BerryReview Article Comments

1. And if you have been to BlackBerry World/WES in the past you also get an additional $200 off.
2. That's great news. My guess is that RIM will probably formally announce and demo the new models during BlackBerry World, the timing looks perfect for that.
3. Way to go RIM!! The Playbook is awesome, great to see it catching on!
4. OK, point about building and establishing a new platform/ecosystem is taken. I mean, your entire argument makes perfect sense - but from a *RIM* standpoint. And I fully follow, logically speaking, every step of the reasoning. But I am presenting the point of view from the perspective and reality of an independent developer here. Not someone who is on the payroll of a BigCo somewhere but someone who owns or works in a small dev shop. And this is where things are not lining up. And by the way, dismissing the needs of independent developers would not be a smart move on RIM's part - the majority of apps in App World are made by small indie/ISV shops. Without the indie guys forget about ever reaching the 1 - 200,000 app mark, let alone the million app mark. And Super Apps/BBM SDK was a core and continues to be a core attraction to many developers as it is a key differentiator of the platform. This is one place where BlackBerry is miles ahead of the competition. As it stands right now we have a number of partial migration paths, some guesswork as to if the full SuperApps feature set at launch is going to address the needs of our apps and a doze of implied "trust me, its going to be good. eventually." Not an ideal scenario. What I ultimately don't get is this. Given that RIM has the brainpower and engineering resources to came up with an Android player in relatively short time after the QNX acquisition and PB 1.0 launch, why isn't something like a BB OS7 player for BB10 on the table? I mean, Android is an "external" code base and technology and not something developped and nurtured internally like BB OS7 was, so making a BB OS7 player should be way less costly to pull off, resource-wise. RIM doesn't have to support the BB OS7 player indefinitely either. Just make it loud and clear that it is intended to be used as a crutch and a crutch only while developers digest, port to and get more experience with the richness and wonderfulness of the new BB 10 platform. No new API features in the BB OS7 player going forward are needed. And feel free to end-of-life it by the end of 2013 if you will. I think this would be smart, practical move. You have all the existing BlackBerry apps right at launch time, SuperApps and all. You get smooth transition, noone is displeased or grumbling at launch and people can focus on the positive aspects of BB10 and not on what's missing. It won't cost that much to make - you have the code and expertise internally. And there is plenty of time to make it happen. And hey, wasn't QNX supposed to be great for "adding in" things that are player/plugin-architectured anyways? ;-) Speaking of cost, If you count the PR/marketing and lost/defferred sales cost of explaining to everyone come BB10 launch time - potential consumers as well as the nosy media - why apps in BB6 and 7 are not in BB10, doing the player may well turn out to be a screaming bargain. Somehow I have a feeling that those people won't buy the entire "but C++ is so much cooler!" argument... Anyways, just my two cents.
5. George, don't get me wrong. I am sure there will be some nice and shiny tools and ways to develop for C++/Qt/Cascades whenever those tools do get released. Every major platform has the requisite tools nowadays anyways. The point of is, RIM has a big hole in the Super Apps and BBM SDK roadmap. And let's not kid ourselves here, HTML5 ain't gonna fill it. What we have right now is a leaked powerpoint slide (that's all it is now, a powerpoint slide) with no additional technical information or commitments. I stand by the point of this article: more is needed. For example, a legitimate developer question at this point is "how complete will the Super Apps api even be in C++/Cascades?". Looks good on the power point, I'll give it that. But so did WebWorks and it lagged behind the Java SuperApps API for years. (btw, if you are trying to tell me that C# sucks and C++ is the way to go, I am not buying what you are selling!!! :)
6. Good points, Taylor and George. But you shouldn't overestimate the effort and time that many BlackBerry devs are willing to invest to port their existing apps to BB10 though, especially in time for the launch. It's a totally business argument really, and one of opportunity costs. If all we have in terms of options coming from RIM is a complete re-write of our existing apps for BB10 in C++(or Javascript or whatever), why not invest the time to re-write them in Objective C and be on iOS instead? It will take roughly the same time more or less. Or better yet, keep Java and be on Android? At least at the end of the day we will be on platforms with hundreds of millions of users. Current users on BB10 : 0. See what I mean? We app developers are also business owners and part of making a living from selling apps is making sure we invest our time where ROI makes sense. And spending months tinkering with new cool libraries and re-writing existing functionality, fun as it may be, is not the kind of thing that brings home the bacon. So many existing developers will silently shrug off, maybe grumble a bit then make a pass on the BB10 launch and adopt a wait-and-see attitude at best. And come BB10 launch time, everyone will be asking "but where are those apps that I had on my old BlackBerry??" And the media will have a field day with this. "Oh my, RIM can't even convince _current_ developers to continue BlackBerry development"
7. You make an excellent point, ekke. It comes down to developes making a decision on which way to go from here. The problem for RIM here is that developers will not have made the choice in time for the BB10 launch, leaving the launch feel underwhelming in terms of apps. Sure they will make the decision at some point. Just not for the launch. "Will BB10 sell enough devices to justify my porting time investment? Well, hard to tell now, let's wait a few months and see then". This kind of thinking makes sense for many. Obviously it's not in RIM best interest for developers to be thinking that, given how much is riding on the BB10 launch. The last thing we all want is a "no apps on launch, no device sales. no device sales, no apps" catch 22 situation. "Over the next years I’m sure there will be a JVM on BB10/QNX" I too think that there will be a JVM on BB10 at some point in the near future, it just makes a whole lot more sense for that to happen earlier rather than later.
8. "Cascades is the way to go and not Android." This really depends on the type of application you have on your hands, actually, and RIM has provided different approaches for a reason. If you have anything "web-y" app, WebWorks will be a better choice. Existing Java business/productivity/workflow apps are so much easily ported to Android. So it depends on where you are coming from and what kind of application you have on your hands.
9. On a practical level, Cascades make a LOT of sense for games and media apps. Many existing games are written in C++ so a port to the NDK + Cascades would be a natural fit. And any cool UI effect from Cascades would be a sweet, added bonus.
10. The fact that RIM is promising to have Super Apps API in a C/C++ environment, in a completely new UI framework on top of that is essentially useless to many current BlackBerry developers on PRACTICAL level - that's my point here. Many current apps are in Java so Cascades would require a complete rewrite - from scratch. So while RIM's marketing is putting "Super Apps API" on powerpoint slides and feeling good about themselves many current Java developers are thinking "so you want me to re-write all my apps from scratch in C++??" Porting an application into a different language using a new UI toolkit takes lots of time and effort. Yeah, it can be done if you have lots of time on your hand. Many developers just won't bother though. Maybe because they don't have the time. App developers are business-owners as well, we don't get a stable paycheck at the end of the month so taking months to re-writing existing features in a new language does not exactly present the highest return on our time investment. To put it in that perspective, effort-wise a re-write in C++ for Cascades is pretty much comparable to picking up Objective C and porting to iOS. Now, does RIM really want existing BlackBerry Java developers to be contemplating this thought?

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