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5:01
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DevBerry
In case you missed Rick Segal’s comment in response to my previous post, it does seem that in fact the wrong Terms and Conditions were uploaded on the competition website, and submissions will be accepted worldwide! Rick noted that updated Ts & Cs will be uploaded shortly, however at the time I write this the [...]
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16:59
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DevBerry
The new BlackBerry Partners Fund website has today been launched and contains a whole host of new information for those interested in grabbing a share in the $150M VC pool.
But, the most interesting bit for me was the announcement of the BlackBerry Developer Challenge! Finally, a developer competition from RIM! I’ve been urging them to [...]
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8:27
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DevBerry
Over the last couple of weeks it seems like the RIM marketing team has kicked in to action in an effort to drive developers to attend the BlackBerry Developer Conference, which will be held on the 21st and 22nd of October in California.
About a week ago I received emails from a couple of RIM employees [...]
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0:39
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DevBerry
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10432668/1/blackberry-fund-shows-signs-of-life.html
The first of many, no doubt…
(my opinion)
Priya actually got it wrong in one part though. On page two she writes “Both RIM and Apple already have a framework in place to help distribute applications for their phones,” which is patently incorrect. RIM does precisely nil to help developers with application distribution and at its core [...]
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16:24
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DevBerry
Over the last week I’ve been getting emails from some big guns in the mainstream media asking for my thoughts on the BlackBerry Partner’s Fund. I’m guessing Rick Segal is out there trying to stir up some mainstream media attention and, in the interests of being impartial, journalists are looking for counter-points to the no [...]
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9:21
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DevBerry
engadget mobile is running a nice little story today reporting on the success of the iPhone App Store; namely, “users have downloaded some 60 million programs for the iPhone representing sales of about $30 million since the launch last month“. Jobs additionally commented “I’ve never seen anything like this in my career for software.”
It must [...]
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14:02
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DevBerry
Simon Judge is a mobile developer who’s blog I really enjoy reading, and I’ve even exchanged an email or two with him regarding BlackBerry development, and more specifically why he never talks about it! I do however respectfully disagree with some of the points he raises in his latest post. This isn’t about turning this [...]
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5:50
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DevBerry
So I just submitted a feature request to RIM, specifically asking for some new APIs. This might seem strange, but I did not submit this request because I plan on using the new APIs to deliver a feature users have been requesting. But here’s the thing, I do need these new APIs in order to [...]
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15:02
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DevBerry
AppleInsider reported over the weekend that Tap Tap Revenge, a Guitar Hero type game for the iPhone is set to hit the 1M download mark and indeed the goal seems to have been reached if their website fanfare is anything to go by.
Some interesting comments from the AppleInsider article:
“Few companies have publicly revealed how much [...]
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12:40
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DevBerry
Every week I receive about a dozen emails from fellow BlackBerry developers telling me to keep it up, you’re doing great work, keep the pressure on Neil. Usually there follows a similar tale of sorrow, despair, and frustration while trying to develop a BlackBerry application or bring it to market. Would you believe me when [...]
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5:53
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DevBerry
About a week ago I wrote an article on how developing for the BlackBerry is becoming harder, more expensive, and more time consuming due to OS fragmentation. There’s another side to this story as well, and it’s one that I’ve never told on DevBerry, despite wanting to. You see, I have to tread very carefully [...]
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18:26
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DevBerry
It’s no surprise at all that mobile developers worldwide right now are brimming with enthusiasm and optimism all thanks to the iPhone. Tonight while I was playing around with my iPhone, loading up various apps and games, it felt for a moment like I was transported back in time to when I was younger and [...]
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3:53
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DevBerry
Wooo! Thanks RIM! Around two weeks ago I sent in a note to RIM to let them know that the release notes for JDE 4.5 weren’t available. For me at least, when a new JDE is released these notes are the first thing I want to look at - I already know the majority of [...]
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18:01
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DevBerry
In response to my earlier post Galileo and Apples, Josh from Slashdev pointed out that there are some undesirable aspects of iPhone development and the way the App Store is structured. I agree. One point he made which got me thinking quite a bit was the fact that Apple maintains strict control over what is [...]
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15:29
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DevBerry
By the end of this month BBSmart will once again be just me, a step back to how it all started: a one man micro-corporation! Primarily it was my little venture in to the unknown to see what would happen and through it I’ve learned a lot. But I’ve decided to wind things back a [...]
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8:41
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DevBerry
For mobile developers the term “fragmentation” is a familiar one but the underlying sources of fragmentation are quite varied.
API level fragmentation - Google Android
For starters, there is the fragmentation we all love to talk about when discussing Google Android [1]. Google Android is probably the most high profile Open-Source Mobile Operating System due to the [...]
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13:26
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DevBerry
Today as I was waiting for my coffee down at the local haunt I overheard two people talking about the iPhone and began to think about how Apple’s marketing works. Of course, we all know what I’m talking about when I say “Apple marketing” as Apple is surely one of the most successful companies in [...]
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10:02
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DevBerry
Those familiar with the works of Galileo are intimately familiar with Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, a book famous for its discussions between Salviati, Sagredo, and Simplicio. I’ve read this book a number of times and what always draws me in to the dialogue is the knowledge that all such thoughts were penned [...]
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9:21
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DevBerry
Oh wait, this isn’t Slashdot…Sorry! I actually mean “Last post” though, regrettably, that doesn’t have the same Internet meme ring to it.
Yep, I’ve decided I’m going to stop blogging on DevBerry. I guess firstly I should note that this isn’t related to BBSmart - no sir. We’ll continue to operate as usual. In fact, we [...]
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8:26
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DevBerry
Or, “Developer Newsletter Substitute Post #1“. Anyway, up on RIM’s developer site the new 4.5 JDE and Component Pack has now been released.
Of course, in order to obtain the download you still need to go through the inane login/registration process (I’m still not sure if I’m logging in or signing up). And, as I download [...]
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13:52
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DevBerry
Slashdot
Today I read a submission on Slashdot called How To Clean Up Incorrect Geolocation Information? where a person found himself in a strange situation where every website he visits thinks he is from Canada. As a result of this he gets served up ads in French and various sites won’t sell him good and services. [...]
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6:36
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DevBerry
So I’ve got Firefox 3 now. Have to admit I absolutely love it. However for the time-being I’ve lost all my fabulous plugins including my most favorite: AmIOnMySpace.com?
It’s a sad, sad day. Once again I feel exposed to “the sweaty armpit of the Internet.”
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14:17
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DevBerry
I first heard about Unite almost six months ago now and I have to admit at the time the idea did sound quite promising. The ability to synchronize calendars, and share contacts and documents in my own “private network” of BlackBerries - a mini-BES if you will - sounded killer. Fast forward to today and [...]
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9:17
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DevBerry
It’s not going to plan…
For the last month or so I’ve been keeping a close eye on the new “Beta You Than Me” forum section on BlackBerryForums. Every time a new beta 4.5 OS makes its way out in to the wild, tons of BlackBerry enthusiasts install it and then head to this forum section [...]
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11:27
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DevBerry
Vanessa from Vision Mobile recently contacted me to let me know that in response to my previous post on the Mobile Developer Survey, the BlackBerry logo has now been put in (see above!). Thanks Vanessa!
Everything is now right with the universe…
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3:01
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DevBerry
Something that ticked me off a little bit was the way the 8330 release was handled. Breaking from tradition, it was the first 83xx variant that shipped with OS 4.3. For me and many other developers, knowing this sort of information is important so we can support our customers. And yet, despite being signed up [...]
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15:46
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DevBerry
Full details of this curious monstrosity over at RIMarkable.
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15:12
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DevBerry
Vision Mobile is currently running a mobile application developer survey until the 27th June, with the winner to receive a $1,000 Amazon voucher. Head on over and take part in the 10 minute survey for a shot!
Note the absence of a certain logo from the picture above? I always find it quite interesting that out [...]
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11:59
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DevBerry
Recently here at BBSmart we’ve been investigating the BlackBerry themes market. So I’ve been going around talking to BlackBerry theme developers, scoping out the tools theme developers use such as Plazmic Theme Builder, and also evaluating various themes myself. And from these discussions, technology evaluations, and from my own investigations, I’m going to make a [...]
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12:08
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DevBerry
Recently on the CrackBerry.com forums, a BlackBerry user asked that same question many of us have heard repeated for a long time now: Where is all the free BlackBerry software? In the ensuing discussion, another question that has been repeated for a long time also came up: Why does BlackBerry software cost so much?
Despite BlackBerry [...]
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4:19
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DevBerry
The Inside Track
It’s a frequently discussed fact in BlackBerry developer circles that “the system” collectively tends to favor those Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) with an inside track to RIM. BerryReview, a site that runs reviews of BlackBerry applications and therefore invariably maintains relations with many developers, once commented on this harsh reality:
“The one common thread [...]
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23:39
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DevBerry
I swear I’ve been cursed by a gypsy or something. Here I am again running a tight deadline trying to produce some builds of an application and the RBB signing component is down, reporting “Error connecting to web signer from proxy”.
You know, RIMs new signing servers seem a heck of a lot like the old [...]
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2:55
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DevBerry
The guys over on CrackBerry recently put up their “Best of WES 2008“, or “Cracky” award winners and I was humbled to see that BBSmart managed to snag one:
Best Apps I Can’t Talk About Award: BBSmart ????
Take a look at ShopCrackBerry.com’s Software store and you’ll find that Two of the Top Five Selling apps are [...]
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3:16
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DevBerry
A couple of days ago the round 1 winners of the Android Developer Challenge were announced and a slide deck made available to provide a brief overview of each winning application. Out of all 50 winners, 46 chose to make information about their applications publicly available while there are four out there still hiding in [...]
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23:46
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DevBerry
Only just got back from WES today and a fellow BlackBerry developer pinged me an interesting bit of news that was posted on the official developer forums on the 16th by Jennifer Emery, a RIM employee:
“Please note that the RIM signing servers will be taken down for maintenance this evening between 9pm and midnight (Eastern [...]
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23:59
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DevBerry
For those developers not attending WES you likely have missed the news that RIM has launched a new BlackBerry developer video library which you can access from here. Right now the amount of content on there is not huge however RIM has provided assurances that this will continue to grow. You’ll notice from the screenshot [...]
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21:13
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DevBerry
If I could sum up WES day four in one word it would be have to be “awesome”.
Rising late due to the festivities of the evening before I wasn’t too sure what to expect from today. On the surface it actually didn’t appear like there would be a lot going on but like all such [...]
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16:18
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DevBerry
Today marks my third day at WES 2008 (arrived on Sunday) and despite the lack of sleep and inevitable jet-lag I don’t feel tired at all. It’s all too exciting. There have been a raft of interesting announcements such as the launch of the BlackBerry Bold, the announcement of the $150M BlackBerry Partners Fund, and [...]
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3:37
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DevBerry
Over the last couple of days threads have been popping up all over popular forums such as BlackBerryForums.com, Pinstack.com, and CrackBerry.com reporting problems with BBWeather, a popular free and open source piece of BlackBerry software for reporting weather information. BBToday similarly has the same problem with obtaining weather information. Turns out both applications had a [...]
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12:16
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DevBerry
Found myself today reading, in Steve Ballmer’s own words, how Microsoft has finally withdrawn their proposal to acquire Yahoo. At a time of wavering confidence in Windows (with the disaster that was Vista), growth of the Mac and Linux as viable alternative desktop OS’s, and in particular the significant interest in the smartphone market - [...]
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10:45
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DevBerry
Today I found myself reading about another interesting application to hit the BlackBerry market: BlackBerry Battery Booster, which claims to provide a software only solution to “boost your battery’s current runtime“. Hmmm…Whenever I read about applications like this I cannot help but wonder what RIM’s policy on revoking developer signing licenses is and whether it [...]
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13:13
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DevBerry
“6 months from now the way we develop BlackBerry applications could be dramatically different“
The above sounds crazy, but I think it could well be true. Starting from the beginning, follow me on a path of what I think are a series of logical assumptions which led me make this statement.
It all started with Simprit
In my [...]
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4:51
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DevBerry
The powder keg, unlit
For a good number of years now I’ve been watching the BlackBerry third-party software marketplace and developer ecosystem. It was roughly a year ago I decided to finally jump in with my own offering, BBSmart, and since then there have been ups and downs, the market has coughed - even sneezed occasionally [...]
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4:51
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DevBerry
BGR has gone and done it again with another exclusive. This time they’ve got their hands on some pictures of the BlackBerry Kickstart, a clamshell flip-phone rumored to be in RIM’s ‘08 product line-up.
As a third-party application developer, I’m going to rain down fury upon RIM if they don’t:
A) Provide us with a means to [...]
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7:22
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DevBerry
A little while back I talked about the NetBeans Innovators Grant and how somebody should enter in to the competition and submit the idea of a BlackBerry development plugin for NetBeans. I actually found out shortly thereafter that a person did take on this idea, which I thought was fantastic news!
Yesterday the NetBeans Innovator Grant [...]
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1:16
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DevBerry
Over the last couple of months, I’ve watched as several really innovative BlackBerry themes have appeared on the market and then disappear shortly thereafter. I even remember speaking to a theme developer a couple of months ago actually and I believe he was one of the first to come out with a set of “next [...]
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14:04
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DevBerry
Understanding your user
When developing an application for the BlackBerry you’ve got a couple of different options available for how you choose to handle fonts.
For one, you can inherit the native font choice and use that throughout your app. This approach has a lot of merit. For example, if a user has poor vision they have [...]
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3:26
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DevBerry
Over the last five or so weeks I’ve been putting in what must be near 100 hours per week. It’s been an incredibly busy time during which BBSmart has been making some significant strides in pretty much every direction we’ve been aiming but as I took my first break this last weekend I began to [...]
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1:19
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DevBerry
Why is it always the times when I need to code sign the most that the signing servers are down?
It’s interesting that when the BlackBerry infrastructure necessary for users to receive email goes down, you see complaints, shouts to boycott RIM, articles in the mainstream media about the uncertain future ahead of RIM, and [...]
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13:46
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DevBerry
Why Things Suck Now
Over on BerryReview, Ronen recently put up an article talking about EA Mobile’s lackluster efforts in bringing a number of games to the BlackBerry. EA is not alone in failing to do the BlackBerry justice with their applications, rather they are just one of many big companies that have failed to effectively [...]
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10:12
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DevBerry
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16:21
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DevBerry
DownloadSquad recently ran an article written by a developer after his first couple of weeks playing with the iPhone SDK which I thought was an interesting read. The developer was new to Xcode, Objective-C and the iPhone SDK which is probably the position the majority of developers are coming from. Xcode and Objective-C aren’t exactly [...]
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15:29
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DevBerry
Earlier when I mentioned that a beta version of the Eclipse plugin was released, two people (Jonathan and Chris) commented that the UK had been blocked from downloading it. I’m happy to report that this download restriction has now been removed! Thanks for reporting this issue guys and also importantly, thank you RIM for responding!
Up [...]
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14:58
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DevBerry
In the last post I talked a bit about how the closed nature of the BlackBerry development community has resulted in everybody doing things a little differently. Another consequence of this closed environment is that there is very little opportunity to review the code of others and learn from that (since we’re all guarding our [...]
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12:16
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DevBerry
Recently I’ve been working with a lot of developers, some experienced and some not, and it’s been really interesting for me to see the various build environments, coding techniques, and ways that everybody approaches common things you need to do when developing a typical commercial BlackBerry application. Interesting, and very eye-opening because it’s not the [...]
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16:59
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DevBerry
There is a very real danger in being successful and despite being fairly obvious, it is nonetheless common for those who are successful to fall victim to it. Many a company have fallen victim to it, and you can read about it in the various books written by ex-CEO’s of once mighty corporate empires that now no longer exist or are a husk of what they used to be. Everyone who reads these books inevitably thinks “When I’m successful, that will never happen to me.” But it does, time and time again. If they’re lucky to be successful, that is.
A little while back - I think it was October last year - I read about how RIM overtook the Royal Bank of Canada as being the most valuable company in Canada. Their market share is growing and growing. RIM is successful. And so I’m worried about them because I think RIM is falling victim to the same dark side of success. What is the danger of being successful? In one word, it’s arrogance. But it’s more than that too. It’s abandonment of the core “working philosophy” that created that success.
N: “You should try initiative X or Y?“
R: “No! Our market share is growing, we’re rolling in barrels of money. Don’t upset the apple cart.“
Where a growing company, a fighting company, would take every door slightly ajar as an opportunity and stick a big foot in there, a company that is successful will not. Why should they, things are going great! What’s the point of putting your foot through another door when staying put keeps everything smooth? It’s a valid line of reasoning, until when writing an autobiography many years later after the company has stagnated and died - taken over my more innovative, fighting companies - the CEO recalls what made the company great, what made the company successful, was sticking that foot through every single door in a fight to stay alive.
Have you ever noticed how those companies and those individuals that have experienced true success, success with longevity, are the ones that have constantly re-invented themselves over time? Madonna constantly re-invented her image to stay relevant and so has Apple. Where previously McDonald’s was a purveyor of disgusting fatty foods, nowadays their menu’s are chock full of healthy looking stuff. They too have reinvented themselves to stay relevant, to stay competitive. To digress slightly, I still think McDonald’s is a purveyor of disgusting fatty foods, but the average mum and dad no longer thinks this so I guess that’s what counts. The point is that those companies and people that have experienced real success, success with longevity, are in a constant state of change. Without change, you die. Slowly at first, but then exponentially growing as the momentum of the real-world, of hive-like consumer behavior, drives you down in to the grave.
At a time when RIM is walking around patting itself on the back for being so darn successful, and rejecting change so as not to upset the apple cart, hundreds of companies are out there preparing to wage war and embracing change, embracing consumer wants, embracing developers, encouraging an army of employees who are not burdened by success but rather have dreams of it, and most importantly are open to trying anything and everything, no matter how closed a door may look.
RIM is successful. So was WordPerfect, the de facto standard for word processing in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Right now I’m reading a book by a senior executive who worked on it and in his view what ultimately killed their product was the fact that they ignored the coming of Windows for so long. So long in fact that when they finally got out a Windows compatible version that worked reliably it was too late. He doesn’t think Microsoft’s anti-competitive practices killed them, though I know that other many do. He says “At the height of our success, we ignored this apparently insignificant up-and-comer.” He’s wasn’t the first to do that and I can guarantee won’t be the last.
So to Mike L, Jim and all the VPs at RIM who I know sometimes stumble upon this blog: embrace the winds of change. In ten years from now will I be reading your autobiographies, learning once again how the dark side of success has claimed more victims?
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15:15
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DevBerry
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6:56
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DevBerry
Over on Mobile Opportunity, Michael Mace, former Chief Competitive Officer and VP of Product Planning at Palm, recently talked about the iPhone SDK and what it means to developers, which is something I’ve been trying to drum in to RIM as well. Some choice comments include:
“It has been obvious for at least six years that all of these changes were needed in the mobile market, but until now no one in the US and Europe has had the courage / political muscle / intelligence to carry them all out. The other mobile platforms now look pretty pathetic by comparison — not so much because their technologies are bad, but because their business infrastructure is so primitive.“
“The rest of the industry is still trying to figure out how to respond to the system design of the iPhone, and now they need to also figure out how to run an ecosystem as well. Right now Apple is changing the terms of the competition faster than the other guys can react, which is exactly the right way to beat a group of larger competitors.“
I’ve commented on Michael’s articles before too because he seems to have a real solid insight in to the challenges mobile application developers face. In this case, once again, I find myself in total agreement with what he has written. Full article can be found here.
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4:15
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DevBerry
- It’s hugely prevalent
- It makes no sense
- It hurts BlackBerry software developers tremendously
- It annoys users
- Carrier support teams don’t know how to handle it
- Most mobile software distribution sites do know how to handle it
- RIM does not know how to handle it
In case you haven’t guessed what I’m talking about, I’ve mentioned it a couple of times on this blog in the past here and here. Yes, that glorious “no additional applications designed for your device were found” error message users get when they try to install applications on their BlackBerry. The best writeup to resolve this problem is the one over on AllBlackBerry.com and I regularly direct customers of ours over to this site when they report having this problem (along with providing them the OTA install link because resolving this problem can be a real pain in the ass and they may not want to even bother). In that AllBlackBerry article, reason #3 is the culprit 99.5% of the time. So wait, I need to install a corresponding BlackBerry OS on my PC that exactly matches the OS version on my BlackBerry? I have two questions for the person that thought up that idea. 1) Who is your dealer? 2) How much?
What amazes me however is that RIM hasn’t even acknowledged the issue and don’t appear to be doing anything about it. Meanwhile, it is frustrating the hell out of everybody and killing the sales of BlackBerry software. None of the big guys know how to support it: carriers, software distributions sites, and RIM all tell people that “the application is not compatible with your BlackBerry” when they report a problem trying to install software on their BlackBerry with this error message.
I’m shocked. Meanwhile, we get a glut of emails from people everyday reporting this problem and I’m sure every other developer does too. Wake up RIM, you lazy sods! You’re killing our sales, increasing support for yourself, carriers and distribution sites, and annoying users with your poorly written Desktop Manager software.
Of all the problems I have reported on this blog, this is the one that continues to make me the most mad. I’m not sure how many people have wanted to install our software, received this error message and never come back. A rule of thumb an experienced friend told me is to assume that for every support email you receive reporting a particular problem with your software, another 30 people encountered that problem but never bothered to email about it. If that statistic holds true, based on how many emails we receive reporting this problem, I would estimate RIMs poorly written software is costing the BlackBerry software developers millions and millions of dollars in lost sales every year.
Meanwhile, the download limitation problem that I reported on FIVE months ago is still with us. Five months. Removing this limitation should be a simple webserver configuration change. Five months and we’re still waiting for a fix that should take roughly five minutes.
Wake up you lazy sods!
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11:32
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DevBerry
This evening I found myself looking back through all the posts I’d previously written on this site and one thing dawned on me: the most popular articles (most hits & most comments) have been the ones that were playa hatin’ RIM.
In Marketing 101 we learn that “controversy gets attention” and this is certainly something everybody [...]
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