BlackBerry World
BlackBerry World was an application distribution service (app marketplace) by BlackBerry Limited. The service provided BlackBerry users with an environment to browse, download, and update mobile apps, including third-party applications.
Developer(s)
30 July 2010
260,000+ apps (all OS)
14 languages
The service went live on 1 April 2009, originally named BlackBerry App World. It worked with BlackBerry 10 devices, the BlackBerry PlayBook, and a majority of BlackBerry OS devices. At one point in 2011, BlackBerry World had the largest revenue per app at $9,166.67, compared to its rivals ($6,562.50 by Nokia Ovi Store, $6,480.00 by Apple App Store and $1,200.00 by Google Android Market), although total revenue was lower than Apple App Store.[3]
BlackBerry devices after 2015 (with the release of BlackBerry Priv) no longer use the BlackBerry 10 operating system, but Android operating system instead, which utilise the Google Play store instead. BlackBerry World servers alongside other BlackBerry services shut down in January 2022.[4]
Developer[edit]
In 2010, Research In Motion (RIM) announced several new tools to make it easier for BlackBerry applications developers to build, simulate, deploy, and monetise 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.[31]
BlackBerry has changed its whole direction of development tools, 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.