Research in Motion (RIM) continues to attempt to fight off Apple and Android and retain its position as the must have for all business folk and the alternative for all consumers. Ask those business folk who have two phones, one for private use and the company Blackberry. However the recent shift in power to these two relatively new comers has forced many to start to choose one over two.
As Blackberies continue to be launched, the latest being the BlackBerry Torch 9800 which has a touch screen and slide-out keyboard, as well as a faster Web browser and launches in the U.S. on Aug. 12. Somehow one is reminded of technologies which were great in their day but fundamentally staered from the wrong place for today’s market. Email is so simple on the iPhone or Android it begs the question why a Blackberry counts? According to research firm Gartner, RIM's market share dropped 14% to 41.4% in the first quarter from a year ago. Importantly, BlackBerry only has a fraction of the apps available to the iPhone or Android devices and in today’s Appworld that can be a big negative. RIM are now opening up the platform and providing easrier to use tools for developers but is it too late?
Now comes the real bad news that the European Union Commission have ditched their Blackberrys in favour of devices from Apple and HTC (Android). Saudi Arabia, who have some 700,000 Blackberry users, has also ordered a ban of the services starting Friday and the United Arab Emirates, India and other countries for greater access to the encrypted information sent by BlackBerry devices. The U.A.E. will prohibit most BlackBerry services starting Oct. 11.
The moves are over concerns on RIM's message encryption security which is considered by some governments and agencies as too tight and prohibit them from being able to spy on its users. RIM says it can't give access to encrypted data and doesn't give any one government special treatment. "Any claims that we provide, or have ever provided, something unique to the government of one country that we have not offered to the governments of all countries, are unfounded," However, US law enforcement officials told Reuters that they can "tap into emails and other conversations" conducted through Blackberrys, just as long as they have the appropriate court order.
Showing posts with label RIM apps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RIM apps. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Friday, April 03, 2009
RIM Launches Apps Store and Apple gets tough on Jailbreakers
Research In Motion's BlackBerry App World made launched on Wednesday, offering downloads of its initial stock of 1,000 applications. App stores were lifted into the top popularity draw with Apple's App Store for the iPhone. Now every device maker has one, is planning one or is in the cold.
Among the applications currently available are MySpace, Facebook, Salesforce CRM , AOL , Yahoo and Windows Live Messengers and much more.
Surprisingly, not all apps today are free and many users are spending money on getting their Apps. ABI Research found that 16.5% of their recent survey of smartphone users spent between US$100 and $499 on applications on their devices! So there is money for the right App.
Other Apps stores include ‘The Android Marketplace’ for the G1 phone and Nokia with Microsoft coming rather late to the party, but offering up a significant market with its mobile operating system’s penetration when it does come.
However, all is not plain sailing and Apple is taking a tougher stance on what developers can and cannot do with the development kit. Developers have to sign an agreement if they want to create content for Apple's App Store and most developers have complied. Apple now have added a few new clauses to the latest version of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement. This now clearly prohibits "jailbreaking" a device, helping to jailbreak, or distributing apps in ways other than the App Store. Jailbreaking enables users to run apps in the background, change the home screen theme, and record video with the camera. Whilst the new clause is unlikely to stop iPhone developers who want to break it, it will make developers wary of the jailbreaking community because they risk being cut off from the App Store. It also give Apple a tighter control on who does what and where the revenue goes.
Among the applications currently available are MySpace, Facebook, Salesforce CRM , AOL , Yahoo and Windows Live Messengers and much more.
Surprisingly, not all apps today are free and many users are spending money on getting their Apps. ABI Research found that 16.5% of their recent survey of smartphone users spent between US$100 and $499 on applications on their devices! So there is money for the right App.
Other Apps stores include ‘The Android Marketplace’ for the G1 phone and Nokia with Microsoft coming rather late to the party, but offering up a significant market with its mobile operating system’s penetration when it does come.
However, all is not plain sailing and Apple is taking a tougher stance on what developers can and cannot do with the development kit. Developers have to sign an agreement if they want to create content for Apple's App Store and most developers have complied. Apple now have added a few new clauses to the latest version of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement. This now clearly prohibits "jailbreaking" a device, helping to jailbreak, or distributing apps in ways other than the App Store. Jailbreaking enables users to run apps in the background, change the home screen theme, and record video with the camera. Whilst the new clause is unlikely to stop iPhone developers who want to break it, it will make developers wary of the jailbreaking community because they risk being cut off from the App Store. It also give Apple a tighter control on who does what and where the revenue goes.
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