[JCon111]

Apps are a very important part of any phone nowadays, and BlackBerry fall very short in this area. To be honest though there is no reason for this other lack of innovation from the owners, maybe it is sheer laziness, because 1) The BB10 devices have the hardware to support great apps 2) a quality app will pay for itself many times over in sales...when looking at the specs of the Z10 compared with any other phone, I don't understand why it is so void of quality apps (especially when looking at games like real racing 3 which it currently supports), when it is clearly capable.

The way forward for BlackBerry right now is to pile funds into a new app development team, quality apps are a huge selling point, and if BlackBerry was known as the place for quality apps then phone sales would go through the roof.

Posted via CB10

[JCon111]

I know there are many BlackBerry users who would argue that they don't use their BlackBerry phone for apps, but I am talking about expanding sales and competing with other phones in the market place...it just seems to me that the owners and those who work within the creative departments, involved with app production and development are pretty poor, and to be fair have shown themselves to be totally incompetent, they have the platforms to develop on, they probably have the funds, yet they fall short, unbelievably short.

I would bring in a new team to develop new apps (not just basically buy rights from android developers)...if BlackBerry really want to compete this has to be the focal point going forward

Posted via CB10

[DINGSTER1]

All of which takes funds which BB does not have now.

Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk

[KemKev]

All of which takes funds which BB does not have now.

So the damage to the brand and the lack of phone sales are both self-inflicted? Of the 3 billion in cash, a cool 50 million for as-is advertising would probably be money well spent.

[KemKev]

To the OP, you are flogging a dead horse and preaching to the choir at the same time. I also believe that the BlackBerry tall-heads are fully aware of the app situation which probably explains the APK capablities on the latest OS. Definitely not the ideal solution but nevertheless, a big step in the right direction.

[JCon111]

How is it flogging a dead horse, are implying that app development is not possible? BlackBerry needs to make this a focal point going forward, it's that simple, they have the technology, now they just need to the right people within the business to make this THE priority

Posted via CB10

[skibnik]

How many app developers did BlackBerry approach practicality begging them to write native BB10 apps (instagram, Netflix ) even offering the devs the option of writing the apps for them to save development costs and they turned up their noses at BlackBerry?

Z10 Running 10.2.1.1925 Take that Mr App Gap!

[JCon111]

I am talking about bringing in a new team of app developers, who can work from the ground up on new (never before seen) apps...imagine an ad campaign which basically showed all the new and impressive apps available solely on BlackBerry, the customers would flood in, such is the importance of good quality apps on a phones nowadays

Posted via CB10

[JCon111]

All of which takes funds which BB does not have now.

Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk

Of course BlackBerry has the funds to invest in a team of app developers, funding is not the issue, the issue is what the company puts as a priority, and it's fairly evident that apps are pretty low on the list

Posted via CB10

[kbz1960]

Of course BlackBerry has the funds to invest in a team of app developers, funding is not the issue, the issue is what the company puts as a priority, and it's fairly evident that apps are pretty low on the list

Posted via CB10

Did you not belong here a year or two ago? Did you miss all the developer conferences and jams BBRY did? That is what they were for. You see the result of their efforts now. S4BB and the like.

[koolrosh]

How many app developers did BlackBerry approach practicality begging them to write native BB10 apps (instagram, Netflix ) even offering the devs the option of writing the apps for them to save development costs and they turned up their noses at BlackBerry?

Z10 Running 10.2.1.1925 Take that Mr App Gap!

Everybody has a price. The truth is BlackBerry didn't offer enough to compensate for the risk of developing for BlackBerry. What this translates to is that BLACKBERRY DIDN'T CARE ENOUGH about apps to shell the money out.

If they offered $2 million per top app a guarantee you that 95% of the devs would take the offer. The could get the top 50 apps like this and it would cost them no more than $100M

Play Starcraft? Join our Channel: C001242DE

[early2bed]

So lets say they spend $40 million to develop 20 top apps. What apps would you have them develop?

The problem is that most people will have at least one or two apps that they really want that won't be on your list but are already available on Android or iOS. Will you have Facebook? How about Paper by Facebook? Reviewers are saying it's the best version of Facebook ever.

[serbanescu]

Having 50-100 great, BlackBerry-developed apps would be a plus, but it will not solve the "app gap" problem. I see two issues that a BlackBerry app-development team would not solve:

1. People want access to the apps everyone else has on the other major platforms (iOS and Android) - and the BlackBerry version for those apps cannot be developed in-house by BlackBerry, against the will of their respective owners

2. There is a "long tail" of apps on the major platforms, apps that cater to a miriad of interests and needs. This "long tail" cannot be replicated by a BlackBerry app-development team - we are talking about thousands of types of apps, tens of thousands of different approaches.

In my opinion, BlackBerry 10 platform cannot be propped by a BlackBerry app-development team and needs to be adopted by a large community of developers in order to remain in business.



--------------------

Screen Timeout app - keep your BB10 screen awake

[Troy Tiscareno]

If they offered $2 million per top app a guarantee you that 95% of the devs would take the offer. The could get the top 50 apps like this and it would cost them no more than $100M

...said someone who obviously knows very little about app development and support costs. Initial development of an app is only a small part of that app's total cost. There has to be constant on-going maintenance, testing, added features, updated design, and most importantly, support. All of that costs money, and for a "bigger" app, that means having to, at the very least, hire several full-time employees. Do you have any idea what the total costs are for a developer that makes $100k a year? It's more like $200-250k when you factor in recruitment, office space, equipment, taxes, benefits, and so on. Even support people make $60k/yr in California, where that is barely enough to live.

This is why the only factor that most app companies care about is MARKETSHARE. With a large marketshare, that investment in employees and projects can be repaid exponentially. Without a large marketshare, it won't be.

Successful companies understand this. BB10 represents 0.1% of the US market. That's not enough for devs to care about, even if the costs of initial app development are paid for by BB, because the on-going costs will kill them.

You know why most people don't own their own airplane? It isn't because the plane itself costs a ton of money - many can be had for the price of a nice luxury car, or a bit more. It's the ONGOING maintenance costs that will kill you. You may have to spend 50% of the plane's cost every year just to keep it in flyable condition, and if you allow it's flight certification to lapse, it may cost more than the plane's worth to recertify it.

Apps are a lot like planes: the initial cost is only a fraction of the total cost. For a "free" or "low-cost" app, the only way to make money is by having a HUGE user base. 0.1% of the market doesn't even register on the radar, when they can look at Android and see 80% (50% in the US) or iOS and see 15% (48% in the US).

BB was prepared to "buy" apps, but the "important" devs simply weren't interested, because they did much the same math as I did above.

[JCon111]

...said someone who obviously knows very little about app development and support costs. Initial development of an app is only a small part of that app's total cost. There has to be constant on-going maintenance, testing, added features, updated design, and most importantly, support. All of that costs money, and for a "bigger" app, that means having to, at the very least, hire several full-time employees. Do you have any idea what the total costs are for a developer that makes $100k a year? It's more like $200-250k when you factor in recruitment, office space, equipment, taxes, benefits, and so on. Even support people make $60k/yr in California, where that is barely enough to live.

This is why the only factor that most app companies care about is MARKETSHARE. With a large marketshare, that investment in employees and projects can be repaid exponentially. Without a large marketshare, it won't be.

Successful companies understand this. BB10 represents 0.1% of the US market. That's not enough for devs to care about, even if the costs of initial app development are paid for by BB, because the on-going costs will kill them.

You know why most people don't own their own airplane? It isn't because the plane itself costs a ton of money - many can be had for the price of a nice luxury car, or a bit more. It's the ONGOING maintenance costs that will kill you. You may have to spend 50% of the plane's cost every year just to keep it in flyable condition, and if you allow it's flight certification to lapse, it may cost more than the plane's worth to recertify it.

Apps are a lot like planes: the initial cost is only a fraction of the total cost. For a "free" or "low-cost" app, the only way to make money is by having a HUGE user base. 0.1% of the market doesn't even register on the radar, when they can look at Android and see 80% (50% in the US) or iOS and see 15% (48% in the US).

BB was prepared to "buy" apps, but the "important" devs simply weren't interested, because they did much the same math as I did above.

If BlackBerry invested in a new app development team, which produces 30 quality new apps, surely it would be that team that maintains every app, not a separate team for each app, also sales of quality apps pay for themselves over time...a device with plenty of quality apps, which are exclusive to that device will sell better than one without this (as is the case with BlackBerry currently, it is looked at as a quality brand minus the apps), they don't have the apps so people don't want to make the leap, but if it was a known fact that BlackBerry was the place for apps (through the medium of advertising campaigns to get this point across), the added customer base would be apparent

The way I see it apps should be made priority, because without them the phones are very effective communication devices, but nothing else, investing in apps is not only profitable it also makes absolute sense

Posted via CB10

[Tre Lawrence]

App ransoms are expensive, and take away from important things like constructing the best golden parachutes and making a "better Android than Android."

[JCon111]

App ransoms are expensive, and take away from important things like constructing the best golden parachutes and making a "better Android than Android."

Quality apps pay for themselves, and make the devices they are supported on more saleable...app development should be the number one priority for BlackBerry

Posted via CB10

[Tre Lawrence]

Quality apps pay for themselves, and make the devices they are supported on more saleable...app development should be the number one priority for BlackBerry

I don't disagree. My last post was dripping with invisible sarcasm.

[RubberChicken76]

How is it flogging a dead horse, are implying that app development is not possible? BlackBerry needs to make this a focal point going forward, it's that simple, they have the technology, now they just need to the right people within the business to make this THE priority

Posted via CB10

I understand the frustration, but I also find comments like "they need to focus on apps", "they need to make it a priority", "they need to do more" to be kind of empty comments.

It's like the same random comments of, "They need to convince BGR/CNET/TechCrunch not to smear them". OK - how? What would you do that they haven't done or tried and how do you know that they haven't done or tried it? Ditto for "They need to convince AT&T, Verizon and Sprint to release OS X.X.X". Again - how? What did they not do before that you'd do differently?

[JCon111]

I don't disagree. My last post was dripping with invisible sarcasm.

Haha there's so much technical jargon flying about it's hard to know what is sarcasm and what is tech spiel

Posted via CB10

[RubberChicken76]

If BlackBerry invested in a new app development team,

They have app teams. Teams that make their internal apps, but also apps on behalf of third parties. They have teams that port games for developers etc. Do a search in App World for "BlackBerry Limited". See what comes up.

[JCon111]

They have app teams. Teams that make their internal apps, but also apps on behalf of third parties. They have teams that port games for developers etc. Do a search in App World for "BlackBerry Limited". See what comes up.

My point is they need a new, and ultimately improved app development team...the one currently in place is not pulling it's weight and should be replaced

Posted via CB10

[JCon111]

I understand the frustration, but I also find comments like "they need to focus on apps", "they need to make it a priority", "they need to do more" to be kind of empty comments.

The way I see it apps are a massive part of the smartphone experience, and BlackBerry don't do enough to compete on this front, they are basically bottom feeders in this area, picking up the scraps of the leading competitors...this situation is self inflicted because apps are not that important to those at the top who make decisions...if BlackBerry decided apps were now the priority and got some of the world's best up and coming developers on board to bring some new amazing apps to their devices, that would 1) bring new customers to the company (especially if an advertisement campaign showed the world BlackBerry was the place for apps) 2) increase profit ten fold

Apps should be the brands grounding, because everything else stems from that


Posted via CB10

[kbz1960]

From what I've heard they have made it pretty easy for developers to either port or write apps by supporting many different languages. For something I think some APIs are missing yet but being added all the time.

[qwerty4ever]

To the OP, you are flogging a dead horse and preaching to the choir at the same time. I also believe that the BlackBerry tall-heads are fully aware of the app situation which probably explains the APK capablities on the latest OS. Definitely not the ideal solution but nevertheless, a big step in the right direction.

I refuse to run Google android applications on my BlackBerry Z10 and Q5.

Posted via the BlackBerry Q5 using CB10.