Single Developer Responsible For Over 47k Apps In BlackBerry World 176
hypnosec writes "If you are a BlackBerry owner, navigate to BlackBerry World (or just visit the website) and you will find that developer S4BB has developed over 47k apps for the BB platform. Unsurprisingly, most of them are just spammy apps that don't add any value. Apps like 'Restart Me Free,' 'Daily Quote,' 'Lock for SMS,' 'Search for Amazon,' 'Silent Foto Free' are just a few among the thousands of apps on BlackBerry World that actually have no utility whatsoever. BlackBerry announced back in May that developers were increasingly interested in making apps for the platform, and that BlackBerry World had more than 120,000 apps. This raises questions about the authenticity of the claims, and about the approval process that's been accepting these apps. S4BB may have a few useful apps for the platform, but that doesn't mean all of their apps are of 'A' quality. A statement from BlackBerry said, 'Developers in all app stores employ a number of different monetization tactics. BlackBerry World is an open market for developers and we let market forces dictate the success or failure of these tactics.'"
Pot, Kettle, Black. (Score:1, Insightful)
Really this is a pot calling a kettle black. Android of all the platforms has the most useless number of apps.
Re:heh (Score:4, Insightful)
Companies seem to stick around quite a while after they're dead. Kodak is still around for crying out loud. Doesn't make them any less dead.
Re:heh (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean the Blackberry device that didn't come with an email app at launch? And doesn't have it's own cell connection, requiring a Blackberry to piggyback off of? The device reeks of 'design by committee'.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:better than the alternative (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather have an app store full of spammy apps than one that rejects good apps for no reason (or because they compete with the manufacturer's own apps)
You may very well think that, but market forces dictate success, as noted, and the market seems to think it's better to have an app store where you can actually find useful applications because they're not buried under a mountain of crap.
No utility whatsoever? (Score:5, Insightful)
While I'm sure there are plenty of apps on all platforms that have no utility whatsoever, the submitter did a poor job in selecting some of the apps in the BB App World that would be worthy of this description.
Restart me free: Seems useful enough in that it allows a restart of the device without having pull the battery. Is it really any less useful than creating a shortcut which opens the All Apps menu on the Windows 8 start menu?
Daily Quote: I would have no use for this app, however this doesn't diminish the value it has to the people who use it.
Silent Foto Free: as the name suggests, this app lets you take photos without the shutter noise. Could be useful in some situations; taking photos at a chess tournament immediately comes to mind.
Lock for SMS: lets you PIN protect any app on the device. Surely ideal for parents wanting to stop their youngsters from accessing particular apps?
Search for Amazon: looks like it simply redisplays the Amazon mobile site in an app and adds a few features e.g. writing a review into the native interface. In the absence of an official Amazon app for the Blackberry, it may well be useful for the avid Amazon shopper.
Re:better than the alternative (Score:4, Insightful)
Then you are an idiot.
Spam is the #1 problem of the information age, because information becomes meaningless when it is drowned in noise. The only reason that the Internet is still useable is because we are fighting a constant war on spam.
Imagine for a minute E-Mail without spam filters. I mean entirely without. No blacklisting, no taking spam ISPs offline, no IP filter, no greylisting, no spamassassin, no gmail you put in front of your real mail just for the filtering - absolutely nothing of that.
Now imagine search engines with no effort to filter out the spam. Imagine a Google that doesn't downrank spammy sites.
Imagine telemarketers being allowed to call you whenever they want, as often as they want.
If you have any imagination whatsoever, you'll agree that spam is a really huge issue. If you have really good imagination, you might want to apply for therapy after this traumatic minute.