[BB10Apps]

I'm a web developer and I have a few webworks apps on the PB. One I charge for. I'm making peanuts on it. Why do I do it? B/c it helps me learn an upcoming environment and put it into practice. Like this i stay ahead in my full time job. The fact that I make a few dollars a day is nice, but at the end of the day the money I've made I probably just broke even. The 70-30 split really suks when your not making large, and yes I will still have to pay taxes on it all. :S

Whats the name of your app? I would like to see it. I hope you made it the best it can be!! thats how you get noticed. Look at xlabz they are making great apps and people notice them the work and look great. When i look for apps I siphon through so many crappy ones. What i do is judge right away from the sample images given how the UI looks. Im pretty sure thats what most people do as well (includes your customers) so not only does it have to look good but has to function properly. I havent looked much into RIM documentation but apples strict guideline that deal with UI are awesome I recommend developers reading them. Apple has pretty much set a standard for how apps should look and function. If you notice a lot of andriod apps are ugly. So how it looks is HUGE!!!

[d_source]

I think you don't have to pay taxes if you make under $400 for the year (I'm not completely sure how that works).
The 70-30 split is the same when you make more, I don't see where the amount you make impacts whether or not it sucks.

Sorry I meant it sucks b/c RIM used to give out the best share of all the markets before at 80-20. They only recently changed to 70-30 like the rest, I believe about 1-2yrs ago.

[peargood]

And that push into China and India, forget about it. I mean, so what if it is 4 billion people, it's not like RIM could capture more than 10% of that market. What is that, like 200 million? Whatever, that's only 25% larger than the entire U.S.emarket that RIM isn't competitive in. RIM is dead.

I beg to differ. In China where censorship is so strong, people might want to adopt the BB, provided they know of it's existance

Developing countries are the ones with increasing purchasing power, where RIM can expand their market. I daresay if RIM has a limited edition BB, in collaboration with a luxury brand (eg Louis Vuitton), the chinese will have their hands all over them. Not to forget India is another significant market.

If RIM doesn't not venture into developing countries and just remain in the already saturated US market only, then they are dead.

Sent from my BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps using Tapatalk

[BB10Apps]

I beg to differ. In China where censorship is so strong, people might want to adopt the BB, provided they know of it's existance

Developing countries are the ones with increasing purchasing power, where RIM can expand their market. I daresay if RIM has a limited edition BB, in collaboration with a luxury brand (eg Louis Vuitton), the chinese will have their hands all over them. Not to forget India is another significant market.

If RIM doesn't not venture into developing countries and just remain in the already saturated US market only, then they are dead.

Sent from my BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps using Tapatalk

Is RIM not in the chinese market? I thought they were!! thats not good if they are not there already.

[catwoman66]

Whats the name of your app? I would like to see it. I hope you made it the best it can be!! thats how you get noticed. Look at xlabz they are making great apps and people notice them the work and look great. When i look for apps I siphon through so many crappy ones. What i do is judge right away from the sample images given how the UI looks. Im pretty sure thats what most people do as well (includes your customers) so not only does it have to look good but has to function properly. I havent looked much into RIM documentation but apples strict guideline that deal with UI are awesome I recommend developers reading them. Apple has pretty much set a standard for how apps should look and function. If you notice a lot of andriod apps are ugly. So how it looks is HUGE!!!

I totally agree, that's what I look for, it's like a shop window and you are selling your goods, if it doesn't look nice people will just walk on by and not bother, of course it has to also work, can't just be a pretty face lol.. I will quote you too with Xlabz, not only do they make great apps, but they are continuously listening to customer feedback here on the forums and they strive to get better... This is a great thread on development which I know nothing about, but interesting reading how things work.

[LoganSix]

I beg to differ. In China where censorship is so strong, people might want to adopt the BB, provided they know of it's existance

Sarcasm read the entire post.... BB is doing a push in China and India.

[IvanAMANation]

I've asked myself that question for a long time now. I just came to the realization that most Devs'
aren't business savy at all. Just because you can program, it doesn't make you a genius. Another saying is
" Supply where there is demand " People iin the PB ecosystem are demanding good apps, we need to supply them.
That's why I'm in school now studying programming (C++ at the moment) because I see HUGE potential in the App Game, so much, that it drives me insane! I can't believe certain things are not being done.

Sent from my BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps using Tapatalk 2 Beta-4

[papped]

Is RIM not in the chinese market? I thought they were!! thats not good if they are not there already.

They've had china specific models for a while now.

[thatplaybookguy]

Besides, RIM's dead, right? I read it on CNET, or maybe it was BGR or somewhere. After all, with a stock price that low how could any company ever recover? Seriously, you can read this stuff on all the other sites, and anything you find here contradicting it is clearly biased, just the talk of fanboys.


Tell you what... check back with me in, say, a year, maybe two, and I'll be happy to show you how terrible business has been, and you'll thank me for warning you.

How could any company rebound from a stock priced at 12$? Well sir, Nortel Networks had a share value of $0.67 back in 2000. Then they came up with a new way to use fiber optics cabling and instantly they were saved. if you had bought $10,000 worth of their shares back then, they'd be worth over $3,000,000 today. So any company can rebound back to a success, it just takes the right people and the right ideas. Not people/developers whom constantly think of failure.

Also a Year from today, I will get back to you. I will post in this very thread.

[BuzzStarField]

How could any company rebound from a stock priced at 12$? Well sir, Nortel Networks had a share value of $0.67 back in 2000. Then they came up with a new way to use fiber optics cabling and instantly they were saved. if you had bought $10,000 worth of their shares back then, they'd be worth over $3,000,000 today. So any company can rebound back to a success, it just takes the right people and the right ideas. Not people/developers whom constantly think of failure.

Also a Year from today, I will get back to you. I will post in this very thread.

Let's get real. RIM hasn't got a chance. It's management is not even in the same class as Nortel's (some misguided pundits think they are vastly superior, ROFLMAO)

More information about this great Canadian success story can be found here:

Nortel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Kevstra]

Say you have a great application idea and you are tight on resources (people, time, money etc), which platform would you want to create first for this great application idea of yours? WebOS? RIM QNX? iOS etc?

The programming might not be difficult but the idea that not a lot of people is using Playbook compared to iOS is a reason why they dont make application for Playbook. Maybe they will do it but they will put it in a lower priority. When both iOS and Android are done, they then move to Playbook.

This is not an easy cycle to get out off. RIM would hope millions of developers would jump and support Playbook but Developers would hope millions of users would jump and use Playbook. So its a chicken or egg story.

I dont know how but obviously RIM need to entice and persuade these developers (or even pay them money) to create applications. But on the bright side, the BB 10 and Playbook will share the same QNX DNA. So hopefully, things will be better tomorrow

- Charles

I actually disagree a little bit. To me, it would make more sense to develop an application for the platform that has the least competition from other developers. For example, if me and my small software company wanted to create and sell a PDF annotator app, would I develope it for iOS? Where there are already a million of such apps? Or perhaps BB10/PBOS, where there is a complete lack of such an app, and almost everybody who needed such an app would purchase MINE!

[BuzzStarField]

I actually disagree a little bit. To me, it would make more sense to develop an application for the platform that has the least competition from other developers. For example, if me and my small software company wanted to create and sell a PDF annotator app, would I develope it for iOS? Where there are already a million of such apps? Or perhaps BB10/PBOS, where there is a complete lack of such an app, and almost everybody who needed such an app would purchase MINE!

There is a cart and then there is a horse. There is a chicken and there is an egg. We could argue all day which should or which actually does come first.

You are correct in your assessment that almost everyone who is interested in buying my (rather unique) PlayBook app does so immediately upon seeing it. Sales were fantastic in the first week that it was available in App World.

Even in a small market like PlayBook, it is tough to get your app noticed unless it is featured or there is a review in CrackBerry or another event brings the app to new users' attention. Sales will always spike a bit during one of these events but inevitably tappers off just as quickly when the event passes into history. But a developer cannot be financially successful by relying on periodic spikes.

The reality is that only a higher level of PlayBooks in new customers' hands will improve base (everyday) sales to a break-even level. Almost all PlayBook developers are waiting for RIM to achieve the tipping point. This is a fact of life.

[Canuck671]

so tip it already !!!!!

[eblade]

Right.
RIM said 13% of their devs made over 100k in a year. I'm far on the end of the 87%, but seriously, more than 1/10 BlackBerry devs are made at least a hundred grand...
That, my friends, is not something to at.

This, I don't believe.

However, here's something I do have firsthand experience with:

Less competition, and quality apps = more money.

I won't tell you my apps are the most beautiful apps ever created, and frankly, their UIs are kind of crappy. I've never been the greatest in UI design, and I don't even understand half the layout stuff that I use. But, I am highly concerned with making sure that they do what they are supposed to, and that they do it as well as I'm able to get them to do it.

Another thing I have firsthand experience with:

The Android store sucks. It's difficult to navigate, the search is -highly- favored towards providing results that Google likes (starting with Google apps), and there's no way to just browse it. There's no way to keep up with what's new in it (unless it happens to score 600+ downloads in it's first couple weeks and hit the "New and Hot" chart .. 10k+ if you're a free app)

So, my apps on the HP and PlayBook stores put out a lot higher numbers than they do on Android. If/when I get an iOS presence, I would fully expect that they would do somewhere inbetween the PlayBook and the HP market, simply because the catalog in iOS is much more suitable for locating things you are looking for.

While lacking an app that will sell a million+ units at 99c or 1.99, which is likely to never happen with the 2 apps i have currently, and probably not with the one i have in the pipe, as 2 of them are rather niche market apps to begin with (selling a niche market app, in a niche market. . . novel approach! some might call it a dumb approach, but it works decently for me) .. I'll take the places with far less competition .. and far easier to support. Which brings me to the fact that on Android, I am stuck with not being able to support a million different devices, because I have limits to my finances, and to how many tablets and phones and mobile whatevers my family is going to let me have surroudning me before they go insane.

[BuzzStarField]

This, I don't believe.

You should believe the stats with respect to the BB market at large but only because they are true. But, for reasons that I have stated, the "big fish in small pond" theory does not hold for the much smaller PlayBook-only market. As of today, it has not attained the critical mass of potential buyers that you ascribe to "niche" Android markets that you participate in.

Since this thread finds itself in a PlayBook forum, I can only conclude that the OP's opinion (that one can make millions with a PB app or two) is just a tad far fetched. Maybe thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands but certainly not millions. Not just yet.

[SCrid2000]

This, I don't believe.

Sorry, bit of a misquote on my part.
13% of BlackBerry devs, not Playbook devs, make over 100k.
http://crackberry.com/blackberry-developers-make-more-money-android-and-ios-developers
That being said, I can't wait for BB X because then BlackBerry phone development should be the same as Playbook development

[Canuck671]

Any developers want to create a memory application.

Ideas include, but are not limited to:

Memory Tracking
Current Usage
Ability to have a priority list that closes apps based users input. (ie which app to be closed first when a memory setpoint has been reached)

and perhaps even a log detailing what was being used and what resources were used.

Also a way to recycle unused, but unaccessable memory.

I would pay for this type of app.

Also, is there a thread out there for app ideas? ect

Cheers - and thanks for the input and replies.

[eblade]

Sorry, bit of a misquote on my part.
13% of BlackBerry devs, not Playbook devs, make over 100k.
http://crackberry.com/blackberry-dev...ios-developers
That being said, I can't wait for BB X because then BlackBerry phone development should be the same as Playbook development

I don't believe it anyway -- if it does ring true at all, it's only in some kind of bizarre marketing or accounting trick. I could be completely wrong, but considering in my personal experience, I've never seen a PlayBook, and I've only seen a number of BlackBerry phones that I can count on one hand -- and I was in the cell phone business from 1995 to 2006, and I still have interest in it, so I pay attention to what phones people are using when I see them. Sure, sure, it's anecdotal, and possibly isolated, but I'd be far more interested in what the average developer that has paid apps/subscriptions/in-app-purchases makes, rather than the top 10%.

[Canuck671]

I don't believe it anyway -- if it does ring true at all, it's only in some kind of bizarre marketing or accounting trick. I could be completely wrong, but considering in my personal experience, I've never seen a PlayBook, and I've only seen a number of BlackBerry phones that I can count on one hand -- and I was in the cell phone business from 1995 to 2006, and I still have interest in it, so I pay attention to what phones people are using when I see them. Sure, sure, it's anecdotal, and possibly isolated, but I'd be far more interested in what the average developer that has paid apps/subscriptions/in-app-purchases makes, rather than the top 10%.

maybe you should get out more. Never seen a blackberry - "come here troollly, trolllly, trolllly,,, (pets head) Thats a good trolly.

[jtokarchuk]

Any developers want to create a memory application.

Ideas include, but are not limited to:

Memory Tracking
Current Usage
Ability to have a priority list that closes apps based users input. (ie which app to be closed first when a memory setpoint has been reached)

and perhaps even a log detailing what was being used and what resources were used.

Also a way to recycle unused, but unaccessable memory.

I would pay for this type of app.

Also, is there a thread out there for app ideas? ect

Cheers - and thanks for the input and replies.

Memory tracking -- can already view this in settings

Priority list and remote closing - this applies that this app would a) run as a service, and b) have access to other apps. We can do neither.

Recycle memory - requires root. No go.

Unfortunately, it just wouldn't be worth it.

[thatplaybookguy]

can you point someone in the direction to start coding for the pn?

[BuzzStarField]

can you point someone in the direction to start coding for the pn?

I assume that you mean pb (as in playBook) not "pn"...

https://bdsc.webapps.blackberry.com/devzone/platforms

[Canuck671]

Memory tracking -- can already view this in settings

Priority list and remote closing - this applies that this app would a) run as a service, and b) have access to other apps. We can do neither.

Recycle memory - requires root. No go.

Unfortunately, it just wouldn't be worth it.

Thanks for the input - didn't know there was so much to it.

Too bad - would have been a nice app. Any ideas about maybe just a memory trendline to track when crashes occur?

[TroyPoseidon]

i got excited when i read the title... i thought this topic was about the Mega Millions

Sent from my heart

[XLabz]

Just wanted to add my five cents to this thread

I am not sure how many of you (developers) have your apps published in more than one major store. We for one have our apps on all the major app stores - iTunes, Android Market, Amazon, Samsung & App World. My personal perspective of this discussion comes from our experience over the last two years publishing apps on all these different app stores.

1) iTunes - Too many good apps, too little visibility = you have to fight for attention. Even if you make a great app there is absolutely no guarantee that it would sell well or worse yet, even sell. Discovery is the single largest issue with this store.There might be millions of users here but if you can't get your apps in front of them what is the point of making a great app and developing for a proprietary device? But if you get lucky and people start noticing your app, then you can make decent money out of it but the chance of that happening is very lean. Crappy apps can never survive here.

2) Android - No one "buys" app here. It's a pure number play (traction) and if you plan to create a app for Android, your best bet is to make it free and make a living out of ads. Discovery - as someone rightly said, only if you have the blessing of Google you stand even the slightest chance to make a sale. Other option is to spend 1000's of dollars on advertising and see if you can get visibility. If you want just numbers, then this is the place to be. 90% of the apps on this market are crappy.

3) Amazon - This is the most difficult platform from a developer perspective. They take complete control over your apps once you have it published. They decide to write their own version of your app description, when they want to do a sale of your app, they will decide for themselves the price and they will never respond to your support tickets. As far as numbers go, if you are publishing for Kindle Fire then you can look at good numbers but then that device doesn't even have a camera to start with, forget about GPS and such. About the only way to get visibility in this app store is to work with Amazon and make your app free for a day, get to the top and if your app is really good then there is a chance that you could sustain that for a few weeks. But of recent, we are surprised by the number of people who own a Kindle Fire, they outnumber PlayBook users by a large proposition.

4) Samsung - Just not worth it. Don't waste your time publishing here.

5) App World - Not because this is CB I write this, but this is the most balanced store (at least as of now). Discovery is not a large issue if you build a good app and RIM is supportive of reputed developers. People buy apps and the community support is just amazing. As I see this, App World is a safe haven for app developers, it definitely will not and cannot make you millions but then it won't let you down completely as with other platforms as well. We personally have seen good conversion with App World and sometimes our sales on specific apps on App World even outnumber sales on other platforms. About the only thing RIM has to do is to start filtering crappy apps and funnel in just the good ones that solve a purpose. I have personally been surprised to see some really bad apps make it even to the featured listing on App World. Considering that the volume of PlayBook users is pretty low when compared to other platforms, if discovery becomes a issue here, developers will naturally start leaving the platform.

I just can't believe why RIM gets all the bad press about the company and it's devices. At any given day I will bet that a PlayBook is 100% better on all aspects than a similarly priced Kindle Fire or even a Android Tablet.