BlackBerry App World to launch April 1st?
Unless BusinessWeek is trying to get a head start on April Fool’s Day festivities, it looks as if BlackBerry App World, RIM’s answer to the iTunes App Store, is set to launch on April 1st. This of course it the very same day that CTIA Wireless officially kicks off. While we have openly criticized the pricing structure of App World, we are rather excited to see it launch — it’ll be a good test of RIM’s true potential in both its relationship with third-party developers and its overall reception with consumers who are so desperate for BlackBerry applications akin to those that are very popular on other major platforms. If App World proves to be a success, than kudos to RIM for managing to pull off a very impressive feat. What do you guys think — excited for some on-device app love or is RIM wasting its time in your eyes?
Please have a method to keep the iFart apps to a minimum.
RIM has been dropping the ball a lot lately, so I am hoping for a slam dunk with this. I am not sure about the pricing options, as well, BG. Lets hope this is great and they launch the Niagara with a nice, fast, stable OS.
@1adonis1: That would require keeping the same low-brow WinMo developers who migrated to iPhone from migrating to Blackberry.
I’m prepared to be underwhelmed.
I look forward to not being able to load anything onto my memory challenged 8830.
Wouldn’t the submission fee help keep the low-brows and iFart apps to a minimum?
yay, tiny apps will be sold for too much money.
The submission fee might keep some of the stupid apps out but I think you will see most of them no matter what the fee is. Plenty of kids on BB now, especially the ones who don’t see the need for a data plan.
Who cares how many “stupid” apps are available [outside of the inherent haters, that is
]? No one is holding a loaded gun to anyone’s head to purchase. Draw the line at insuring available apps are fully –stable– across all supported OS versions and let the market decide the rest.
Carriers need to get more next-gen devices out ASAP, in order for this store to succeed. Apple’s app store is a success because the phones are ready to be loaded up with all this stuff. I’d like to know the percentage of BB’s that can actually make good, constant use of the store..
I know my Pearl is barely able to run its own OS, let alone apps.
I make good constant use of Crackberry’s store now. Who says anything about being forced to buy any app. We’re talking about being forced to plow through hundreds of useless apps to find the gems.
Well, I definitely saw this coming. This is something RIM must do to stay competitive with the iPhone. They needed a central place to get Apps. As it stands now, there are only a few places to find the apps and the way they are presented is terrible. A little behind Apple. iTunes released the App Store in July 2008 and I believe the first version of iTunes came out in 2001. This wasn’t jsut a good idea for RIM, this was a must.
LOL@Pearl
Who is forcing anyone to “plow” through “useless” apps [by your definition] to find the gems? Any retail-level store allows a customer to sort their search as they see fit. Even the cheezy Crackberry rehash-of-a-store.
would be nice if in addition to this RIM gave developers more access to the OS so not only would we see more apps but we’d see more robust and able apps. I saw an awesome threaded text app for BB but because RIM wont give developers access to the SMS portion of the OS it was EXTREMELY limited in what it could do.
Unlucky!
A true threaded sms program is really needed. It’s about the only thing I miss from my iPhone.
i’m excited for this and I hope it works well. The only thing I dont like about it already is the pricing scheme. If I recall correctly, the apps are going to be expensive.
Waiting patiently for this to launch, as I’m very interested to see what becomes available.
Curious
RIM’s App World, and MicroSofts Marketplace are never going to be as successful as the Apple app store.
People can already buy RIM and WinMob apps from reputable online stores like Handago, but what makes the app store a success is the sheer volume of available apps (even if 90% are crap, thats still close to 3,000 good apps).
Developers have had years to build RIM apps, and they’ve chosen not to… plain and simple… putting up a storefront without any wares is fool-hardy.
As a blackberry developer I must say I disagree with the negative comments. We are very excited about the appworld and are ramping up development of some really nice things for it.
I don’t think my 8830 would be able to handle this.
Any word if you can load the apps onto the memory card?
^As has always been the case, apps are not/cannot be stored on the memory card.
I’m personally looking forward to it. Yes, right now there are several other apps stores out there but they have no where near the amount of apps in them that are actually available for the blackberry. Apple got it right by making it easy for the consumer to FIND an application, while making it easy for the developers to have a common store where ALL the customers go. RIM needed this and I’m thinking it will be good. Right now, it’s too difficult to find the “gems” for a BB. They are scattered all over the place. The App Store will change that.
AS successful? This is an issue of EGO.
Profitable is all that matters. And that Im sure they’ll be.
DIRE, desperate need of threaded SMS. Desperate. Its the last reason I don’t use my Bold. Thats right, my bold is a glorified door phone to buzz people in with; I use my G1, because it has threaded, shazaam, shopsavvy, etc.
THREADED!!!! Native!!!
I think it will fail and here is why. If you look at the RIM developers agreement it states the following: Vendor shall pay to RIM twenty percent (20%) of application revenue. Uh…, are you kidding me!! Not per download, but application revenue! That could be a huge impact on revenue for companies trying to launch an application. RIM is not thinking clearly, maybe they need the $$, but sticking it to the developers is not the answer.