Unimpressed by the BlackBerry App World? Welcome to the Club…

RIM has really been building up to the BlackBerry App World launch. The problem is that the App World is just not that impressive. It has extremely limited functionality and nothing truly innovative. It essentially gives you a catalog of applications on your BlackBerry that you can quickly buy and install. I was hoping for some of the ease and simplicity we see in the native RIM OS or even the RIM applications like the IM clients. With over 1,000 applications headed to the App World this week the limited functionality RIM provided is really going to look bad. So I thought I would break it down the way I see it. Let me know if you agree or if I missed something!

The Good:

• Both business and personal applications
• Automatically shows applications for your device
• Works over Wi-Fi & mobile internet connections
• Cool interface with Top Downloads section with top 25 downloaded apps
• Quite a few categories broken down
• Keyword search capabilities
• Reviews and ratings of applications
• Send application recommendations via email, PIN, SMS, or BlackBerry Messenger
• Keeps track of your downloaded applications so you can easily reinstall them

The Bad:

• Only available for US, UK, & Canadian users (for now)
• You can recommend applications to a friend through email, SMS, BBM, or PIN but the links it sends do not work!
• Only works on OS 4.2+ and devices with touch screens or trackballs (I guess this is RIM subtly telling you to upgrade)
• Extremely limited in terms of finding new applications
  • Only has Top Downloads area for discovering new applications (which updates infrequently)
  • Does not even have a new releases section where you can see what’s new
  • No way to find top rated applications
• Does not let you filter results at all so you cannot only view top rated or free applications
• There is no auto-complete as you type for the search so you need to know exactly what you are searching for
• No way at least that I could find to rate applications or reviews without installing the app first
• There are no specials like deals of the day or anything and no coupons
• Everything is on a different screen. If you want screenshots expect to wait for them if you want reviews expect to wait again… It can take 5-10 clicks just to browse through one app listing

The Ugly:

• The store is full of useless homescreen shortcuts with no way to hide them
• THERE ARE NO FREE TRIAL then buy options
  • Applications are either listed as their purchase price or as a free application
  • Free trials are listed as free applications when they are not
  • Applications that do have free trials elsewhere do not have them on the app store
• No way to just find free applications (This is a no brainer)

• It does not include even the most basic BlackBerry applications
  • None of the RIM instant messaging clients are in the app store???
  • None of the Google applications that everybody uses like Google Maps are in the app store

• There are no options… at all!
• Last but not least the app gets sluggish very quickly even on the relatively fast Bold lots of hourglasses and “loading” screens.