[papped]

So YES!!! Developers will decide NOT to develop for platforms if the installation of the SDK is bad enough. Furthermore these packaged have to be maintained so it isn't a one-time installation.

The RIM development setup isn't nearly as fragmented as the Symbian, so the point is moot (I stated Symbian to point out that userbase size was not the determining factor, nothing else).

The java versions other than the JDE itself I have not had to update once in the last few years for a JDE of the same OS platform... So yeah, you might have to reinstall a new JDE self install executable, or update the eclipse plugin (having to update eclipse itself is not RIM's issue if you are going that route).

[reeneebob]

Agreed. Most apps are for kids or people who are easily amused. I find most of them boring and just plain stupid for the most part. I have just recently gotten a blackberry and I am totally happy with it. I had an android for a week and was not impressed with it. It was a data and battery hog and I had to watch it like a hawk. My blackberry gets great battery life, good internet and and some decent apps to boot. It does everything important and some fun that any android does.

This is the type of comment that really irks me. I am 36 years old. My husband is 35. Both of us are gone from BB and won't be back anytime soon. We both have a tonne of apps on our Android phones. Many are very productive, some are just fun. I guess I am just an immature, moronic child. The new gen OS better bring it's A game because RIM can't keep releasing phones everyone else already released 2 years ago.

Did it ever occur to you that maybe some of us just got sick of waiting for RIM to step up? Or the clock of death waiting for the phone to do something? My mother's Torch isn't any better in that regard, so please don't try to school me in how modern Berries work. I am the tech support for her Torch and my sisters 9700. I know how modern Berries work. And I am still unimpressed.

Just because some of us like app selection doesn't make us immature or mentally handicapped in some way, and your dismissive comment sounded exactly like that was the reason why we lowly idiots don't use a BB anymore.

[dtrue05]

I definitely don't regret getting my blackberry at all. All the 3rd party apps I have work just fine, except for angry farm I can't have anything running if I wanna play the game. But other than that I have no problems with my bb and apps. The way I see it if you wanna download a bunch of apps a lot of which are useless then buy a droid or iphone. Bbs have a ton of apps, most of the apps I've used for my bb were available on other phones as well.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[dodger_moore]

This is the type of comment that really irks me. I am 36 years old. My husband is 35. Both of us are gone from BB and won't be back anytime soon. We both have a tonne of apps on our Android phones. Many are very productive, some are just fun. I guess I am just an immature, moronic child. The new gen OS better bring it's A game because RIM can't keep releasing phones everyone else already released 2 years ago.

Did it ever occur to you that maybe some of us just got sick of waiting for RIM to step up? Or the clock of death waiting for the phone to do something? My mother's Torch isn't any better in that regard, so please don't try to school me in how modern Berries work. I am the tech support for her Torch and my sisters 9700. I know how modern Berries work. And I am still unimpressed.

Just because some of us like app selection doesn't make us immature or mentally handicapped in some way, and your dismissive comment sounded exactly like that was the reason why we lowly idiots don't use a BB anymore.

Consider that uncouth young scallywag, Tony1988, well and truly told

I love reading rants like this, sending the young man away with a flea in his ear!

[papped]

Just because some of us like app selection doesn't make us immature or mentally handicapped in some way, and your dismissive comment sounded exactly like that was the reason why we lowly idiots don't use a BB anymore.

Weren't you advocating webos hardcore for quite a while on this board? Isn't that kind of counterintuitive if you value app selection so highly?

[jlspeed29]

and this is what happens when people buy smartphones to play games and do "cool" stuff....


when I'm in the elevator at work and everyone pulls out their phones...I'd say 3/5 of the phones I see are BBs...and they are not playing angry birds. they are checking their emails ( i know, cause im looking hahaha!) ...this is what the traditional user of a smartphone USED to be...now if they play angry birds on the crapper thats another story! hahaha...actually if they have a BB then no angry birds =( haha

[reeneebob]

Weren't you advocating webos hardcore for quite a while on this board? Isn't that kind of counterintuitive if you value app selection so highly?

I did love WebOS while I had it - and had access to a tonne of apps with Preware. So your argument doesn't really apply...

Definitely had more apps than with BBOS. I only left WebOS because my husbands POS Berry died, and I had the hardware upgrade so I got a new phone and he inherited the Pre. I would have left when I won the SGS because that would have been stupid but I was very happy with my Pre.

As far as email - I get it as fast as I ever did on BB, it's not truncated, and I use my phone as a smartphone first. Email, SMS, Facebook. If I fire up Angry Birds while waiting at the doctors office, so be it. But why people still go to this stupid BB are for grownups and all others are toyeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!11!!!1!!!!!1!! place is beyond me.

[papped]

Ive used Preware.... The application "amount" is rather inflated.

And no webos does not have more applications. Preware count is somewhere in the neighborhood of a few thousand...

Also this negates the fact that webos developers use Preware as a launchpad for betas before they transfer them to the actual store (so it's a ton of duplication and a ton of OS patches that are not applications by a long shot).

[Xopher]

I know from my own development experience on the BB platform that it is not the easiest. It's not hard, either. The fragmentation does have its affects, though. Multiple OS versions, various screen sizes, touch, non-touch, CDMA/GSM, and the few devices that have OpenGL.

How many times have there been new apps posted where people start complaining because there isn't a Storm version (even if it follows a little while later)? There was even an app that was on the home page about 182.97 months ago where the app worked great on GSM BBs, but wouldn't work on CDMA versions. The company was based in Germany and didn't have a CDMA network to test on. The processor in the GSM models can process sounds, so there are guitar tuner apps for them. Their CDMA counterparts can't process sounds, so you can have a Curve on one carrier where the app will work, while not working on another.

A developer needs to do a lot more testing on BlackBerry. It doesn't surprise me that some developers don't want to work with BlackBerry. The ones that do make some incredible apps.

[reeneebob]

At the time I was using WebOS, yes, it was fine for apps compared to BBOS. Have BB finally expanded? Yes, they have.

I had a problem with the comment that people who look for apps are juvenile or puerile in their behavior or tastes. It has nothing to do why I went Android, and I'm not sure where you got that from. I left BB and went Android because I was sick of the OS and the battery pulls, and the pain in the **** browser. That said, do I have a tonne of apps on my phone? Yes. Do I use them all, most. Do I like the selection? Yes. Is it the reason I am using Android? No.

[dodger_moore]

Let it go.

[Ferretling]

I don't feel left out either.

While there are some things I might like to have on my phone ... okay, really, the only thing I really am wanting on my phone is Sprint's Music Store to work and that's another issue entirely... Thing is, there are plenty of apps I have found to make it productive, and plenty of apps I have found that are fun. Cool? I don't have a cell phone to be cool. I have a cell phone because I want a cell phone. Yeah, I'll take it out and show stuff to people, and yeah, my nieces and nephews aren't "wowed" by it, all of them, because they have iTouches or whatever those things are... and can video chat, but then, I wouldn't want much to video chat all the time...

But they DO think it is cool that my phone has the Ewok Song on it as a ringer.

So, you know, as long as my phone can play Ewoks and Imperial Marches and lightsabers and TARDISes and Chelsea Dagger... well, my phone is a cool phone.

And if anyone tells me that MY phone is otherwise, they're welcome to take it up with my nieces and nephews.

[Webby]

I felt left out that's why I left. I do miss it though.

[mssca]

Do you guys feel like your left out because you have a BlackBerry, i mean we have no cool apps, and if there's a cool app we get it last or a half a** remake like angry farm which totally blows with poor sound and twitchy graphics and now live profile which i think will kill bbm. i am pretty new to BlackBerry, 5 months now and i am starting to regret getting my torch and its not the phone itself, i came from a Motorola VA76R. i thought bbm was gonna be the sh** and people were like ya man bbm ftw and all the people that talked about bbm just send sms messages. i just had to get this off my chest and i wanted to know if you guys feel the same. sorry for the rant stick a fork in me cause i am done

The ONLY reason why I do not go for an iPhone is I am addicted to the physical keyboard of the Blackberry. If it is not for the physical keyboard, I would go for the iPhone for sure... the add on keyboards for iPhone make the phone thicker and drains the battery fast...

Keyboard is the only reason why I am with BlackBerry.

There are many useful apps missing from BlackBerry... for example, Calgary Transit app is not working on my BB so I have wait in the cold -40C in Canadian third world level transit buses to arrive at my stop. I have no way of knowing if the bus is late without having access to a computer because the WibKit browser sometimes crash on Transit website AND the old browser can't even load the page at all.

There is an iPhone APP for Calgary Transit!!!!

[dodger_moore]

The ONLY reason why I do not go for an iPhone is I am addicted to the physical keyboard of the Blackberry. If it is not for the physical keyboard, I would go for the iPhone for sure... the add on keyboards for iPhone make the phone thicker and drains the battery fast...

Keyboard is the only reason why I am with BlackBerry.

There are many useful apps missing from BlackBerry... for example, Calgary Transit app is not working on my BB so I have wait in the cold -40C in Canadian third world level transit buses to arrive at my stop. I have no way of knowing if the bus is late without having access to a computer because the WibKit browser sometimes crash on Transit website AND the old browser can't even load the page at all.

There is an iPhone APP for Calgary Transit!!!!

If you had the iPhone with the app you'd be moaning that you couldn't operate the touch screen with gloves on, saying 'I have no way of knowing because my touch screen doesn't work in -40C and the battery doesn't last! The BlackBerry works in -40c and has a keyboard that I can use!'

If the situation was that severe, I would use my BB to phone someone to get the info on the Calgary Transit situation for me.

[thebbnoob]

To me, I'm kinda disappointed in the apps. The only reason I got a Torch over an iPhone 4 once my Storm 2 contract expired was because of emailing and BBM. Now I've realised I just ignore all BBM messages because people do nothing but broadcast spam, and other non sense. The other reason was emailing, which I use too, but now not so often. Everything else I use on the phone or wanted to use I believe is better or on the iPhone. I probably could have got the iPhone 4 on a new contract, and try to find a decent, cheap sim deal for my Storm 2 just for BBM/emailing. Probably a bad idea, the Storm 2 was used a backup when I'm going to places far, it just sits in my drawer now.

[iN8ter]

I know from my own development experience on the BB platform that it is not the easiest. It's not hard, either. The fragmentation does have its affects, though. Multiple OS versions, various screen sizes, touch, non-touch, CDMA/GSM, and the few devices that have OpenGL.

How many times have there been new apps posted where people start complaining because there isn't a Storm version (even if it follows a little while later)? There was even an app that was on the home page about 182.97 months ago where the app worked great on GSM BBs, but wouldn't work on CDMA versions. The company was based in Germany and didn't have a CDMA network to test on. The processor in the GSM models can process sounds, so there are guitar tuner apps for them. Their CDMA counterparts can't process sounds, so you can have a Curve on one carrier where the app will work, while not working on another.

A developer needs to do a lot more testing on BlackBerry. It doesn't surprise me that some developers don't want to work with BlackBerry. The ones that do make some incredible apps.

And yet when they make the App for other (better) platforms, the app is even more incredible...

[iN8ter]

I love all the wanna-be developer idiots in this thread who think people are referring to setting up an SDK, when they have probably never written an app for Blackberries, or even tried.

Android is fragmented, yes, but it's not hard to target FroYo and hit pretty much every factorable device out there (can get like 90% of them if you target Eclair 2.1).

Blackberries are a completely different beast.

For Blackberries depending on what type of app you are developing, you have to account for:

- OS Version
- Application Storage (A large app is useless on Blackberries with 256 App Storage running OS6 (9700/9300) cause no one will install it due to storage limitations) - without App2SD support, developing GOOD games for current Blackberries is a waste of time because of this... Good games are large (high res graphics models, lots of sound files, etc.)
- System RAM (can be a bottleneck for some apps)
- The Existence of WiFi
- The Existence of GPS
- The Existence of a Camera
- The Existence of a GPU/OpenGL Support
- The Existence of a Touchscreen
- The Existence of a Hardware Keyboard
- Network type (CDMA/GSM)
etc.

Developers are used to setting up SDKs and the like. It may be a PITA, but that's TRIVIAL compared to the amount of testing you have to do on BB compared to other platforms.

The Emulator can only get you so far - that goes for pretty much any OS when it comes to developing (serious developers always want a real device to test on).

In addition to that, since Blackberries require a different data plan type than iOS/WM/Symbian/WP7/Android device, it makes it a PITA to test on real devices, especially when you factor in all the device differences and the fact that RIM releases a lot of carrier exclusives... You can't just SIM swap unless you have a BB data plan. This is incredibly tedious for people on CDMA networks, where there are no SIM cards (that goes for any OS, but the BIS plans just add more overhead).

iOS has 3 devices (PMP, Tablet, Smartphone) and Android device capabilities have largely been a bit standardized (they pretty much all have cameras, GPS, WiFi, more storage than the average Blackberry, SD Card Slot, Touchscreens, Basic sensors, and what type of Network you're on generally doesn't matter when developing for Android). WP7 device specs are standardized, and WebOS devices pretty much are aside from Hardware prowess.

Symbian is dead, so no one care if it's a Pita to develop for. I can say for a fact that WM6.5 wasn't this ********, though...

It has nothing to do with installing the SDK, and everything to do with the amount of QA that's necessary to develop for BBs, and for some developers it's simply not feasable to ensure the apps work on all phones due to carrier exclusive phones with app-breaking differences (i.e. You have a Bold on T-Mobile, but your app fails colossally on Storm 2's) or devices that are missing hardware components that your app relies on. Every tried using something like Layer on a phone without a GPS or Camera, for example?

Only after all that, do I even consider the utter ****tiness of RIM's development tools... They are truly bad.

[qbnkelt]

@Ferretling - you know your life lacks meaning because you can't play Angry Birds. You are just not admitting it because you're a fanboi/girl... J/k

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[qbnkelt]

Do you guys feel like your left out because you have a BlackBerry, i mean we have no cool apps, and if there's a cool app we get it last or a half a** remake like angry farm which totally blows with poor sound and twitchy graphics and now live profile which i think will kill bbm. i am pretty new to BlackBerry, 5 months now and i am starting to regret getting my torch and its not the phone itself, i came from a Motorola VA76R. i thought bbm was gonna be the sh** and people were like ya man bbm ftw and all the people that talked about bbm just send sms messages. i just had to get this off my chest and i wanted to know if you guys feel the same. sorry for the rant stick a fork in me cause i am done

Not at all. I didn't my phone to be cool. I left that thought process in my late teens.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com