RIM Attracts 15,000 Apps For BlackBerry 10 In 2 Days 193
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?
Re:Thankfully... (Score:4, Informative)
Maramalade? (Score:4, Informative)
So for those interested, it's spelled exactly like the stuff you put on toast. Info here.. [madewithmarmalade.com]
Re:so why would i buy a blackberry? (Score:4, Informative)
Email, mostly. It's much easier to type out an email message (or text, for that matter) on a physical keyboard than on a touchscreen. For me, that's a really big deal.
There's also an argument to be made about the Blackberry feeling more "industrial" or "professional" than iPhones or Androids. I don't particularly care about being able to play games or watch Netflix on my phone because I use my phone for business and for placing calls. I imagine I'm in the minority on that one though, because it seems like many people today view their phone as some all-in-one gaming machine that happens to make phone calls as well.
Personally, I can't wait to be able to ditch my Android and get back to a half-screen-half-keyboard Blackberry, provided the phone is responsive and the battery life is decent.
Re:Thankfully... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:The question is... (Score:4, Informative)
Quite relevant because what matters is the true count of useful applications - not the filler. By your reckoning (1:1000) that means RIM has 15 useful applications for BB10. Nothing to brag about. I've got 4 times that many very useful iOS apps on the devices I own and I've just scratched the surface. Android using friends of mine have dozens of useful apps on theirs.
More specifically it means that they have 15 useful applications *from this portathon*. I suspect the number to be higher - as it's fairly easy to port opengl games and html5 apps, outside of android apps.
They've already said they'll have over 70k apps at launch - it's not like this one-weekend event is their only effort to get applications on the platform. Unofficial estimates put them over 100k. That'll mean ~100 useful apps (if we stick with 1:1000) -- whhich is, frankly, on par with other platforms.
They've also previously said that they have 90% of the most popular 600 android and ios apps, and 18 of the top 20 apps .
Re:so why would i buy a blackberry? (Score:4, Informative)
instead of an iphone or one of the Galaxy phones?
do they do anything that iOS or Android does not?
Well, you cannot get your meeting schedules synced to your BMW without a Blackberry.
But with 10, I think RIM is losing one important selling point - the physical keyboard. -snip-.
No, RIM is releasing models with both all-touch and physical keyboards.