RIM takes BlackBerry 10 to developers

Even though Research in Motion has delayed the BlackBerry 10 OS release date to next year and has been experiencing hard times of late, the company is continuing in full force with its BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour, looking to zero in on app developers as it pushes ahead with the new operating system. The tour will cover 23 cities in three months. At the session on Tuesday, RIM showcased some BlackBerry 10 features including neat ones like the new keyboard, camera apps and cascade effect, although there’s still some time to the actual platform launch. To highlight the value of waiting for BlackBerry 10, RIM shared with developers how there was a 226 per cent increase in demand for the App World service with 89,000 apps being downloaded three billion times.RIM also highlighted that in the past 12 months, they grew by 254 per cent to more than 40,000 app vendors, and enjoyed a 240 per cent growth in PlayBook apps submitted, which should port to BlackBerry 10 with little or no code modifications. The firm said that it currently has around 28,000 BlackBerry App developers. “RIM reiterated that developers will make $10,000 (Dh36,720) from the first year of launch if the apps pass the new certification program RIM is setting up, along with some other criteria. If they don’t make this guaranteed sum, RIM will top up the difference,” Anthony Payne, director of ecosystems marketing at RIM, said.That’s what we call “putting your money where your mouth is”. Payne shared its research that 87 per cent of BlackBerry users visit social network sites daily compared with the market average of 63 per cent. Furthermore, 26 per cent communicate with more than 50 others weekly, more than the market average of 12 per cent, asserting how social the BlackBerry platform is. “ Ease of use is also, of course, an inherent benefit of BlackBerry 10’s support of development in C++, Adobe Air, Android Runtime as well other SDKs,” Zahid A, Rashid, CEO of Adastra Communications, said. The new QNX platform, which will debut on a line of new BlackBerry smartphones in the first quarter, is seen as an important part of RIM’s attempt to regain a position in the market it once dominated. All in all, the event was “informative and exciting, displaying an array of awesome features on the stunning new BlackBerry 10 device as well as providing important information for the enrichment of developers,” Hamza Nasir, director, strategic relations at Lived Admins, said.from gulfnews.com