RIM Launches App Store Knockoff

[Vincent Ferrari]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.tmonews.com/2009/04/blackberry-app-world-goes-live/' target='_blank'>http://www.tmonews.com/2009/04/blac...orld-goes-live/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Well Blackberry fans, your time has finally come. You no longer have to look at the iPhone App Store with envy as now, you to, have your very own official place to buy apps. Installation is simple, just download the App Store from your desktop or phone, hook up with a paypal account and voila, app store lovin!"</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//at/auto/1238676673.usr18053.png" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>Okay, with all due respect, RIM, just having an App store doesn't make it worth using.&nbsp; As some of you know, my "work" phone is a BlackBerry Bold, and I tried out App World.&nbsp; I'll give it a pass because it's early on and the inventory of apps is a bit on the low side, but a lot of the "apps" are just home screen icons for mobile versions of some sites, not applications at all.&nbsp; At least they were free, but honestly, they just aren't applications.</p><p>I'll give it a pass also for its abysmal performance and chalk that up to the initial rush, but overall their knockoff can't compare to the original.&nbsp; Maybe that'll change in time.</p>

[crimsonsky]

Yep - I concur. I loaded it on my Curve and I'm way unimpressed.

[doogald]

If anybody has proved that it is not critical to get everything 100% perfectly right with a first release, it is Apple. If RIM waited until they had it perfect, they'd never get it done.

[Vincent Ferrari]

If anybody has proved that it is not critical to get everything 100% perfectly right with a first release, it is Apple. If RIM waited until they had it perfect, they'd never get it done.

You're right, but the exception to that is if they're entering a market where there's an established standard. If they were first to market with it, they could get away with it being just "meh" but honestly, it's really unimpressive in a market where Apple is currently showing others how to do it (and that's the on-device app-store market).

I don't think they had to wait until it was perfect, but it really struck me as half-baked when I tried it out and they could've put a little more of a spit-shine on it before release. I like RIM, and use my Bold every single day, but this strikes me as uncharacteristically half-done for a company that always sweats the details.

[doogald]

You're right, but the exception to that is if they're entering a market where there's an established standard. If they were first to market with it, they could get away with it being just "meh" but honestly, it's really unimpressive in a market where Apple is currently showing others how to do it (and that's the on-device app-store market).

Sort of my point. Apple entered a very established smartphone market with a device that could not run third party applications, could not cut and paste, had very limited multi-tasking, no MMS, a camera but no video (in addition to other shortcomings) - and still thrived.

It seems that an app store is something that you can tweak and scale up quickly.

[Vincent Ferrari]

Sort of my point. Apple entered a very established smartphone market with a device that could not run third party applications, could not cut and paste, had very limited multi-tasking, no MMS, a camera but no video (in addition to other shortcomings) - and still thrived.

They thrived because the experience of using the device far outweighed any shortcomings of its featureset. There's no real analog here from RIM. There's nothing compelling about it.

I think I'm having trouble making my point here so I'm just gonna shut up. :p