Last week, Blackberry released their new App World to the public. Free to download from their website it brings their version of the Apple Appstore to Blackberry handsets.
Of course, third party apps on the Blackberry aren’t a new thing. Unlike the iPhone, which is reliant on Apple’s Appstore Blackberry developers have long enjoyed the ability to develop and distribute their own applications freely, resulting in many third party vendor websites for the Blackberry already enjoying success (http://shop.crackberry.com and http://www.bplay.com for example). So what App World provides is a handy one-stop shop. Rather than having to find any third party vendors out there, there’s now a handy store that is Blackberry approved (and will presumably ship preinstalled on new handsets).
Its my hope that having one, central store like this will provide a development focus, much like Apple’s Appstore. There’s plenty of good software out there for the Blackberry, but with it spread all over many different sites, it can sometimes by awkward to track down exactly what it is you’re after. However, I’m also glad that Blackberry’s App World isn’t replacing third party vendors either. It should create a degree of competition that you can’t get on the iPhone.
Having played about with the app for a bit now, I’m finding it very nice to use. I like the featured content sections, top downloads etc. The only things I’d really like to see added would be to split the top downloads by free/paid, as in the Apple App Store, since the free software tends to dominate the paid stuff, and I’m also slightly concerned by the pricing. Unlike the Apple version, the Blackberry’s App World pricing starts a lot higher. There’s no concept of a 79p application here (prices start at $2.99 I think), and I think that’s a bit of a shame. There’s quite a lot of nice, cheap software on Apple’s App Store, and developers have started to twig to the fact that putting your prices right down, can mean a lot more sales, thus generating more profit overall. This I worry is something that the Blackberry offering may miss out on.
Comments