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?
Isn’t revenue generated by download purchases? App developers getting 80% cut vs. Apple’s 70% payout seems like a better deal for app developers.
This is great news for all BB holders or will this only be for the Storm?
^Not much for reading comprehension, are you? Running for Prez on the Repug ticket?
@Infoman its just wording if the pay sells for 10dollars they get 20% of that revenue thats all its just WORDING
One of the things I have to seriously question about the App World concept for the Blackberry is it’s application to BES users. As it is with my shop, I would guess that most Blackberry users are tied to a BES. That means that, unless you have a very loose IT department, you are not going to just be able to download and install applications. I manage my companies BES and users can’t download any applications.
I can’t imagine that there are many BES admins that are going to allow this to take place. That would leave the App World mainly only usable to BIS users. Most BIS users are not corporate users, so it would seem that the apps in App World would be targeted toward the consumer market. Which means the apps would be primarily games and social networking in nature and not as much for the heavy corporate types. If you have to get permission to download and install every app from the store form your IT/Security department, that would seem to defeat the concept of an app store. IMHO of course.
Am I missing something here? Is this store only going to be useful for BIS users or BES users with a very lax security policy?
Now imagine that your app is a free download and that your revenue is generated from a successful subscription or activation of your software. According to RIM’s Dev agreement, they are requesting that you generate a report of all the revenue generated by the users who downloaded the app from APP World. They get 20% of that amount. If you compare the same scenario on Apple it is 0 dollars. They charge a percentage per download based on price. Basically what I am saying is that RIM will get a cut of pay and free apps.
@infoman: Why are iPhone developers charging anything for apps then? Why wouldn’t developers make all apps free downloads but charge for activation or subscription (or pre fart charges)?
sorry ‘per fart’ not ‘pre fart’
the pre fart will be when Palm launches an app store.
Being another BES admin I’m sure there will be a policy addition to either outright restrict or limit what apps users can get. Bigger issue is who pays for apps that are corporate owned?
If RIMM can get all their apps in one place it will be a big win just to show people a number of the popular apps on iPhone are available, not to mention often better due to background processing.
The curve and 8800 can easily hold 10-15 apps. Does anyone expect 8 pages of apps? How many things do you use daily? Considering most iPhone apps have a 2% retention rate I’d rather find a few good apps I use all the time.
All things are not rosey in AppStore world. Lot of unhappy developers with lack of payment from Apple.
my wife is on BES working for a big national law firm. they don’t have any application lockdowns.
Looks like all the manufacturers will be doing some kind of application store, get BREW and JAVA in the mix so we can get a little CDMA love
oh sweet i cant wait to bog down my storm by filling its 30 megs of open memory with colorful text-based apps instead of good apps that use the 1 gig of flash memory
oh and barely work because they arent utilizing onboard video acceleration
@gawke: Like I said Lax security. The whole point of using the BES and Blackberry devices is security. It’s certainly ain’t for the fun and games.
@Jake: I don’t get why everyone is so excited about java based applications. They are the same crap that Moto Razor apps are made of. Additionally, who wants to put 3rd party apps on a Storm when it can’t run the native apps properly. If you read the forums, they are constantly telling people to uninstall 3rd party stuff to get the device more stable.
Three words: Open source app developing (well 4 words). Is what RIM needs to overtake iPhone.
^Java/Brew-based crap only appeals to those using a Storm who came from feature-phone-land and cannot figure out what to do with a Blackberry besides talk, text, and play games.
In a real sense, I hope that Blackberry’s App World is -not- suited to that segment but to small enterprise.
Josh Self Said:
Three words: Open source app developing (well 4 words). Is what RIM needs to overtake iPhone.
___________________________________
Android has been open source since launch and hasn’t exactly overtaken iPhone or anyone else’s sales. Open source applications mean little to nothing to the masses. Linux has been open source as well and still hasn’t “overtaken” anyone.
If RIM is reading this thread… Does a developer need to signup for the $200/10 submissions plan PLUS pay $100/app API certificate fee?
So if a developer wants to do FREE apps, it’ll cost them $300 for the first app submission, right?
Don’t understand why a developer would also be required to count each of the apps as a submission (so if RIM rejects an app for whatever reason, and it’s resubmitted, it’ll waste one of the 10 submissions), also, version updates will also cost the developer another subission slot and $100 cert fee?
Seems like a bizarre money making scheme.
@infoman:
If I’m not mistaken (and I’m pretty sure I’m not), Apple has not previously included subscription or activation-based capabilities (”in-app purchases” as Apple calls them) in their API. They are including those capabilities with the release of the 3.0 firmware and API, and they are in fact charging a 30% commission on that revenue as well. Which will be, as mentioned before, 10% higher than what RIM will be charging.
So, everyone in the blog please sound off with me once again to infoman, “It is only the WORDING that is different.”
In my opinion the App Store is set to fail, due to the restrictions on what can be stored on the native memory or SD card memory. All users that I have talked that use either an Iphone or a Windows mobile phone said the space on a Blackberry is not enough to store all the apps that they use everyday. With my experience working in a corporate world and installing apps that require data to be stored on the phone, the device runs out of space. Example if you have a user install two applications that require data to be stored on the phone, the device will run out of space unless it is the new Bold. This is because of two reasons, the devices before the Bold only have 64mb or less for storage, and the software developers are not giving the user the option to store app data on the SD memory card.
It will be interesting to see what comes out of this. I wish someone would figure out a hack to allow the ability to install apps on the built-in 1gig that is on the Bold or on SD memory like you can on a Windows mobile device. Maybe someone can push RIM to open up this ability in the OS.
i’ll take any decently good app that’s free…that’s why i recently downloaded the FREE iHeartRadio app. from the BlackBerry App World =) i think its worth the time to DL and the space. since then ive been less dependent on my ipod and thats also one less thing to carry around. i especially like how it’s easy to use and navigate
Why all this hub ub. When I got my storm I had a few probs. Clock always running. Shut down the apps retard. Appworld opened, then it was delete what you dont use and download. Have not had a problem and dont have to sift through apps to find the ones I actually use. And when I open the app, it works great. Not always true with the free apps from Apple on my Ipod Touch. Sold it today beacaue now I have all I need. Thank you Blackberry Storm Developers