1. hiltaguard's Avatar
    I miss my Blackberry. All of them in fact. I left Blackberry for the iPhone 3GS. My last Blackberry was the 9700. (The 8300 was my first.) I loved my 9700. It's still my favorite phone of all time. Somewhere along the way I became drawn in by the iPhone which I still use today, but I must be honest. I would switch back to Blackberry tonight if I knew I could bring my fav apps over. Now I know BB10 can install android apps, but that's not good enough for me. I don't want a work-a-round. I want to go to the app store, find my app and press "install". The lack of quality apps is the ONLY thing keeping me from switching. It's definitely not the hardware. In fact the opposite. I love the hardware BB puts out. I wish I had a Q10 running all my apps right now. And what apps am I so attached to you ask? Well let me tell you.

    - Gmail
    - Google Authenticator
    - Chrome
    - Bank of America
    - OneDrive
    - Instagram
    - Directv
    to name a few of the important ones.

    If I could go to the bb world and install these apps I would switch tomorrow. So I know my post does nothing but allow me to rant and give you my completely unsolicited opinion, I still have a question for all you BB experts. Why is Blackberry having such a horrible time getting the big name apps on their platforms? Is it really just as simple as lack of eyeballs. It seems to me that if they had the big name apps, the eyeballs would come back. Seems like a catch 22. Let me know what you think....
    03-19-14 10:24 PM
  2. Troy Tiscareno's Avatar
    Why is Blackberry having such a horrible time getting the big name apps on their platforms? Is it really just as simple as lack of eyeballs.
    Yes, it's that simple. After being on the market more than a year, BB10 has a world-wide user base of only 5-6 million devices. Android activates that many devices every 3-4 days (counting ONLY devices that are Google-certified), and Apple activates that many every 3 weeks or so.

    Many people don't realize that initial development of an app is not the only expense - a greater expense is the on-going servicing of the app, and supporting it for the end-users.

    In rough numbers, Android has about 80% of the smartphone userbase, iOS has about 14%, WinPhone has about 2%, and BB10 has about 0.4%. Companies look at those numbers and say "developing for Android and iOS will cover 94% of endusers - why bother dev'ing for the other platforms?" Remember that development and maintenance costs will be about the same for each platform regardless of the number of users (user support is generally proportional to user base), so developing for anything below the 1st and 2nd-place platforms brings VERY diminishing returns. Most companies that don't stand to directly make money on their app aren't likely to bother spending money developing for the other platforms, and even some of those who DO directly make money still can't justify the expense of development, because the profit potential is still too low with so few users.

    BB has tried all kinds of things, including lending development support and offering to outright PAY bounties for apps, and still, many companies have come back with the same response: "We won't develop for BB until BB can show us some significant marketshare numbers."

    And for those who will ask "why doesn't BB just make their own version of these apps?", the answer is: because most companies don't have a public API, because they want to maintain direct control over their apps, and while a few companies may look the other way if an indie developer makes an app, a big company like BB would get sued for doing so, and most companies don't even allow indies to make apps (many app devs have received Cease and Desist orders to remove their copy-cat apps).

    Devs want marketshare, and for the most part, will only go where the marketshare is.
    03-19-14 11:35 PM
  3. propeller10's Avatar
    BB has tried all kinds of things, including lending development support and offering to outright PAY bounties for apps, and still, many companies have come back with the same response: "We won't develop for BB until BB can show us some significant marketshare numbers."..
    It really is a vicious cycle. Devs won't develop for BB10 because of low market share and the market share is low because devs won't make apps for BB.(not the only reason but it is one of the biggest)
    03-20-14 12:04 AM

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