A few friends and readers sent in an article which uses the example from one developer on how “Stolen Android Apps” are making their way into BlackBerry App World without the developers knowledge. My first reaction was to laugh and say that at least they don’t come bundled with a free trojan. While I feel for developers who have their intellectual property stolen this is hardly the wild west of piracy that Android developers are subjected to in Google Play.
App World, like any other app store, must perform some due diligence but they work based on good faith. They make sure that the developer affirms that they own the license to all of the works they are selling. RIM reviews and weeds out most of the worst offenders but it is impossible to keep them all out. Compared to Google Play this is a very effective process. Hell one developer even managed to create fake Apple iPhoto, iMovie, Keynote, Numbers, and Pages apps in Google Play before anyone noticed. Even the tightly controlled Apple App Store is not impervious with developers totally ripping off franchises and rip off apps like Temple Jump, Tiny Wings, Numbers with Friends, and more. It just happened again recently with not one but two fake Halo apps showing up in Apple’s App Store.
Either way I would like to see more developers at least taking that first step to bring their Android apps to App World. It really is that easy to get a taste for the BlackBerry ecosystem and hopefully that will convince devs to invest into a native app.
PS: I am curious if anyone will get the reference I was going for with the picture…
BBA Brian ( View Profile) - Posts: