[Tre Lawrence]

The move to android apps was always a double edged sword, because if someone is heavily invested in that amazon app store the question becomes do I get a droid when it is time to replace the handset.

I dont know what numbers Chen looked at to make the decision to go with the amazon app store and expel music from blackberry world but I hope it was worth it long term.

Posted via CB10

I think that move all but underscores where I think JC feels the consumer end is headed.

IMHO, the Amazon arrangement is more of a hat tip to current device owners rather than a dedicated tool to pull in new ones.

[birdman_38]

But yet Chen stated BlackBerry's app catalog is growing. He must have been referring to native enterprise apps.

[Playbook007]

Troy you state there are only 8 million BlackBerry users.....no there are a lot more than that. There are probably 60 million legacy users still. Here is what is happening in my neck of the woods. BES10 is gaining traction with new companies and BES10 is finally replacing BES installations. I have been quite surprised at the new round of BB10 devices out there now being distributed by the institutions. These people which I do business with are really liking BB10 and they have access to the business/personal side of the devices. The android and iphone users...BYOD crowd have there devices locked down hard and are not happy. They are mostly requesting to get on to the BlackBerry train that is finally leaving the station so to speak. Any intelligent developer, that has a meaningful or at least entertaining app would be developing native BlackBerry apps and charging 2 bucks. It like smart investors who get in early. The teachers pension in Canada just invested 85 million in BlackBerry stock. This group has a well respected investment team. What did Prem Whatsa see in BlackBerry? What has the teachers pension seen. Why has BlackBerry and Samsung entered their first agreement?BlackBerry is going to going to explode in the corporate government arenas over the next few years. These users, once they leave work, with BlackBerry balance become consumers. Devs should wake up, get on the train and make money. Or they can write free apps for Android and hope and pray it becomes popular and they can make advertising dollars or sell data. Look at the stat curve on this success. Half of the million apps have fewer that 5 downloads. Ie they are lost and meaningless.

Posted via CB10

[birdman_38]

BlackBerry is going to going to explode in the corporate government arenas over the next few years. These users, once they leave work, with BlackBerry balance become consumers. Devs should wake up, get on the train and make money.

If I understand you correctly, you're expecting the development community to commit to BlackBerry 10 on the premise that someday it'll gain traction in the market. That's not the way it works. Devs need to know the platform is performing first to make their investment worthwhile.

[Hendri Hendri]

You see, BlackBerry is good for his keypad, that's mean, emailing, chatting, updating status, etc. But unfortunately, we don't have native for trending sosmed and chatting app, such as line, viber, kakao, lync, blogger, wordpress, instagram, pintesrest, path, etc. Meanwhile native facebook and wechat app is very poor and so far away compare to other os in quality speaking. That's the fact and we must admit it.

Don't go with any reason we got bbm and so on. That's not the point

I know, BlackBerry is more to business phone, but sosmed and chatting native and nice app is important too and a plus for blackberry community.

But I love blackberry and it's just sad to lack of such trending app



Posted via CB10

[Playbook007]

If I understand you correctly, you're expecting the development community to commit to BlackBerry 10 on the premise that someday it'll gain traction in the market. That's not the way it works. Devs need to know the platform is performing first to make their investment worthwhile.

You are the investor that needs a GIC. That's admiral. However entrepreneurs never get a GIC. Their gains can be huge losses to huge gains. However, they are not clamped to a 1.7 percent rate of return. So don't say that's not how it works. That may be how the majority works, but then again the majority are not the entrepreneurs. As an app developer, I would have the ios written, the android version and the BlackBerry version even if I put a $2.00 charge on the BlackBerry version.

Posted via CB10

[Troy Tiscareno]

Troy you state there are only 8 million BlackBerry users.....no there are a lot more than that. There are probably 60 million legacy users still.

Perhaps you should re-read my post. I stated that there were about 8M active, unique BB10 users. And given that this is a discussion about native BB10 apps (vs. Android apps), how are legacy BB users relevant anyway? Hint: they aren't.

Does BB10 continue to make sales? Sure, I never suggested otherwise. Does that mean its userbase continues to grow? Yes, it does. But it's growing slower than the overall market is growing, and much slower than the other big platforms, so, even though the raw numbers are slowly increasing every month, BB's percentage of the overall market continues to fall. And that's why developers aren't developing for BB10, which, again, is the subject of this thread.

[cathulu15]

I don't get it. If I was a new developer, I would develop for a market that wasn't swamped with dozens of the same apps and some already decent, prove my app and develop it to be the best, and then bring it to the so called big leagues with a good rep in hand. BlackBerry can be like a good junior league until such time (if ever) they grow into significant market share.

I can understand how the big apps may cold shoulder BlackBerry, but the small developers?

8 million and growing is decent for a developer imho. Hoping for more and more!

Posted via CB10

[Hendri Hendri]

I don't get it. If I was a new developer, I would develop for a market that wasn't swamped with dozens of the same apps and some already decent, prove my app and develop it to be the best, and then bring it to the so called big leagues with a good rep in hand. BlackBerry can be like a good junior league until such time (if ever) they grow into significant market share.

I can understand how the big apps may cold shoulder BlackBerry, but the small developers?

8 million and growing is decent for a developer imho. Hoping for more and more!

Posted via CB10

Could be many reasons :
1. BlackBerry charges a lot from the developer?
2. BlackBerry 10 is not easy to be tweak?
3. Not so many users for BlackBerry handset?
4. Developer is aiming for trending market, which won't happen if there are no users?
5. No incentives, support or else from BlackBerry?

And all of these, eventually will lead to "not worth it"



Posted via CB10

[Soulstream]

Could be many reasons :
1. BlackBerry charges a lot from the developer?
2. BlackBerry 10 is not easy to be tweak?
3. Not so many users for BlackBerry handset?
4. Developer is aiming for trending market, which won't happen if there are no users?
5. No incentives, support or else from BlackBerry?

And all of these, eventually will lead to "not worth it"



Posted via CB10

I am a developer and I can tell you how it is. If I develop by myself an app that I think it can get me some money then I most likely will go iOS first because there are the most people with disposable income. Then IF I get some money from that, I go to Android and finally to WP and BB10.

I also do mobile development for a big corporation. There it's a little bit different. We charge cost per platform so it's up to the company for which we build the app on how many platforms they want their app on. 90% of the times it's iOS and Android, other 9% we also build for WP8 and only 1 case so far for BB10 (and that was a HTML5 app).

In most cases it's about costs/time.

[Hendri Hendri]

And that's mean big company take BlackBerry platform as their non priority (or even not on their target list). So sad to hear that -_-

That's why BlackBerry should do something with tht, unless they thought it's not important since they focus on enterprise stuff

Posted via CB10

[early2bed]

Can a platform that does not offer native apps survive in the long term?

[Soulstream]

Can a platform that does not offer native apps survive in the long term?

Well, BB is the only one that has native and non-native apps. iOS, Android and WP only have native apps.

[MarsupilamiX]

You are the investor that needs a GIC. That's admiral. However entrepreneurs never get a GIC. Their gains can be huge losses to huge gains. However, they are not clamped to a 1.7 percent rate of return. So don't say that's not how it works. That may be how the majority works, but then again the majority are not the entrepreneurs. As an app developer, I would have the ios written, the android version and the BlackBerry version even if I put a $2.00 charge on the BlackBerry version.

Posted via CB10

Never heard of opportunity costs?
I could code the BlackBerry version, or I could code another app for iOS/Android and gain far more than what I could have ever imagined getting from BlackBerry users.

The potential benefits of not "wasting" your time with coding BlackBerry apps is just too big right now.
And with the big push to Android apps and the Amazon market, there is even less of an incentive to code natively for BB10.

Talking about apps though:
Since owning a corporate issued HTC One M8, I observed 2 things:

1) There really is an immense number of useful apps out there and I definitely missed out on them, when I only had my BlackBerry.

2) The quality of about 95% of the apps I encountered, is underwhelming, to say it in an euphemistic way.
Be it because of a GUI that makes DOS looked polished, or because of the never ending epidemic called "ads".

Not that the ratio of quality/garbage is that much better in BBW (it certainly isn't), but in terms of absolute numbers, I probably have never seen such a convoluted place collecting badly designed pieces of software.
Did I already mention the ads? Did I already mention that there just aren't ad free versions for certain apps?

But yeah, since BlackBerry's future in terms of ecosystem, lies in the Android realm anyhow, I figured that I might as well get an Android and use those apps natively.

[MarsupilamiX]

Can a platform that does not offer native apps survive in the long term?

It's very probably a question of accessibility.
If you have the same access to Google Play as you have on an Android device and the performance is nearly the same, I don't see why not offering native apps would be a problem.
If they basically work like native apps, it's not that big of an issue.

(even though the question of the "why?" arises. Why should I buy a BB10 phone to use Android apps, if I could just get the original in the first place, for cheaper? I am personally not interested at all in a BB10 device, if I have to use Android apps)

[spikesolie]

It's very probably a question of accessibility.
If you have the same access to Google Play as you have on an Android device and the performance is nearly the same, I don't see why not offering native apps would be a problem.
If they basically work like native apps, it's not that big of an issue.

(even though the question of the "why?" arises. Why should I buy a BB10 phone to use Android apps, if I could just get the original in the first place, for cheaper? I am personally not interested at all in a BB10 device, if I have to use Android apps)

Because it offers something different

Posted from zee flicking coolest smartphone evah!

[MarsupilamiX]

Because it offers something different

Posted from zee flicking coolest smartphone evah!

If people spend about 70% of the time they use a smartphone, in apps, there won't be much of a difference if I use an Android app on a BlackBerry or an Android app on an Android (apart from the Android phones having a better performance)...

So I could just as well buy the original. But if you want to buy a BlackBerry to use Android apps, I won't stop you.

[spikesolie]

If people spend about 70% of the time they use a smartphone, in apps, there won't be much of a difference if I use an Android app on a BlackBerry or an Android app on an Android (apart from the Android phones having a better performance)...

So I could just as well buy the original. But if you want to buy a BlackBerry to use Android apps, I won't stop you.

You assume all a person Considers is android apps. What about in general how the phone runs? Email handling? (hub) or for the keyboard lovers ... KEYBOARDS.


We for one know there are lots of bbos lovers out there that refuse to upgrade. I have a Saudi student friend that has 2 phones. A Samsung for social network and then every damn thing else on his bold. Obviously the apps aren't that important enough to ditch the phone. I ask him if he has to take one phone which one... you can guess his answer

Posted from zee flicking coolest smartphone evah!

[Hendri Hendri]

Many friends here using BlackBerry and ios/android. If only we can all just use 1 phone instead. I can't let go BlackBerry cause I loves the hub and keypad, I can't let go ios cause I need the app.

Posted via CB10