BlackBerry World

BlackBerry World (previously BlackBerry App World) was an application distribution service and application by BlackBerry Limited for a majority of BlackBerry devices. The service provided BlackBerry users with an environment to browse, download and update third-party applications. The service went live on April 1, 2009. Of the three major app stores of different operating systems, it has the largest revenue per app at $9,166.67 compared to $6,480.00 and $1,200.00 by the Apple App Store and Google Play, respectively.[2] On 21 January 2013, BlackBerry announced that it rebranded the BlackBerry App World to simpler BlackBerry World as part of the release of the BlackBerry 10 operating system.[3] BlackBerry devices since 2015 (with the release of BlackBerry Priv) no longer use the BlackBerry 10 operating system but Android instead, which uses the Google Play Store. BlackBerry World shut down on 31 December 2019.

BlackBerry World
Developer(s)BlackBerry Limited
Initial releaseJuly 30, 2010 (2010-07-30)
Stable release
5.0.0.132 / July 2, 2016 (2016-07-02)[1]
Preview release
5.0.0.120
Written inJava, C++
Operating systemBlackBerry OS, BlackBerry 10 OS
PlatformBlackBerry
Size260,000+ apps (all OS)
Available inEnglish, French, Italian, German, Spanish , Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Indonesian, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai
TypeDigital distribution
LicenseProprietary
WebsiteBlackBerry World

History
Home Screen of BlackBerry World on BlackBerry Z10
BlackBerry App World main screen depicting a featured app on a legacy BlackBerry OS device (pre-2013)
BlackBerry World home screen on the legacy BlackBerry OS device Curve 9380 (pre-2013)

In 2003, RIM launched the Mobile Data Service to enable customers to access Java-based third-party enterprise applications using the secure real-time push-based BlackBerry infrastructure.

Later on October 21, 2008, RIM announced at the BlackBerry Developer Conference that the company would open an application store for their devices.[4] It was also announced that the store was scheduled to be open in March 2009, and would work in conjunction with PayPal's services. On January 19, 2009, RIM began accepting submissions of applications from developers.[5]

On March 4, 2009, RIM officially named the store "BlackBerry App World"[6] (previously called the BlackBerry Application Storefront). It was also confirmed that the service would not initially be available for desktops, and only a web-based catalog would be accessible from non-BlackBerry devices.

On April 1, 2009, at CTIA's trade show, RIM announced that App World had gone live.[7]

At the BlackBerry sponsored Wireless Symposium, it was announced that an average of one million apps were being downloaded each day.[8]

On August 19, 2010, BlackBerry App World 2.0 was released. This new version introduced BlackBerry ID - a single sign, account system that can be used on both the BlackBerry client and the BlackBerry App World desktop storefront. In addition to BlackBerry ID, BlackBerry App World 2.0 also introduced direct credit card billing and carrier billing for AT&T Wireless subscribers.

On December 3, 2010, Research in Motion announced that daily downloads were two million apps per day.[9]

On February 2, 2011, BlackBerry App World 2.1 was released. This version introduced in-app purchases of digital goods, allowing for add-ons to be purchased within applications.[10]

On January 21, 2013, BlackBerry rebranded the BlackBerry App World to BlackBerry World.[3]

On June 18, 2014, BlackBerry announced an official relationship with Amazon, which includes access to Amazon Appstore in BlackBerry 10.3.[11]

On December 5, 2017, Blackberry announced the closure of Blackberry World on December 31, 2019.

On April 1, 2018, Blackberry removed paid apps from Blackberry World.

On December 31, 2019, Blackberry shut down Blackberry world.

Milestones

At the beginning of 2011, 16,000 apps were available on BlackBerry App World. A year later, the app store passed 60,000 apps (January 2012) and a month later 70,000 apps (February 2012). At BlackBerry Jam in September 2012, RIM announced that App World had more than 105,000 apps.

In May 2013, at the Blackberry Live Conference, BlackBerry announced that over 120,000 apps for BlackBerry 10 were available to download from BlackBerry World.

Application verification is done for BlackBerry World apps about content and quality before is agreed to launch. About 85 percent of the verification is done in Denpasar, Bali.[12]

Date Downloads per day Downloads to date Available apps[13]
July 30, 2010[14] 1,000,000 10438
September 27, 2010[14] 1,500,000
February 14, 2011[14] 2,000,000 26179
March 22, 2011[14] 3,000,000
July 12, 2011[15] 3,000,000 1,000,000,000 36781
February 7, 2012[16] 6,000,000 2,000,000,000 67310
July 8, 2012[17] 6,000,000+ 3,000,000,000 77501
March 31, 2013 6,000,000+ 4,000,000,000 135,000[18]
April 23, 2014 234,500[19]

Pricing and availability

RIM announced that the store would initially be available in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada.[20]

As of March 2013 - BlackBerry World is available in 170 markets and supports 23 currencies and 33 languages. Over 6 million applications are downloaded daily with an aggregate of over 4 billion downloads to-date and accepts payment in all markets using a combination of PayPal, credit card, and carrier billing.

List of countries where BlackBerry World is available.[21]

Applications were both free and paid from $0.99 to $599.99 USD in the U.S. After July 2018, some paid apps were deprecated. Max now is $5. The registration and app submission are closed since December 1,2019 prior to shut down of BBAW on 12/31/19.[22]

The service is available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese.

The store is available for the following BlackBerry devices that are updated to BlackBerry OS version 4.5.0 or higher:[20]

Storage

Users were initially allowed to archive their apps on a MicroSD or on eMMC storage of certain BlackBerry smartphone models.[23] The archive function was later removed with the release of App World 3.0.[24]

Developer

In 2010, RIM announced several new tools to make it easier for applications developers to build, simulate, deploy and monetize feature-rich applications on the BlackBerry platform including the BlackBerry Enterprise Application Development Platform; the next generation BlackBerry Web Application Platform; BlackBerry WebWorks Platform for the BlackBerry PlayBook™ Tablet and BlackBerry smartphones; and BlackBerry Payment Service, BlackBerry Push Service, BlackBerry Advertising Service, Location Service, Maps Services, Analytics Service, Scoreloop, BBM Social Platform Software Developer Kits, et al.

BlackBerry embraced open standards and included a variety of open source libraries out of the box including Lua, OpenAL, cocos2d-x, and Box2D and has an open source repository that can be accessed at github.com/blackberry. This open ecosystem helps developers target multiple platforms through partnerships with Appcelerator, Apache Cordova, dojo, jQuery Mobile, Marmalade, NME, Qt and Sencha Touch.[25]

BlackBerry has changed its whole direction of development tools and is now mainly embracing their C++/Cascades as the "native" road to develop mobile apps for their BlackBerry 10 platform. HTML5 is considered the almost-native second path for development. In April 2014 BlackBerry has announced to stop the support of Adobe Air with the release of BlackBerry 10.3.1 to be released later 2014. From the time of the release of BlackBerry 10.3.1 it will not be possible to upload new Adobe Air-based apps to BlackBerry World.

gollark: But you can't do that unless you know that there's annoyingly loud music coming from inside it.
gollark: I think *a* way to handle that issue would be to say that you only have an expectation of privacy for information you're actually taking reasonable steps to prevent exit of.
gollark: Which is... many.
gollark: I only do that to rules which are very stupid.
gollark: Do fancier systems for that include automatic privacy-invasion-detection and lawsuit-sending?

See also

References
  1. "BlackBerry World Download Versione 4.3.0.26". BlackBerryItalia.it (in Italian). Archived from the original on 15 May 2013. Retrieved 21 February 2013.
  2. Eric Zeman (February 28, 2011). "BlackBerry App World Generates Highest Revenue Per App". Bacononthego.com. Archived from the original on March 22, 2011. Retrieved May 5, 2011.
  3. "BlackBerry App World Web Storefront is now BlackBerry World". BlackBerry. Archived from the original on 23 January 2013. Retrieved 21 January 2013.
  4. Perez, Marin (2008-10-21). "RIM Announces BlackBerry App Store". InformationWeek. Retrieved 2009-03-09.
  5. Meyer, David (2009-01-29). "BlackBerry app store open for submissions". CNET News. Retrieved 2009-03-09.
  6. Cha, Bonnie (2009-03-04). "RIM store crowned BlackBerry App World". Crave. CNET News. Retrieved 2009-03-09.
  7. Mies, Ginny (2009-04-01). "BlackBerry App World open for bousiness". Macworld. Retrieved 2009-04-02.
  8. O'Brien, Stuart (2010-04-27). "BlackBerry App World generating 1m downloads a day". Mobile Entertainment. Archived from the original on 2013-06-13. Retrieved 2011-01-13.
  9. unknown (December 3, 2010). "BlackBerry App World hits 2M daily app downloads". GSMA Mobile Apps Briefing. Archived from the original on December 7, 2010. Retrieved December 3, 2010.
  10. Jason Cipriani (2011-02-02). "BlackBerry App World 2.1 now available for download, brings in-app purchasing". Dennis Publishing. Archived from the original on 2011-02-25. Retrieved 2011-05-31.
  11. "BlackBerry will bring thousands of apps from Amazon's store to its phones". The Verge. Retrieved 18 June 2014.
  12. "Kantor Pusat BlackBerry World Ternyata di Bali". July 20, 2013.
  13. Research2Guidance. "Smartphone App Market Monitor vol 7". Archived from the original on 2014-02-02.
  14. "BlackBerry App World Doubles Downloads in 6 Months". BerryReview. Retrieved 2011-03-23.
  15. "BlackBerry App World crosses over the 1 billion app download mark, 3 million downloads per day". MobileSyrup. Retrieved 2011-07-12.
  16. "BlackBerry App World Stats: Over 2 billion downloads; 60,000 apps available". CrackBerry. Retrieved 2012-02-07.
  17. "RIM marks three billion BlackBerry app downloads, wants to set the record straight about App World". Engadget. Retrieved 2012-07-08.
  18. http://developer.blackberry.com/blackberryworld/
  19. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-02-18. Retrieved 2014-04-23.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  20. "BlackBerry App World FAQ". Research In Motion. Archived from the original on 2009-03-10. Retrieved 2009-03-09.
  21. "BlackBerry World Availability". Retrieved 31 January 2014.
  22. "BlackBerry App World Vendor Support". Research In Motion. Archived from the original on 2011-05-30. Retrieved 2011-05-31.
  23. "New Features of BlackBerry App World 1.1". Archived from the original on 2010-02-11. Retrieved 2010-03-19.
  24. "Overview of archiving applications in BlackBerry App World". BlackBerry. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  25. BlackBerry launched new developer tools in fiscal 2013
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.