An Experiment In BlackBerry Development 207
ballwall writes "We've all read the stories about how lucrative selling apps on the iPhone can be (or not), but what about other platforms? BlackBerry accounts for twice as many handsets shipped as Apple, according to Gartner, so I decided to find out. I wrote about my experiences developing my first BlackBerry application including sales, platform issues, and a bunch of other things I thought new mobile developers might want to know about."
Bad UI library (Score:5, Interesting)
love podtrapper (Score:5, Interesting)
Boil it Down (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sorta cribbing from his summary, but I did RTFA...
Pro:
Con
Most important lesson IMHO: "Everything is marketing."
His issues with the platform and the resources available on a BB really bring the differences with iPhone OSX and BB into relief. An iPhone is guaranteed to have a particular hardware config, and be very capacious in RAM and drive space, and has very teh shiny widgets and will always have the latest APIs; it also provides a brainless e-commerce platform to sell and install your app, to the point where buying a mobile app could be considered impulsive. You pay for all this with the fact that the Apple overmind decides if you can sell your app or not and takes its cut.
Re:Bad UI library (Score:4, Interesting)
So then it seems like a developer has an opportunity to provide a library/framework/whatever you want to call it to provide a UI as a product.
Re:You forgot the most important thing... (Score:3, Interesting)
Except for the fact that you didn't RTFA, where he *said* that marketing ended up being a very important part of the process.
Re:Thank you (Score:3, Interesting)
It tends to be the really big shops that (a) have the cash and (b) draw the attention of the regulators meaning they have to have devices and systems that follow the regulations. I believe, but am not authoritative on this, that the BB system is the only mobile email device that's certified for use under certain regulations. I work in financial services and know that there's a whole bunch of law that intersects with IT there.
But absolutely. If you've got a small shop, winmo is probably the best bang / buck from what I can see. Doesn't make BB a bad platform though, just makes it the wrong tool for that particular job.
Re:Total (Score:5, Interesting)
Much more on the "This will be fun... Oooh, money" side.
Well, and a lot of "#@$&* why is there no app to do podcasts on BlackBerry?". (Commuting sucks without podcasts, imo).
The interesting part is most of the costs are up front. I took two weeks off of work to write the initial version, and after that I've been tweaking it nights and one or two weekend days (two at first, maybe half of one now).
In hindsight I should have tracked my time better, but I'd estimate I spent just over 250 hours in code, and I probably spend about 6 hours a week doing support these days (much less earlier), so about 400-450 hours to this point. That works out to be somewhere between $45-50/hour.
But... the majority of the work is done at this point and I'm still bringing in an additional $1k/week with the ongoing sales, so the picture is getting continually better. It'll be interesting to see how long it keeps up. This slashdot article (and the waves it makes) will likely be the last bit of marketing hoorah I can get out of this app, so while I'm hopeful, I'm not optimistic. As I said in the article, marketing is really really important. (Well, until the App World gets some marketing of its own, I suppose).
Regardless of how it turns out, it was still a lot of fun. And my users seriously rock.
-Marcus
Re:Thank you (Score:2, Interesting)
Ummm, not true. BES has supported 64-bit windows and 64-bit databases for quite a long time.
OK, I'll look into that.
Well, then you & your clients don't know how to administer a BES & blackberries. The devices are extremely solid, and almost never need a factory wipe. Of course, most problems will be resolved by a factory wipe & reactivating, but there is almost always a far easier & faster way to resolve the issue, but it seems you don't know that.
Well. since you are posting AC, I've no problem showing my claws on this response. If you are going to say I don't know what I'm doing, have the courage to state your slashdot ID, at the least.
When something goes wrong with a windows pc, do you wipe your hard disk & reinstall every time? That will resolve the issue, but there is almost always a simpler, easier & faster solution.
Seems to be the one of the most common solutions in "enterprise" situations.
Reactivating a blackberry user on a BES is REALLY HARD! How hard is it? On the BES 4 series, you run the BES console, find the user, right-click on the user, and set the activation password to whatever you like. Then, on the blackberry, go to options, advanced options, enterprise activation, enter your email address, enter the activation password you just set, and click activate. Wasn't that hard?
Not hard for me, but please see my above reply to Growse detailing the realities of what I do and where I live.
Frankly, if your clients can't activate a blackberry by themselves, then maybe they aren't smart enough to use email.
Recent case - end user bought a new blackberry on a whim. No idea what the monkeys at the verizon store did, no idea what the end user did prior to calling me. Had to walk the end user thru inserting the SIM card right side up over the phone. Given the above, first action = factory reset.
Yes, this end user is barely able to use email. Yes, the office manager at my client was concerned about my cost to get him working. So, keeping cost down for my customer = factory reset.
Better? How many other solutions have real push email? None (windows mobile comes close with their fake push). How many other mobile email solutions have remote lock, remote unlock, remote wipe, solid AES encryption, certification by many governments [blackberry.com] and other agencies?. Can you force your users to have a password? Can you force your users to always encrypt the blackberry contents? Does your iphone overwrite freed memory so that the contents can't be read by disassembling the device? Nope.
Do you need to restrict your user from browsing the web? Do you need to centrally track SMS, email & phone calls? All this is easy on the BES.
These do not apply to me or my customers. See my reply to Growse above before you flame me.
As previously mentioned, I should have included details of what I do and what my customers do and need. Bottom line for me and mine is that while BES/blackberry is fine for large deployments and has all sort of features for regulatory compliance, etc. in the SMB space, they are not, IMHO the best option.
Re:The thing about Blackberry (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason many people, not only IT people, prefer Blackberry is because it is solid and reliable. They don't care if it has access to a software shop online that enables them to buy a zippo lighter simulator or a lightsaber thing. They turn it on, it works. It doesn't nag the user for updates and places the management of the device squarely in the hands of the administrators where it belongs.
And, oh yeah, I can take out the battery if I want to.
Re:Sure there are more blackberries (Score:1, Interesting)
Might be modded offtopic, but, can you play any decent games on the BlackBerry?
Or is Windows Mobile or the Iphone better for that? Absolutely necessary for those long lines at the DMV
Re:Thank you (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm pretty sure iPhones can do all of this... I own one.
- remote wipe - through exchange and MobileMe
- full data encryption
- proxies
- security policies, including what apps you can / can't have
- even throw-away phones do "logging," as in recent calls - I'm sure there's some way to save that list - worst case-scenario, look at the itemized bill. The iPhone does log time-usage for sure.
Although: MDS; I don't know what that is...
Also, the iPhone does not feature:
- a Perl trackball or that awful "are you sure?" on every menu option scroll / click wheel on the side
- the need for an intermediate push server
- a UI that makes WinMo look good
Re:Sure there are more blackberries (Score:3, Interesting)
BTW, it's the only software I have ever paid for - desktop or mobile. (does not mean I pirated all others - open/free is sufficient for my needs).
Re:Sure there are more blackberries (Score:5, Interesting)
You almost hit the nail on the head. My company decided to go with iPhone development rather than Blackberry development for the simple reason that our target demographic enjoys iPhones for personal use and only carries Blackberries if their management requires/provides them. With that kind of a trend, and with users willing to use their personal devices for work, it makes much more sense to go the Apple route. It didn't really help that RIM's people were aggressive and obnoxious on a conference call with our president, though...
You know, the first FREE app and you're history (Score:1, Interesting)
It won't be long. Then what?
Re:Thank you (Score:2, Interesting)