S4BB talks BlackBerry 10 app situation on The Guardian

S4BB (known being responsible for 1/3 of the apps in BlackBerry World) was interviewed by The Guardian to talk about the app situation and the profitability of developing apps for BlackBerry.

They've presented interesting numbers and it's good to see that they are still 100% committed to BlackBerry. Hope the map apps take a real slow down tho..

BlackBerry developer: 37% of app downloads are for BB10 devices | Technology | theguardian.com

North America sales seem to be up a lot now and the others are picking back up too. Seeing as Indonesia is their best market, the Z3 will probably mean a lot of downloads for them in the future

Posted via CB10

Good read, thanks for posting it.

Send from my z30 on T Mobile USA (10.2.1.2160)

Originally Posted by bakron1

Good read, thanks for posting it.

Send from my z30 on T Mobile USA (10.2.1.2160)

That whole situation with that guy is pretty astounding.


Sent from my iPad using CB Forums

Anyone know what is the app count on BB10 today?

Posted via CB10

Laugh about their app Spam but it seems it's working for them. Strange method but it works O_O

Z30 | Z30STA100-2/10.2.1.2947 | Globe PH

Originally Posted by f0xG3

Laugh about their app Spam but it seems it's working for them. Strange method but it works O_O

Z30 | Z30STA100-2/10.2.1.2947 | Globe PH

Flood the market. Make moneys.

Z10STL100-3/10.2.1.2141

It's not much of a "market" if your "products" account for a third of everything for sale.

But blackberry did it to themselves.

I think the most interesting statistic of all was the nearly complete collapse of legacy BBOS app sales, amid an increase in BB10 app sales.

So much for BBOS devices "saving the company". :rotfl:

Originally Posted by Omnitech

I think the most interesting statistic of all was the nearly complete collapse of legacy BBOS app sales, amid an increase in BB10 app sales.

So much for BBOS devices "saving the company". :rotfl:

Think that areas where BBOS are selling, Apps are not a major concern - Enterprise & Developing Markets. Either apps aren't allowed or the Apps don't fit the market.


REALLY wish that BlackBerry would police the Store a little and remove apps that are blatant SPAM or an attempt to fool someone to buy an app that is CLONE of another developers app. Or the apps that are no longer supported and no longer work - BOOKREADER.

Originally Posted by scalemaster34

Think that areas where BBOS are selling, Apps are not a major concern - Enterprise & Developing Markets. Either apps aren't allowed or the Apps don't fit the market.


REALLY wish that BlackBerry would police the Store a little and remove apps that are blatant SPAM or an attempt to fool someone to buy an app that is CLONE of another developers app. Or the apps that are no longer supported and no longer work - BOOKREADER.

I agree.

Particularly regarding S4BB's map-spam apps.

I think they should have one very good app that allows in-app purchases of the different city-guides or maps that just work within the app.

I understand why they've done it the way that they have...but I think it could have been done better.

Sad that S4BB gets to be the BB app dev representative for this story. They are such a large part of the app store that BB is in effect powerless to put in rules that would reign them in.

At least they develop their own apps instead of just repackaging OsmAnd with one map like some other devs.

Posted via CB10

Originally Posted by Nharzhool

I agree.

Particularly regarding S4BB's map-spam apps.

I think they should have one very good app that allows in-app purchases of the different city-guides or maps that just work within the app.

I understand why they've done it the way that they have...but I think it could have been done better.

That's what they should have done. Small app and increases in size the more in-app maps you buy.

Z10STL100-3/10.2.1.2141

Originally Posted by scalemaster34

Think that areas where BBOS are selling, Apps are not a major concern - Enterprise & Developing Markets. Either apps aren't allowed or the Apps don't fit the market.

That argument doesn't hold water, because we are talking about a collapse of the previous app sales levels for legacy BBOS. If what you are saying were true, there would be no previous sales to collapse.

People need to get it into their head that BBOS is dead and not returning. I'll bet you a significant amount of money that 95% of the people that used to build and maintain that technology at RIM are long-gone now. It's a dead-end.

And of course BlackBerry could make it really easy and just state that obvious fact, but I'm pretty sure the reason they don't is that they are worried about spooking the remaining BBOS holdouts. The sad thing is that by global standards, it's a pretty small group of users, but they only take on inflated significance to the company because their next-generation product line flopped.

Originally Posted by scalemaster34

REALLY wish that BlackBerry would police the Store a little and remove apps that are blatant SPAM or an attempt to fool someone to buy an app that is CLONE of another developers app. Or the apps that are no longer supported and no longer work - BOOKREADER.

I'm convinced that the main reason those things are as they are is because the company is absolutely obsessed with inflating the claimable "number of apps" as high as they possibly can, simple as that. No matter how idiotic it looks in detail.

Originally Posted by Ment

Sad that S4BB gets to be the BB app dev representative for this story. They are such a large part of the app store that BB is in effect powerless to put in rules that would reign them in.

I don't think it's sad - the reason an article like this even exists is because S4BB is in a very unique position to provide statistical figures that BlackBerry will not make public themselves. As such, I found the charts quite illuminating and am grateful that The Guardian wrote it.

As for BlackBerry being "powerless", I sincerely doubt it.

I'd imagine they are actually extremely grateful for how S4BB has been able to massively increase the number of apps that BlackBerry can claim for their ecosystem. In fact, I'd guess they actually actively work to encourage what S4BB is doing.

I don't like it any more than you guys do, but I'm under no illusions that BlackBerry sees themselves as a "victim" here.

Re: the maps app spam - the ONLY thing BlackBerry would have to do to reduce that problem 95% would be to create 1 more category in BBW for "local map data", and allow people to filter out search results by category. BOOM, problem solved.

That's the most pathetic thing about it.

Same thing for the 10-page ebooks posing as "apps".

They clearly just do not want to do it.

Originally Posted by scalemaster34

Think that areas where BBOS are selling, Apps are not a major concern - Enterprise & Developing Markets. Either apps aren't allowed or the Apps don't fit the market.

Don't agree on either point except in really regulated industries or connections so awful (no wifi, 2G that's spotty) they could never get an app. My company has tons of mobile apps for example ... and unfortunately, many of them are not on any BlackBerry platform or only on one and not the other. For the emerging markets, the recent spike of BBM stickers suggests its certainly got an opportunity.

The reason for the skew I think, is that it's just a more simple problem. BlackBerry OS is not a good app platform. The devices have limited space, the apps are of limited size, installing the apps usually requires reboot, updating is a pain, the apps are often done to the lowest common denominator and many apps are missing.

BlackBerry 10 and PlayBook before it are much more modern in respect to how they deal with apps. I would bet that BlackBerry 10 users are much heavier consumers of a broader variety of apps than BBOS users, simply because it's easier to get them installed, removed etc.

The first sign of this for me was when Angry Birds landed not the PLayBook. I went to App World regularly over a month and saw that it was the most paid download app in App World, even though PlayBook had like one 60th the user base of BlackBerry OS. Bring big products, make 'em run well and make them easy to get on the device and the users of the platform will come.

Agree with the cleanup, but in some cases there's no choice ... No native Instagram means iGrann is it. :-)