isn't interested. A significant number of Android owners barely use the web browser on their phone, much less a significant number of apps. They have absolutely no barrier to platform-hopping if the new BB looks good when they come to renew their contract. iOS users are a bit more loyal, but even they could be swayed by the next shiny.
There's a pretty significant subset of the Android API that's not supported, but if you're app doesn't use any of those then it should be as simple as clicking compile. Frankly I'm surprised they got so many taker, Amazon has an app store that literally only requires a re-upload of the file you sent to the Google Play Store and yet it has a tiny fraction of the apps, I figured a recompile would be too much work (and for the majority of apps it probably will be in the long run).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
It works. A colleague of mine ported our android banking application to playbook in an hour and it worked. Making it work on all billion versions of android is another story :).
4 hours later.....nothing. Also, our organization was also thrilled to do away with the BES, which was constantly broken or in need of a reboot (constantly = weekly at a minimum).
The old Nexus S is starting to show its age - and I don't just mean the scuffs and the cracked screen - so I'm shopping.
Like many folks here, the lack of a real keyboard annoys me. I do tend to draft e-mails that are more than one or two sentences long, and the on-screen keyboard just doesn't cut it. My last phone was a Moto Charm, sort of a low powered android BB clone, and having real clicky keys was SO much better.
As for apps, the sad fact is that 90% of them are crap. Including many from large corporations. I tend to judge by comparing anything to the Craigslist app - a model of simplicity, speed, and ease of use - better than the real CL site. I can't fathom why every narrow focus app isn't the same, and I'm still amazed that people have time to develop multiple skins for an app that is otherwise half-baked.
What I'll be looking for in the new BB is a mobile computing tool/phone that is aimed at real live business stuff, not Angry Birds or iTunes. I'll be looking at how well it integrates with Gmail, Calendar, and other G-services, and how easy it is to create documents.
Three Squirrels
Yes, but many of the apps are free because there's no point trying to sell them... Unless you are very lucky or have a huge marketing budget, you either make Android apps for market visibility or in the hope that you might make something from the app advertising.
Maybe not, but I have a BB10 phone already. It's a pretty decent device, re-written from the ground up, natively supports ActiveSync, etc. Don't judge it based on old BlackBerrys.
I bought a Blackberry Playbook that I am really enjoying for the princely sum of $131.00, so this is good news.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Well damn, last time I said something like this I had folks claiming those errors were only encountered by folks not knowing what they were doing.
The BES server is the server that I reboot anytime of the day because users just don't seem to notice it being down for 5 minutes. I mean hell, MS Outlook only checks for emails every couple of minutes anyway yeah?
And as far as devices that won't add themselves, 99% of the time I've found that to be a telephone carrier problem. Either tower network issues or somebody bought the wrong data plan. Usually the wrong data plan.
I've had 250 users on our one BES server in prime time BB usage, and while I never loved it... I never loved hearing my support guys giving guesses at Android mail setup instructions since the Androids out there all seem to have slightly different setup options. At least BB and more often than not iPhones are fairly consistent.
Well damn, last time I said something like this I had folks claiming those errors were only encountered by folks not knowing what they were doing.
In our case, that would have included RIM. They were constantly in our servers trying to make adjustments, or claiming that the new version would resolve all those glitches. Finally the new version did resolve all those issues, because it wasn't BES anymore. It was replaced (I think with activesync).
It is necessary but not sufficient for RIM to attract App developers by offering $100 for each app ported and subsequently approved for sale in the BlackBerry 10 app store.