BlackBerry maker Research in Motion has netted 15,000 app submissions in 38 hours during its latest Port-A-Thons.
Research In Motion (RIM) has boosted its potential app offerings ahead of its January 30th launch date for the new operating system, BlackBerry 10, with its most recent Port-A-Thons, where developers ported their apps over to the new OS for a financial incentive.
RIM held two concurrent Port-A-Thons over the weekend, for Android and Community developers, offering developers $US100 per eligible app for porting one to five approved apps to a maximum of 20 paid apps per vendor. Porting five to 10 approved apps garners the first 200 qualified participants a BlackBerry Dev Alpha Device and $US100, porting 10 or more approved apps lands the first 10 qualified participants a paid trip to BlackBerry Jam Europe to celebrate the launch of BB10 plus a Dev Alpha Device and $US100 and finally for those missing out on the latter two, a random draw for 100 BB0 Dev Alphas and 10 trips to BlackBerry Jam Europe.
RIM vice president developer relations Alec Saunders tweeted on Sunday that in 37.5 hours, RIM had reached 15,000 apps in the Port-A-Thons. One reply voiced the general crux point of app offerings: “All I hope is we’ll get the BIG NAMES…on BlackBerry 10” – 15,000 apps is all well and good if they’re quality, but 15,000 ways to create vampire baby names (oh, it’s a real thing. Tremble, ye mighty, and despair) is not so wonderful.
There’s no news as yet as to what apps will be available – BlackBerry App World already offers What’s App, the Facebook app and the like, with RIM reporting it had 90,000 apps up for sale in July last year.
However Mr Saunders did tweet that RIM would have the app submissions “all sorted” by launch and RIM’s porting invitation called for developers to submit their apps before the BB10 launch.
Of course, RIM still has a long way to go before it can match Apple’s 775,000 apps for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users, with Apple reporting 20 billion downloads in 2012 and 40 billion since the App Store opened in 2008. Google’s Play Store reported 25 billion apps had been downloaded as at September 2012 since it opened in 2010, with 700,000 apps currently on offer.
RIM hasn’t quite finished yet, however – it is holding its Last Chance Port-A-Thon on January 18th and will run for 36 hours. As the name suggests, it’s the last Port-A-Thon before BB10 launches and as previously, is a virtual event, meaning developers can log in from anywhere with RIM helpers available to aid porting of apps.
