Thanks for the Open Letter to RIM Developer Relations

kudos for actually doing something about what your community asked, it is rare that a company cares about its devs any more.

Tyler – Thanks to you guys for taking public ownership of the situation. This was exactly the right way to address Jamie’s open letter. Look forward to “seeing” you in the forums as one of your newer developers.

Dude, no way man that is just way too cool

Cool! I’ve been looking forward to see how the developer’s api are evolving. I’ve owned a blackberry and I’ve been impressed so far with the results. The UI is very straightforward compared to Android and iPhone without the flashy features. Will be buying a playbook when it was released and learn to use the developer stuff on it to create my own application

Reactive response. Out in the open. This is not the way to run a developer program. All of Jamie’s concerns would have been obvious to anyone talking to a real smartphone developer. It defies credibility to suggest RIMM themselves wouldn’t know these things. You’ve rushed a product to market and you’re just not ready yet. Work work work, get the real thing done asap. Otherwise the word of mouth machine is going to write you off before you’ve had a chance to recover.

We all need a strong RIMM. Please get on with what needs to be done

Android support?

When reading Jamies post last night I was chuckling as I went along, this guy had the exact same experience as me. I wasn’t expecting the developer relations team to respond, and it’s great you did, but you’re not quite there yet. RIM has a reputation for making a lot of promises. API’s announced at devcon get everyone excited, but then aren’t released for 18 months, if at all.

Apple is number one for a reason, and having an attitude of “RIM is the anti-apple” isn’t going to win the race. You need passionate employees. I can’t believe the number of RIM employees I run in to around town (waterloo) who just don’t care about the latest and greatest mobile technology. How many people at RIM know what NFC is? I dare you to ask.

I really hope this gets sorted out! I just don’t know how many developers are going to be willing to give you a second / third and sometimes fourth chance. I will. Just once more. Let’s do it!

So let me get this straight – if you send feedback via Beta programs and in the BB forums, you get ignored?

But if you decide to write a whiney blog post that sarcastically outlines what others have said elsewhere then you get all the attention and told that it’s being sorted?

I’m all for improving the tools and having a dialogue with developers, but I can’t help but feel somewhat let down by this random knee-jerk reaction.

Way to own it Blackberry. I applaud your efforts to make dev easier and to make a great product. Can’t wait to see the playbook.

Being an iPhone developer, the initial stumbling block to me was the notarized letter. For Apple, all I needed was a U.S. tax identification number, which I got after just 1 phone call. No need to print anything, go off to a notary to have it notarized, scan it, and send it over.

I knew this was coming…

Hi Tyler,
it’s great to see how open you answer to a critical blog – thats the right way !
I also made the experiences that RIM is really listening to the developers.

At the moment I’m not a PlayBook Developer because I’m waiting for the Java SDK to develop great Apps for a great product.

Hopefully RIM isn’t only focused on PlayBook development and also will increase the process to develop Java Apps for the Smartphones
I’m desperately waiting for Mac OSX Java SDK – not only a Beta. We really need Simulators on OSX, because debugging complex Apps directly on the device is way too slow. I gave up and still work using Parallels VM for Windows on OSX.

Also – as an experienced developer – I wish the update site back to install the 1.3 PlugIn. Providing a full installer will help someone not familiar with Eclipse. I know many developers already developing for Android w Eclipse how astonished they are that there’s no updatesite to install the BlackBerry PlugIn.

Next complex thing is using the Push Service SDK if you don’t want to use the technology stack provided by the PushServiceSDK. Took me much time to make it run. (Will blog about and publish the solution Open Source to help)

It’s not always easy, but I like to develop BlackBerry Apps and I’m also presenting sessions and workshops at conferences to teach others how to develop for BlackBerry. One drawback here is the need to always sign Java Apps running in debugmode on a device. If there’s no WIFI, there’s no way to teach this and because attendees dont have signature keys they also cannot sign. would be great to have a sandbox-mode for testing / debugging…

ekke

I develop Android apps (and I’ve worked on iPhone in the past). Jamie’s post made it sound like you’re still in a fairly early alpha stage of supporting developers, and that’s what I get from your response too. Perhaps interesting to play with, but not ready for real work.

But this?

“We will also review the requirement to have a Notary as this has come up as a challenge for some members of our community recently. I’m grateful this was brought to our attention.”

First, when I read Jamie’s bit, I assumed it was just hyperbole. The idea that you’d send people off to a notary is just laughable – there’s just no chance that it was a real policy. It’s just far too hostile.

But you seem to be saying it’s real? I’m now thinking that your senior management people are actively opposed to creating a developer community. Not just indifferent, but they really, deeply don’t want it to happen.

Tyler, should we be developing for RIM , or for Android?

http://go.danielodio.com/blackberry

This is great! I just wrote up a rant about markets, and included Playbook/AppWorld in it… so glad to hear that RIM is listening to us! This is exactly what I was hoping for/expecting. Having said that, to me I think the market itself needs a focused lense to determine how its going to successfully compete with the existing markets without crufting up our app selections.

I’ve been through the process and while at it, the excitement of being able to port an AIR app designed for the desktop to a mobile device (even if it is yet unfinished), drowned the inconveniences of multiple downloads. The Blackberry brand is still very linked to businesses so if our software is finally ported to the Playbook, there are great chances that our clients will take it, making the $200 we’d have to pay to RIM pretty insignificant. The Blackberry Playbook doesn’t seem to be after the same iPad consumer market.

However, making it easy to port desktop AIR apps to a mobile device has a drawback which is that they will have been designed for mouse and keyboards and much of the UI may have to be reconsidered to be used efficiently on a tablet.

RIM is already test-driving NFC with Bank of America. You should stay in the loop yourself.

The SDKs are way more rough around the edges for 64 bit Windows and for Macs than they are for 32 bit Windows systems. I am not sure why this is. Jamie was using a Mac, and there really shouldn’t have been a reason for how difficult it was to install. I was there in person to witness this.

Before you attempt to say that it was all amateur hour, I’d also like to point out that I have worked at RIM before.

Wow, and to think that Jamie gave up after ONLY trying to get the application deployed on the simulator. He gave up too soon! He missed all of the fun-frustration of trying to make a real application that used something simple-and-terribly-broken like file dialogs. Oh and how much fun you missed with the whole code-signing process!

I have to agree with Jamie on many points. I chuckled as I recalled encountering much of the same confusion along the way. Even polished SDKs like the Java SDK for smartphones aren’t nearly as well done as they should be.

It is great that Tyler responded, and so openly, but I agree with many other comments that this kind of reaction by new developers isn’t really anything new.

When I recall correctly then on of the most applause of the audience at keynotes of DevCon09 was given when RIM announced that they will rework/improve the procedure for the tool downloads – so I am surprised RIM can’t remember this promise?

Don’t get me wrong you changed a lot after DevCon09 – and for some time the DevSite was way more user friendly – but in the meanwhile it had changed back again (to the old style).

But Jamie mentioned a way more serious issues then the “Download Zoo” – I am more then happy that RIM is willing to listen – on the other hand side there are so many different (independent) areas that you have to work on – for here and now I hope you will concentrate all your forces on the product itself – on the other hand side – a product without any apps is very difficult to promote.

You have plenty of RIM (mental) associated developers (like me) who already went though all your processes (CodeSigningKey, AppWorld Registration and all that kind of things – most of us even had paid for all these steps in the past) – so honestly RIM why do you not make use of these existing developers?

When do you finally tell us that your BlackBerry SmartPhone JavaVM will run on the PlayBook as well?

Yes barrist, that is exactly my point. Everyone reading this blog is well aware of RIMs involvement with NFC.

What I’m saying is go down the hall, talk to the guy at RIM in Marketing, or the girl in HR, or the team that works on the assembly line, or the front-line carrier support people and ask them if they know what NFC means. They most likely don’t, because they don’t care about the industry like you and I. They are just 9 to 5, live in the suburb folk.

I’m not saying anything bad about these people. It’s an ideal way to live. It is however one of the reason RIM isn’t innovating.

The point was not that nobody at RIM knows what NFC is, but that outside of the team working on it, nobody at RIM cares.

That’s right, at Blackberry they’ll not only pull your app because it competes with a core service, but they’ll sue you as well.

As for the rest of your comment, I appreciate that you feel strongly about a company you work for, but it’s clear Jamie made some valid points with his post. It would be wise for RIM to address them if they want to slow their inevitable decline into irrelevance.

Lol, all that jazz about helping developers make their apps easier and not a single word about why you’re charging over twice as much as the market leaders(Apple and Google). Seems like you would be more worried about getting the developers to give you the time of day than making a quick buck off of them.

NEWS FLASH!!! People like things that are simple to use! People also like saving money! You have accomplished neither.

“a company you work for”… I’m quite sure that RIM does not even have a branch over here in Germany. In fact I’m a student and develop mobile apps as a hobby.
If you check out my blog http://bigger.cc (perhaps with the help of Google Translate), you might find out that I’m far away from being a BB fanboy. I don’t even own one of their phones…

I have no clue, if you tried developing with the given PlayBook tools. Consistent with my own experience, I heard no complaints from a couple of friends, which I told to try it out, too.
Whatever mobile platform you develop for: it’s always about the same basic tools (IDE, debugger, emulator, signing-tool and often some driver-stuff for communicating with real devices). If you can’t live with that fact (or the fact that you need to download more than one file), you’d better stay away from mobile development anyway.

Jamie’s post was spot on expect for one thing… he gave up without a fight, and frankly, is a lazy developer. Yes, he’s completely correct that the process is waaay too complicated and disjointed, at every stage, but let’s be honest with ourselves: this is pre-release software, access to it is completely free, and it all does work as advertised if you spend a few minutes figuring it out.

Every single one of his complaints are *more* than legitimate, but his ultimate conclusion is shockingly ignorant of the realities of the situation (which is this: “figure it out, get a free Playbook!”), and shows a complete lack of motivation on his part. It also seems annoyingly entitled, as if he would be doing RIM a favor by developing an app for the Playbook, and is *owed* a smooth, one-button solution or else.

By the way, I develop using Flash Professional (which is largely undocumented) and had to work with the command line, and *I* managed to work out a one-button solution, thanks to some simple moxie, and the support of other developers on the forums. It’s not that hard to figure it out, people.

Keep in mind, too, that he only tried to put the “sample” app on the simulator, and didn’t actually develop anything himself. When you have your own code at stake, you try a little harder to make it work, I think. Although, thank God he didn’t get to the code signing part of the process!

(Also, Apple charges $99/year, per year! And with their constantly shifting policies, uncompetitive behavior, and opaque approval process, they’ve become so developer-hostile that it makes me wanna puke.)

A lot of “we will” but no “we have.”

Is this page supposed to have dark gray text on black? It is totally unreadable. How can a BlackBerry page not work in WebKit browsers?

Tyler – commendable way of handling this. I signed on as a developer recently and I agree it’s weird to ask for a notarized document from an individual (but I didn’t mind sending articles of incorporation since that simply means attaching a PDF). When I first saw that email from RIM asking me for one or the other, I said to myself, “Good thing I’ve got a corp or I might not bother”.

I also thought Jamie’s post raised a lot of fair points and I was worried RIM might not fully listen. I’m glad my worries were unfounded!

Chris
http://ChrisUmiastowski.com

There are no excuses in Baseball. You hit the ball or you don’t.

This is why publishing companies and others aren’t even putting RIM on the radar. They’re developing for iOS and for Android because the “cost” of entry is far more reachable.

iPad is not just a consumer device. It is used in big corporations who make and deploy their own apps outside of App Store. Apple’s developer tools used to be enterprise-only. They were used to create the World Wide Web.

$99 per year is enough. It is a token to keep out people who aren’t serious, and supports the sign up and download servers. RIM can’t ask more when they offer less. iPad developers can stick to iPad-only development. RIM has to expect to be the second (or third) platform for most developers for some time if not forever.

The odd thing here is AIR. Isn’t the point of AIR that you can make an app for Windows and it will run on Mac and Linux also. Doesn’t it just run on PlayBook also? And if not, then what is the point? Open up a C API on PlayBook and make serious apps.

Apple’s development is done in the C language, which is by nature platform independent. That is why so many apps were so quickly ported from PC’s and game consoles to iOS. Only about 10% of an iOS app has to be specifically built for iOS. A wrapper, essentially.

Tyler,
Thanks for the heads-up. Now that most problems have been identified we trust that RIM will follow-up on this blog entry and gives us updates on this road to user(developer) friendliness. Cause its only going to get harder if you don’t communicate these pain points to the community.

Another complaint: How tutorials, demos and APIs are organized. (seemingly hard to find information/downloads etc.)
I feel the developer site is becoming somewhat difficult to figure out. If you take a handful of scenarios like looking up information. Asking for advice. I think things are very too Playbook sdk centric and I can’t seem to find things easily on BlackBerry OS 5.0 Java stuff (its like nobody really cares). I sometimes click the myBlackBerry link which is another login id which sends me to the consumer oriented stuff (annoying). I just want to develop quality Java apps on my Curve 85xx. I’m sure RIM has developer loyalty as long as you don’t make them feel abandoned. I understand people are excited about tablets etc.(Flash, content, tools, etc) but the community is mainly Java developers. Leverage their talents too. Build a plugins for NetBeans or IDEA. Promote Plazimic tools.
Another suggestion: I hope to see more published works.
There are very little books on developing in BlackBerry compared to other platforms.

I believe if you want to compete and want tons of developers building apps for BBAppW engage the developer community with REAL use cases and hopefully be candid about them. Let’s take a play from Android’s playbook.

For instance:
On Android “Speech Input API for Android”
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/03/speech-input-api-for-android.html

Keep in mind I’m new on both platforms:
I have a BB 8530 OS 5.0 I’ve asked people about speech APIs and no one gives me the same answer on how to do this with APIs! the phone has Naunce software on it, I know it does. Why does the button on the left able to do this but a developer can’t. No tutorials, no one talking about it, no one cares. Make developers happy by talking about what you can do with your current phone. Besides I’m locked in a 2yr contract and my carrier doesn’t carry the torch (no punn intended). On a side note: I hope “Dakota” goes to Verizon

I hope in the future the customer can design their own phone.

You can use Apple’s developer tools with the PhoneGap library to make a single app that runs on iPad and all the phones, including BlackBerry. In the near future, PhoneGap will support PlayBook, because PlayBook also has WebKit, it is essentially Apple-compatible. So anyone that is put off by RIM’s developer tools can work with Xcode/PhoneGap to build one app right now for all currently existing platforms and when PhoneGap adds PlayBook you will be on there immediately. This is not necessarily a solution for everyone, but is ideal for some developers. It is also more cross-platform and more open than AIR.

PhoneGap
http://www.phonegap.com/

Apple Developer
http://developer.apple.com/

Good luck to RIM. PlayBook is about a thousand times more interesting than Motorola XOOM. I’m looking forward to deploying my apps on PlayBook if the device happens as planned.

WOW, I’m worried about the future of app development if this is how developers behave!

[...] Tyler Lessard wrote a response and said that many of his concerns are already under consideration. I hope RIM makes good on some [...]

The fact that you did not know about most of these problems existed and the trouble that the developers were going thru is just appalling, if you had someone go thru the process even once or read any feedback that was privately submitted or even read your own forums you would have known. You are never going go anywhere in your pursuit for smartphone or tablet market if this is the way you are running your developer relations.

And one more thing, when I code sign my app RIM code signer sends me hundreds of emails, now why is that? And when will u fix that?

JW, if developers aren’t *given* a smooth transition and simple process for the * privilege* of submitting applications to a platform, they won’t do it. Simple. This is the reason the App World has the number of apps compared to the Android Market or iPhone App Store – orders of magnitudes less than their competitors.

BlackBerry may have smartphone market share that is (barely) comparable to Android and iOS, but the developer mindshare is not even close. The post that RIM responded to is the attitude of *countless* mobile developers that I have talked to and worked with in the past.

[...] Update: RIM responded to Jaime’s post. [...]

[...] Read Jamie’s entire letter here, and RIM’s response here. [...]

[...] Tyler Lessard from RIM responded to this open air criticism, and I give him points for his embracing this publicly.  I look forwarded to meeting Tyler at some point in the future. [...]

[...] that is really nothing new the interesting part was that RIM actually responded to Jamie’s rant on their blog.While I commend Tyler Lessard for sticking his neck out and responding to Jamies Open Letter his [...]

it seems that RIM is not aware that the community of users and developers should be involved from the very begining of the process, in that way the tools and the process of obtaining the tools and producing the documents for the tools is DEVELOPER oriented while being still user friendly

[...] complaints justified, or is overeacting to the harsh realities of mobile app development?[via Inside BlackBerry Developer Blog] If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing [...]

Everything in the blog post was a problem with RIM for several years now. The download/installation/signature/deployment process was long and painful from the start; the fact that it’s long and painful on the PlayBook as well is no surprise.

Unfortunately, unlike Jamie, a lot of us don’t have an option to quit. Developing is what we do for living and we have to put up with horrible UI, poor support and outdated and spotty documentation.

Fixing the PlayBook problems listed above is just the first step, since the BB platform is just as bad despite having been developed for years and years. There’s so much work to be done that frankly I don’t see how RIM is going to even make a dent there.

[...] Jamie Murai’s PlayBook dev post/rant and it looks like the post got RIM’s attention as Tyler Lessard has responded on the official dev blog. It seems a lot of developers are annoyed that Murai’s post, which hasn’t said anything [...]

Really developing for Playbook is a painful and unpleasant process. But free playbook offer totally worth it! Otherwise no way I would develop for this platform. The worst thing is that you make it a little bit more comfortable you should use Adobe Flash Builder, which is not free at all.

I also tried to develop for Android and WP7.
WP7 is the best for now. Emulator works really fast and smooth (compare super slow Android simulator) . And Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with visual designer for Silverlight FTW!

As with others you’ve ignored the same remarks that have been going on in the user forums for a lon time. Some of the same problems like having to fill out an entire form to download a SDK over and over again has been the norm with the BlackBerry.

I think the biggest hurdles here are the notary issue and the cost. It’s ridiculous to charge double that other platforms charge then charge for additional apps. Apple and Microsoft $99 for unlimited app (100 free apps for MSFT, no limit on paid apps) with no upfront fee. Take a cue from them. You’re app store isn’t as big so don’t push developers away with outrageous fees. If you want us to write apps then make the entry easy for us. An indie dev selling a $1 app is not going to pony up $$$ to get onboard.

I for one will not be going near Playbook development unless it becomes on part with iPhone and Windows Phone 7 processes. They have their own set of issues, but nothing like this.

Ha, way to win at fail, RIM! I dumped my Storm and went to an Android. Standards based development! Learn what that means.

You’re kidding, right? I mean this is sarcasm?

If RIM is seriously committed to the developer community then I’d really love to see RIM take some time to address some serious developer concerns that relate to actual “development issues” such as the complete lack of the ability to design a UI outside of code, or how about the horribly dated JVM? (really, I just want Generics, some more utils, and real Java collections, is that so much to ask?).

No, letting us build our apps in AIR or for Android does not solve this, you’re telling us that you think your own Java API is so horribly broken that you just want us to use someone else’s. That’s not exactly going to make me as a developer feel confident nor really enthusiastic in developing for Blackberry. I’d like to see RIM put up a real show that they care about developers and making development for Blackberry easier.

Here’s an idea: Make us a WYSIWYG UI design tool, you don’t even need to change the API to do it. Just have it spit out the Java code necessary for that UI for your various Blackberry OS versions, if I saw that I’d feel more likely to develop for Blackberry because I’d feel like RIM actually cared about addressing real development problems that every other Mobile OS has long since solved. I mean really, how hard is it to at least offer the level of convenience every other popular mobile OS/API does?

If RIM can’t offer that, then why should I develop for them anymore?

Apple’s not all sunshine and rainbows in this respect. To get a corporate membership, you have to fax them your articles of incorporation. And Apple wouldn’t convert my membership from individual to corporate because I’ve moved since incorporating my business (good thing for Apple that they’re still located in a garage in Palo Alto).

pretty typical corporate response. This was about as politically correct as you can get. It’s obvious RIM isn’t considering their audience with this developer program. The output is typical from large companies that focus more on process and corporate politics than doing what their users want.

The notary thing is where I really lost interest.

Overall though I feel the development process isn’t unreasonable. Once you get through the initial setup it’s as quick as anything else for development. It does use the command line, but most serious developers shouldn’t have a problem with that…

By the way, being on a mac it is off-putting that a purchase of VMWare Fusion is necessary to run the simulator. I’d much prefer if it was tweaked to also worked in something free like VirtualBox…

And scrolling through that huge license to install the simulator is aweful…

Developing on mature platforms that have been around for several years was easier than developing for a product that hasn’t even been released yet? Shocking!

I agree with some of Jamie’s points and disagree with some but his sarcastic and hate-filled rant completely turned me off. Yes, we’ve all had to deal with some weird behaviour from RIM, and things don’t always work how you expect but I got through them all and many others did as well. There’s great support forums that will help you out every step of the way. It’s unfortunate that you chose to give up – you’re missing out on a great platform.

the responses to rim’s response to Jamie are gold… too bad rim is clearly listening to senior staff instead of the audience they really need to court if they want to have a chance in hell of staying competitive

it’s not our factory polluting the lake… it’s all those dead fish!

The development process is not unreasonable? Even the part where you must write 100% of your app’s UI in code when every other major mobile phone has had mature, WYSIWYG UI design tools for years? Well gee, I didn’t know that was a feature, not a bug. Got to keep those new developers away! :p

Thanks Bil – I understand what you’re saying. First I should confirm that it is free to register for App World and submit apps, the $200 fee is a legacy that we removed late last year. We updated the web site today to remove all old references to it (we found a couple – sorry about that everyone!). Regarding the Notary issue, this is actively being worked on and we expect to have an alternative solution soon that will remove this requirement. So everyone that is pending registration due to the Notary requirement – stay tuned!! And finally, on the SDK download forms, we’re actively taking some steps. Very soon you should see the amount of data required to be entered to be reduced. Additionally, we have some plans to make it easier to create an account and sign in, which removes the need to enter a form for each download. Important steps forward – thanks Bil and everyone else for pushing us on this. More updates to come soon as well…

Why, might i ask, do you not have the option to quit? What’s stopping you from simply moving your app(s) over to iPhone?

Several friends and myself have decided to build Playbook apps. While setting up the development environment is a little time consuming, with some exceptions the process is pretty well documented and a quick search of the forums reveals work arounds for any issues.

From me, Playbook development using Adobe Flash Builder therefore gets a 7/10. The original blog poster is probably still being spoon fed food by his mommy if he thinks Playbook setup is a problem.

And since he hasn’t had to pay anything for his development startup (unlike many others) I’d suggest he accept the RIM free!!!!! development access gratefully instead of whining that RIM may charge later.

Imagine what he’d have posted if he was developing Java apps for BlackBerry’s!!!

By the way, iTunes has been around for a long time, and Apple has been developing IDE software for much longer than that. It’s little wonder they had a more seamless development setup. Always assuming you want to learn Objective C of course.

Anon, you are absolutely correct. Need For Speed was built using the Native C/C++ SDK for the underlying QNX Operating System. We’re actually at GDC (Game Developers Conference) in San Francisco this week and will provide a sneak peek and some updates on it at our session here on Thursday. We’re still a little ways out from having it ready, but we’re making great progress and Need For Speed looks incredible! Stay tuned for more updates in the next week.

We’re seeing a lot of Flash and AIR developers port over to PlayBook pretty quickly which is great to see. As you pointed up, apps will often “work” without any changes but you’ll often want to update/optimize them to better handle touch screen inputs rather than mouse events. We’ve worked with Adobe to bring extensive support for touch gestures into the AIR SDK and some other nice additions like Accelerometer support, Camera APIs, etc. At our Developer Conference 2010 when we announced the PlayBook, we also noted that we’ll be bringing a Native SDK platform with the ability to access custom Native libraries from AIR (or WebWorks) as well. Should open up lots of interesting opportunities for highly optimized and integrated PlayBook apps will killer performance!

Not to worry, we’re still making significant investments in our Smartphone platform! Not sure if you caught it, but we recently announced our forthcoming BlackBerry 6.1 SDK plans with new APIs for OpenGL ES 2.0, event-based geo-fencing, some relly cool new UI controls, support for magnetometer (digital compass), and more. Also, we’re getting close to opening up the BBM Social Platform APIs which will open up some really interesting app opportunities (I’m making it a point to think of a different use-case for the BBM platform API’s each day, and so far so good…

Just wanted to re-confirm that there is no cost to join App World and submit and distribute apps. We fully agree – there should be no cost barrier. The reference to the $200 was referring to old pricing that was removed entirely last year. That being said, we know we have work to do to make development simpler and more productive for our developers and this will be a top priority for this year. Keep the feedback coming as we release new tools and let us know what has improved and what still needs improvement.

PhoneGap is great if your App’s nothing more than a glorified mobile website but really what does it do other than let mobile websites use a few extra hardware features on the phone? It offers no UI assistance, in fact at this point I’m more likely to say jQuery Mobile’s really a better choice for mobile phone development. They’re trying to develop a consistent, extensible easy to use/understand set of mobile development tools and UI widgets. But that’s neither here nor there, mobile websites are very different from mobile apps because there are certain things you just need to run in native code for performance reasons, and good UI also requires a certain level of platform integration which mobile websites currently don’t offer (Firefox has hinted though that their next Major Firefox release will, but that’s the first time since Microsoft’s unofficial CSS additions allowing you to style the scrollbars that we’ve ever gotten any level of UI control required for creating a tight, responsive, fully-integrated interface that appears the same as a native one would.)

Objective-C and ISO standard ‘C’ are two different languages. Don’t confuse that.

Will you be sending Jamie a free playbook for his efforts to get ot the point of writing an app for it?

features of 6.x SDK really sound great and I know that it’s possible to develop BlackBerry Apps looking really great (askBrian Zubert – I demonstrated some 5.0 Apps at DevCon).

the missing things are from domain of tooling:
* PlugIn on OSX full featured with simulators
* 1.3 PlugIns from update site
* build tools (official Ant, Hudson/Jenkins)
* test-on-device without signing

yes: BBM SDK is great and I have some Apps in mind where I can use it integrated and this will become a really great user experience.
But it only works if all users are BB users. if customers are coming from different platforms then it doesn’t work, because you don’t reach them – would be great to have bridges into other worlds and also a desktop version so a sales people using this can work from desktop, smartphone, playbook…

looking forward to a great future of BlackBerry Apps – I’m very satisfied – that’s why I’m promoting BlackBerry in my sessions and workshops at conferences

…and I’m satisfied to see the direction RIM is going past months: openess to developers, first Open Source projects …

having native C/C++ SDKs and also Java SDKs would be nice and then you could catch all kind of developers: Java, C, Air, Web…

I also read about rumors that Playbook will run Dalvik on QNX and support Android in the future.
the interesting thing then would be how all the exciting BB parts will be integrated:
* security of platform
* PushService SDK
* AppWorld / Payment / Advertising SDK
* perhaps a compatibility layer for Java Apps developed for BB SmartPhones

good to hear that downloads will become easier

also the process to get new signing keys now is faster (and without paying for the keys) – so you’re on the right way, RIM

there are some other parts where the process should be better:
* if registering for PushService SDK per ex. you got an answer that you’ll receive the credentials 2 workdays later. looking at the forum sometimes it took weeks. developing against PushService SDK isn’t easy, but the registration process should be easy and fast

It’s too late. Your platform is dead. That blog post killed it. You need to look for a new job.

I read Jamies blog and like others laughed at how true it was. Please please please work on producing a solid developer program. Most of us are dealing with other platforms that are offering a much better experience.

It probably has something to do with RIM’s security requirements. There main business is built on being a very secure platform for communications. A lot of IT departments just don’t let you install apps on your Blackberry, but with a tablet that is less of an option.

Hi Tomas/JohnDoey,

We removed the $200 fee late last year. There were a few lingering references to it on the website, but these are being removed now.

Cheers!

why is this a problem? I go by my bank at least once a week and they can do this. Most people in campus offices/bursars can do this. Having gone through this process, I agree its a lot slower to get started than, say, registering for a Student Developer package with iOS. However, I am hoping that this means the application approval is much more streamlined and less nebulous to developers. Again, this opinion may change after I actually submit the app and experience that part of the process. Personally, I am hoping the rest of the process proceeds smoothly, especially the free Playbook part!

What about applying wallpapers to the Background? Will this be a possibility before launch? We have a successful copyrighted wallpaper application on another platform and wanted to expand the brand to the PlayBook, but now I’m finding out it may not be possible with the current SDK or before Launch. Even applying through the photo viewer seems easy enough.

Hi, Tyler, thanks for the fresh air.

But am I missing something? I’ve had a couple of our corporate IT types ask me whether their idea for a location-based retailing app would be good for the Playbook.

And I keep telling them: if it’ll fit within AIR or HTML, OK, have at it! But if you want to develop in C or java, I don’t see how you’re going to get location info. I don’t know what database they’ll provide to manage your multiple coupons, store layouts, etc. I don’t know how you’ll provide blue-light special notifications in an OS-consistent fashion. How you’ll display HTML graphics in your app; etc, etc, etc.

Where’s the roadmap? Think it’ll be another year until there’s a reasonably complete API for stuff beyond bare-bones OS stuff?

I am a developer from Germany. Maybe you can go to your bank in the states and let them do that, but I can’t. I went to my town hall in order to let them sign the appliciation, only to be sent off as they plainly refused to do so. ‘Anything official has to be in the official language of the country’, which is German. Does RIM/BB offer their documents oin German? No? Hm, what now? Up to now it took me a week back and forth, and I’m still not signed up. I can’t even start to imagine how it will be like for other countries e.g. thailand with their tallips or something. Also, what I don’t get is, you have to give them your PayPal account name anyway, which is in general already signed. Isn’t that enough prrof for them??

True, but Objective-C is a superset of C, meaning you don’t have to rewrite “pure” C code to make it part of an Objective-C application.

Firstly, Apple and Google are market leaders at this point and in this area. RIM is *already* “behind the 8 ball” in the losing column and does not have this luxury unless they truly are this arrogant to think they don’t need to take any cues. Secondly, we’re talking about the developer registration and setup process here. This isn’t about product strategy so creativity and ingenuity doesn’t really apply here in the way that you mean. They should make the process easier, regardless.

Dear Tyler. You’re competing with Apple. APPLE! Get your shit together fast or all is lost. This blog from an app designer is a perfect example of a Canadian corporation resting on its laurels while the rest of the world passes it by. I used to stick up for you guys on Gizmodo but now I really think your finished and will be bought up Google or Apple.

[...] Jamie’s full story of how he came to this level of frustration.  Also see RIM’s response on its BlackBerry Developer’s [...]

Mobile Devs are entitled – because there are so many alternatives. It’s up to the hw/sw vendors to encourage them.

The current process is a classic “make the user fit our company” rather than “make our company fit the user.” And yes, developers are a user. Decisions like $200/10 apps are so often made by people who are just completely out of touch with the market. The nights & weekends developer who is cranking out dozens of apps hoping one becomes the killer app is penalized?

When I can get both iOS dev tools and Android dev tools up and running in significantly less time than playbook dev tools, why should I both? To get 1 free device? Not worth it.

Notaries, VMWare, multiple enterprise portals and registrations – all of these things feel like the clumsy, bulky, corporate software world of 1998, or 2002 at best. The web-enabled mobile software world is the antithesis of all of these things.

If you’re this out of touch with developers, why should we assume you’re more in touch with consumers? Why should developers believe your platform is a real market worth developing for?

It’s nice for you to say you’re listening, but until the process changes there’s no reason to believe you understand the things you’ve heard.

The rumors about you allowing the Playbook tablet to run Android apps is disturbing. Our firm counts on you for what we have come to trust as RIM’s security/ease of corporate access standard. If you compromise this standard then you will just be another tablet that we will not allow to connect to our network. We will NOT allow any type of Android devices or software on our system as we have found them to be a security risk. My firm has been looking forward to the release of your tablet and have been counting on it to be a “corporate” device first — “consumer” device second. They have enough toys out there — we need a real “working” device.

If you compromise security by letting Android apps run on the Playbook then it will be DOA out of the gates as far as we will be concerned — just like the Xoom.

Thanks RIM, you got my i5 processor working solely with your JDE and simulator as slow as my 486 back back in the early nineties. O quote every word al says here…

ROFL, RIM and it’s honchos make me laugh everyday. They exhibited the typical arrogance when visiting my business school to recruit and I am so glad I skipped them & their company. True innovation doesn’t happen @ RIM.

Grey text on a black background? Seriously? It just follows that what you are trying to do is make everything harder for your developers, including reading your lame defense of where your development program stands.

Exactly. Very herd to read in my iPad in landscape mode. Most blogs I can read on my iPhone in portrait mode.

I am an iOS developer and I don’t feel that Apple is developer hostile at all.

[...] obviously #winning while RIM seems think developers don’t need user-friendly tools. RIM has openly acknowledged the problems a new developer must face. Until then, I would hold off any interests in developing for RIM especially since rumors are [...]

Also, I’d like to add that if the concern about dev identity is to find legal recourse in case someone publishes a malware, then perhaps you could find some way to streamline the process.

but corporate is where the money is

RIM, keep working at it. QNX purchase was a great move. But fix the “developer startup” experience please!

except for android, microsoft and apple delivering a better experience. rim can listen as hard as they like but if the experience is not as good, then they are not actually delivering.

reading platitudes from corporate entities helps the development proces… how?

Tyler, it would be easier if you provide your email address or a contact address of a Person, not a generic account, where developers can contact. Everyone had similar issues with the SDK, it was Jamie that wrote the open letter which gathered momentum and you replied.

It was on the first day of releasing your SDK, I left comments on the forum, to which instead of taking into consideration of the issues, someone in a true defensive manner tried to just discuss workarounds.

I am not sure how many developers will like to work with the platform, when there are no physical devices to touch and feel. The VM simulator is too slow even on a quad core processor. There is no IDE, I personally do not like to use Java or Eclipse, I know this is sounding more like a whinge, but these are some factors that prevent me personally from looking t the playbook as a development platform.

Honestly, it is not like that Playbook is the largest ecosystem out there that I would love to get on to and take the extra efforts to learn the development environment, so I guess it will be a bit of work on RIM’s part to make the development environment more user friendly and comprenhensive and inclusive.

All the best, cheers,

Perfect and succinct reply!

I was proud to be one of the few to actually complete a PlayBook app. I tested it, and was ready to submit. Until I received a ridiculous e-mail asking me for notarized proof of my identity.

I have lived and worked in 5 countries (Canada included), and never ONCE did I ever need to get a notarized letter of this sort. It is completely ridiculous. I worked for RIM for 12 months, and not even then did I require a notarized letter proving my identity!

Until you guys drop this completely asinine requirement, I’m keeping my apps to myself, Android and iOS.

I am developing for blackberry and other platforms for about 1.5 yrs. To your surprise blackberry was my first platform to work on. As it was my first so challenges and procedures it imposed was overlooked by me as i thought this was a part of process. Even though their documentation is scarce and tutorials are short I manage to get some dev support from their forums by constantly asking questions which would seem stupid for other platforms. After working out all the challenges and coming up with gr8 work an blackberry platform i was awarded with decent reward by my fellows. After that I looked at other platforms then I actually realised that I am living in a STONE AGE in these modern times where most of the time I spent including sleepless nights were spent on configuring RIM’s silly tools, filling form and waiting for their simulator to load up. After doing all of this a large percent of time was devoted to building a UI which took days instead of minutes as it would have taken in other platforms. When all of this was done then I ported application logic from our desktop java app to j2me in a couple of week and got my app to work. So total time spent was around 4-5 months out of which quality time spent was couple of week. What is more frustrating is that I built expertise
(yes people here call this learnt silly things as something worth building expertise) in a platform which is generating less revenue and seems to be on loosing ground .More frustrating is that no other fellow in my company want to spent time to ramp up on this platform and develop or enhance the current product. I want to move on to other platforms but management decided to lure me by giving more rewards if i stayed. I have decided to leave the current job in next 4 months if I don’t get to work on other seemingly easy platforms where your time is spent on quality and logic stuff rather than whole time configuring tools and simulators. Thats how bad is developing for RIM is. good luck RIM.

Thanks moeadham for the feedback. We have removed the requirement for the notary today (http://devblog.blackberry.com/2011/03/blackberry-app-world-developer-updates/) and have also extended the free PlayBook offer to allow people more time to work through the App World vendor approval process.

“(really, I just want Generics, some more utils, and real Java collections, is that so much to ask?)”

Huh? What? You can’t be serious. No one would ship a JVM in 2011 that didn’t support generics. That’s just idiotic. Laughing-out-loud-rolling-on-the-floor-please-tell-me-this-isn’t-true kind of stupid.

If you’re right, then any attention I’ve paid to RIM has been a complete waste of my time.

I’m ok with faxing articles of incorporation, but converting from individual to corporate would be a problem if they won’t allow it! Well, maybe you can just remove your individual apps from the Appstore, then publish them again using your corporate identity?

Hear people complaints and improve it on, oky i’ll be heading to apple now.

Thanks for the feedback, please keep it coming. As Tyler noted, many of the items discussed were known issues we were already working towards resolution and much of this feedback is coming from the Support Forums and our Developer Issue Tracker.

On the topic of the platform, we at RIM want to meet developers on their turf. A couple months ago, we provided some insight into the future of the platform. We are fully embracing today’s technologies including HTML5, JavaScript, Adobe Flash and AIR, Java and OpenGL as platforms for content services and powerful apps. With Java, Native C/C++ and Open GL coming to the Tablet OS in the future, I’m certain the platform will evolve to provide you with choice and flexibility. You can read more on this here: http://devblog.blackberry.com/2011/01/blackberry-application-platform-update/

I encourage you to get your app in and approved, so we can get a PlayBook into your hands!

Again, thanks for the feedback – we’re here to help.

[...] viral across the web. It climbed the ranks at RIM as far as RIM’s Head of Developer Relations Tyler Lessar who posted a thank you to Jamie. To his credit, he agreed with everything that Jamie said and promised to fix [...]

On RIM’s devloper portal its written as follow:

NOTE: This site is only supported on Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 or newer as well as Mozilla Firefox 3 or newer. Using any other browser may have unexpected effects such as missing or broken functionality. For compatibility reasons, please use one of the previously mentioned browsers to navigate this website.

[...] app ecosystem is piddling at best, thanks to a lousy developer experience (which, to be fair, RIM is working to improve). According to Reid’s estimates PlayBook will have less than 100 apps at [...]

After developing the app and submiting it,
and after a three weeks got a response from a rim saying

-Please upload using the newest 0.9.4 SDK
-Please verify the new Release is signed

But the signing process and the new version of SDK was not there when it was submitted .

And don’t know when will they respond after i submitted my application again.

Tyler why dont you just do it ‘Dan dodge’ style and have a million downloads of RTP6.* developer in a week or even a day off public and internal cloud servers etc the connectivity has come a long way since 2000 QNX RTP real-time platform day’s

did you people forget that “QNX” were POSIX certified RTP as was now rim , and C99 OC, did you forget that all the Linux OSS dev’s out there are also writing pure LGPL , do you not really want the option to also take that massive code base and just configure/ make it using the existing RTP photon and related base, or are you lot to young to even bother downloading the old free developer liveCD QNX dan released back in 2000 when RTO6 first appeared ?, you missed a treat if so. goggle it

Agreed. As mentioned elsewhere, Apple’s customers are users, Google’s customers are handset manufacturers, and RIM’s customers are IT Managers. If RIM can get IT managers behind them, the rest of it doesn’t matter.

[...] /**/ /**/ « Adobe Announces Touch SDK for Tablet/Mobile Apps…BlackBerry Code Signing Key Replacement Now… »App World Features Should Not be Deployed On a Friday Postedby Kyle McInneson April 11, 2011, at 12:31 PMin Editorials. Tags: blackberry app world, blackberry developers, developers.Comments: View Comments tweetmeme_style='compact'; View CommentsIt’s commonly understood in the software business that you don’t deploy on a Friday. The logic behind it is that if you deploy on a Friday and a bug makes it into the software, you don’t have anyone around on the weekend to deal with it. We’ve noticed that RIM tends to update its Featured category in App World on a Friday and it’s not clear why. The App World team at RIM, while they may have people working on the weekends, surely don’t have the same resources on a Saturday night as they would on a Tuesday morning. Also, a major implication of being featured is that your downloads will increase and there’s additional load on your servers if your app uses them. By deploying the featured apps on a Friday, you aren’t taking into consideration the companies that have to either pay overtime to have someone around to troubleshoot the server load, or answer the increase in support emails. Even if the company is just a one person shop, you’re potentially ruining weekends and that’s just not groovy.Maybe this didn’t merit a post on its own but we’ve had a couple developers write in and ask that we put this up. Perhaps more developers are looking to the blogs to get changes made ever since that lone blogger garnered so much attention.google_ad_client="pub-7131708721983712";google_ad_slot="2579457768";google_ad_width=300;google_ad_height=250; Related Posts:PlayBook Development May Be Easy But It Can Be EasierRumor: New Business Category Expected from App World in 2010Why Did RIM Pull Viral Messenger App Kik from App World?Distimo Report Shows Falling App Prices But May Be Innacurate5 Tips for Success When Selling Your App in BlackBerry App WorldPermalinkPost Comment« Adobe Announces Touch SDK for Tablet/Mobile Apps…BlackBerry Code Signing Key Replacement Now… »blog comments powered by Disqus /**/ var DsqLocal={'trackbacks':[],'trackback_url':"http://www.blackberrycool.com/2011/04/11/app-world-features-should-not-be-deployed-on-a-friday/trackback/"}; /**/ /**/ Quick LinksReviewsEditorialsHelpPodcastsVideosSubscribeRSSPodcastEmailTwitterBBCool MobileStaff PicksThe Best Free Apps For BlackBerry foursquare FREE Google Maps FREE SmrtGuard-Free FREE THK Live FREE Poynt FREE /**/ FB.init("d404c94e6e9520664fd0095b4ee726d7");BlackBerry Cool on FacebookSpotlightsThe Story of Possibly the First Branded BlackBerry Game View CommentsHow the iPod Tax Affects the Cost of Your Smartphone in Canada View Comments5 Tips for Success When Selling Your App in BlackBerry App World View CommentsBlackBerry Style 9670 Review: The First Clamshell, Full QWERTY BlackBerry View CommentsComparing Mobihand and App World Vendor Portals: What’s Best for the Developer? View Comments /**/ Email Updates Browse by MonthApril 2011 (33)March 2011 (74)February 2011 (94)January 2011 (105)December 2010 (97)November 2010 (107)October 2010 (96)September 2010 (124)August 2010 (145)July 2010 (127)June 2010 (122)May 2010 (121)April 2010 (152)March 2010 (176)February 2010 (149)January 2010 (145)December 2009 (171)November 2009 (121)October 2009 (124)September 2009 (112)August 2009 (145)July 2009 (153)June 2009 (170)May 2009 (185)View archivesTop Tagsblackberry storm (269)blackberry (448)united-states (225)blackberry bold (253)wireless industry (658)WES (216)free app (265)RIM (1086)Rumors (362)software (664)BlackBerry-Help (231)canada (296)blackberry-curve (261)consumer (273)Announcements (912)BlackBerry CoolThe voice of the BlackBerry community. Contributors | Contact | AdvertiseCopyright ©2008 BlackBerry Cool.All Rights Reserved. PrivacyBrowse by Tags Rumors wireless industry verizon RIM blackberry bold free app software blackberry-curve BlackBerry-Help rogers blackberry Announcements enterprise canada blackberry storm WES consumer united-states Browse by CategoryBlackBerry-Help (320)Editorials (519)News (8316)Podcasts (69)Reviews (300)Spotlight (733)Top-Story (132)Videos (45)vPost (36)Weekly-Contest (18)SubscribeFeeds: RSS 2.0 | RSS 0.92 | AtomPodcast: RSS Feed | iTunesSocial: Twitter | LinkedIn | FacebookGet updates by email: [...]

Thanks for the feedback. With the WebWorks platform we had a binary compatibility break between the 0.9.3 and 0.9.4 releases due to underlying changes in the WebView class provided by our AIR APIs. This is the reason for requiring a rebuild (and consequent re-sign) of your application. The App World operations team is actively working through the queue of applications and providing feedback to developers as soon as possible.

This is sad! Clearly RIM do not understand that they need to attract developers to succed, not scare them away.