NOTE ON PICTURES: One of great things about the pictures in this review is that I’m not a photographer and so the pics aren’t doctored or made to look especially beautiful. It’s like going to a restaurant and seeing realistic pictures of the food on the menu. Also, all pictures are taken with a Z10 to give you an idea of camera quality.

HARDWARE

Overall, the BlackBerry Z10 feels like a nicely balanced device. The weight feels great, as it’s not too light and not too heavy. The iPhone 5 by comparison is about 23 grams lighter than the BlackBerry Z10 and it feels a little too light. The Z10 hardware is also really sturdy. I have dropped the Z10 a handful of times, without a case, and it has never received more than a little scratch on the back cover.

The buttons on the Z10 are helpful and easy to press. The volume keys allow you to change volume levels even when the device is locked, which helps for listening to music. Locking and unlocking the device is a breeze and there’s even a fun swipe feature for waking the device up. More on that feature in the software section. The best part of the hardware is probably the HDMI and Micro-USB connections. It’s so nice to be able to share connectors with people who don’t even use a BlackBerry 10 device. Sharing a charger with someone makes you realize how lame it must be to be an iPhone 5 user.

Specifications are something that everybody loves to chat about but it’s really inconsequential. The primary purpose of specs should be to meet the consumer’s needs and compromise between a quick, snappy experience and prolonged battery life.

The specs that the BlackBerry Z10 apart from the other devices are the following:

• 1280 x 768 resolution, at 356 PPI, 4.2 inch screen
• Removable battery
• 8 megapixel auto-focus camera
• 1080p HD video recording
• 2 megapixel fixed-focus front camera
• 720p HD video recording
• BlackBerry Balance for corporate users
• Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy (LE)
• NFC
• Support for HDMI and Micro-USB

Check out the full specifications for the BlackBerry Z10 at this link.

Every review has a section on call quality and there is never really a point in writing about it because call quality doesn’t vary much between smartphones. The BlackBerry Z10 has a decent phone app with reliable service on both Telus and Rogers (I switched carriers on the device). There was a few times when the call quality seemed like a device bug and the phone app seemed to glitch out a little. More on that in the software section.

DISPLAY

The BlackBerry Z10 has a beautiful screen. With a 1280 x 768 resolution, at 356 PPI and a 4.2 inch screen, the Z10′s resolution is powerful enough to look great on the device and also great when connected to a TV with the HDMI connection. Just take a look at the above screenshot from the game N.O.V.A. 3. It speaks for itself.

CAMERA

The BlackBerry Z10 has a nicely spec’d camera as described above. The photo option also comes with a nice feature called Time Shift which allows you to shift the time of the picture, specifically a face in the photo so you can get the perfect shot.

Here is a video I took with the Z10 which I also edited using the native editing software. I wasn’t able to actually upload the video to YouTube either Over The Air or on WiFi, either from the native app or from YouTube’s site. More on these kind of small bugs in the BlackBerry 10 review.

The quality of the video camera is great but what really sets it apart is the ability to edit videos and create your own montages. Below is an example of a tour of the Quirky offices that I took while in New York and used the BlackBerry Z10 video editing software to make a video montage on the fly (uploading to YouTube worked in this instance).

Here are a few pictures I took to give you an idea of what it’s like taking pics in varying degrees of light (click to enlarge any of them).

BLACKBERRY 10 BY QNX

BlackBerry 10 is a huge improvement over the legacy BlackBerry OS. It’s everything that BlackBerry needs to be in order to be competitive in the smartphone industry. The way it handles apps, multi-tasks and “flows” is such a breath of fresh air compared to the old BlackBerry experience. The User Experience is fast and responsive and overall I’m really pleased with the experience, especially when compared to the legacy devices. The Android player on the device also opens up the app market quite a bit and some of my favorite apps are Android ports.

Currently, my favorite features of BlackBerry 10 are:

• Downloading OS updates over the air.
• The time to reset and boot the device is short.
• Multi-tasking apps is a lot of fun due to the gestures.
• Universal Search
• BlackBerry Hub

One of the downsides of the way BlackBerry 10 handles multiple apps is that everything feels segregated. On legacy BlackBerry devices, everything would connect in this beautiful way that made you feel productive. That’s not the case with BlackBerry 10. A great example of this is dialing contacts in the phone app. The Address Book and the Phone App are two distinctive apps, making for a very aggravating contact management and calling system.

The biggest problem I have with the BlackBerry 10 OS is that it’s 93% complete. It doesn’t feel fully polished and there are bugs that I can, after a month of using the device, duplicate. For example, if you have multiple emails associated with the device, and you try and add a calendar event without specifying the email associated with that event, you crash the calendar app. That’s one of those bugs that makes you realize that maybe US carriers were right to delay the release. It’s also surprising because the QNX OS has been around for so long, not only in the market before the BlackBerry acquisition, but on the PlayBook running a calendar app. To be fair, the bug has been fixed in an update that BlackBerry released on March 1st, 2013, but that’s a full month after launch.

See this Inside BlackBerry blog post for updates that were released during that OS update.

“The biggest problem I have with the BlackBerry 10 OS is that it’s 93% complete.”

To this day, there are still some bugs on BlackBerry 10 that are annoying. For example, the browser crashes once a week on me and if I hit my mobile banking site from the Z10, the browser flashes like it’s trying to give me epileptic seizures. Also, the Hub doesn’t do a good job of managing notifications. Sometimes emails will not show up in the Hub, but will show in that email’s respective section and often times notifications will not go away even after they’ve been marked read.

There are a few other issues that the OS has such as changing the font size can cause letters to overlap and the orientation can be finicky. It’s hard to list all the issues but generally it leaves you with a feeling that the OS needs to “mature” a little.

All of this is not unusual for a new smartphone. It’s really difficult to put every facet of the device through QA considering the millions upon millions of different actions a user can take. Hopefully all these crashes are being logged at BlackBerry somehow and they’re all being tracked. Even though there are issues with the OS and several little bugs, the OS in general is awesome and any smartphone user would appreciate the way the OS has been designed and implemented. It’s just going to take a little longer, probably only until the Q10 is released, for all the kinks to be fully worked out.

KEYBOARD AND MESSAGING

The reason I have been using a BlackBerry for so long is that it does one thing and it does it really well: messaging. The vast majority of my smartphone use is spent messaging, whether it’s email, SMS, twitter or BBM. The problem with the Z10 is that the virtual keyboard doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest. About once per day I make an embarrassing mistake and send an email or a message with a typo that makes me curse the virtual keyboard. The main issue is that it’s really difficult to train your brain to “flick”. Unless you’re flicking, the spell checker will replace your intended word with what it thinks you want to type. Without the flick, you’re constantly working against a virtual keyboard that thinks it’s smarter than you. Check out the video below to see flick in action if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

Just to be clear, this is nothing against BlackBerry’s virtual keyboard per se. I don’t like any virtual keyboard. I’m a loyal BlackBerry user because of the physical keyboard. Just look at Eric Shmidt of Google, he still uses a keyboard and probably for the same reason. The typing experience is unparalelled. BlackBerry did a great job improving on the virtual keyboard experience with the “flick” experience, but as someone who loves a keyboard, this isn’t going to convince me to use this device. Personally, I can’t wait until the Q10 comes out because it will be the best of both worlds.

In terms of messaging, BlackBerry Hub is the main selling point with BlackBerry 10 and it’s a great feature. Currently, I have 5 emails, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, BBM, SMS, Calls and Notifications all being pushed to the Hub. The BlackBerry Hub generally does an excellent job of managing all those accounts, calendars and contacts and is a constant reminder of why I’m a loyal BlackBerry user.

“The BlackBerry Hub generally does an excellent job of managing all those accounts, calendars and contacts and is a constant reminder of why I’m a loyal BlackBerry user.”

The biggest problem with emails on a BlackBerry Z10? The blue font. Who at BlackBerry thought it would be a good idea to turn my emails blue? It really sucks to broadcast to everyone that you’re sending an email from a mobile device. It could potentially offend your customers. BlackBerry of all companies should know that. Overall, it’s really frustrating and there is no way to turn it off.

PERFORMANCE AND BATTERY LIFE

Performance on the Z10 is magnificent. Apps load quickly and the device boots up in a short period of time. Overall, the device has never frozen, crashed, restarted or had any major performance issues other than the small bugs mentioned above. The BlackBerry 10 OS by QNX definitely seems to be worth its purchase price as it brings BlackBerry into a new era of mobile computing that is versatile and able to exist beyond just smartphones and tablets.

The battery life on the Z10 was particularly bad for the first month of launch but the most recent OS update seems to have really helped. Actually, maybe this point deserves to be in software because it’s quite a big battery that should be able to power the device, but with using the device as a Power User, you’re getting about 4 hours on it before the update and about 6 at this point in time.

To help battery life, I’ve purchased what is arguably the best BlackBerry Z10 accessory on the market: the Z10 Battery Charger Bundle. Not only can you plug the battery bundle straight into the device to save your phone from dying while on a call, but you can swap out the batteries and start fresh. This accessory has been a life saver and it’s a must-have for any Z10 user.

CONCLUSIONS

The first question you need to ask yourself when looking at the Z10 is: am I a touchscreen or QWERTY user? The question can also be answered by asking yourself what you’re going to use your device for most often. Will you be doing a lot of messaging and business? Or will you be playing games and browsing the Internet. If the answer is messaging, I say wait for the Q10. I’ve personally tried the Q10 and the combination of BlackBerry 10 and a QWERTY keyboard is the best of both worlds. If you’re going to be playing games and using your BlackBerry 10 device as a media device, get the Z10. You’ll appreciate the large screen and gesture interface.

In terms of the BlackBerry Z10 as an entry device into the new era of BlackBerry: it’s everything that we wanted from the new BlackBerry. It has a unique value proposition, great gestures, core OS features that differentiate it from the competition, a solid platform for attracting developers, and a slick piece of hardware to hold it all.

Will this device get BlackBerry to the number 3 position? I hope so. It’s so hard to tell these days. It seems insane that only 2 operating systems can dominate the entire mobile OS market, especially because 10 years from now smartphones could easily number in the billions. The BlackBerry Z10 does have everything BlackBerry needs to be a major player, but who knows how the markets will respond. Perhaps a company can make the best product in the world but there are so many other factors that contribute to its success or failure. Intangible elements such as “consumer brand perception” are so difficult to predict. But if I were a gambling man, I would definitely say that this is a device the consumer is going to enjoy, and that would lead me to put some money down on this company. Not only is the BlackBerry Z10 a great smartphone purchase, but the BlackBerry 10 platform is really inspiring.

What I don’t get is that the famous sometimes make strange spokespeople because of their habit of dumbing down of the tech-sounding stuff into something more marketable to the masses. This often translates into a campaign that is quickly forgotten the moment it’s over. What was Will.I.Am’s message when he was doing a BlackBerry campaign a couple of years back? As a guest panelist under the title futurist he did more talking with his hands and buzzwords than saying anything meaningful. His endorsement of BlackBerry was meant to bring some sort of cool factor to the platform, while months later the “futurist” could be seen dropping his own line of pricey iPhone accessories.

I think Alicia Keys is a great modern-day spokesperson who hits BlackBerry’s target demographic right in the bull’s eye. Her collaboration with BlackBerry will put fans’ pics on stage during a performance of her song Hallelujah. Her BlackBerry-weilding fans (who also attend her concert) will have the opportunity to be seen on screen in soulful slideshow.

I’m sure that they’ve got other things planned for their new Global Creative Director. She certainly brings more credibility than Will.I.Am, who can be seen misusing tech in the worst of ways like printing his own head in a 3D printer in a music video featuring Britney.

I think Alicia will showcase BlackBerry 10 in a clear way bringing a lot of old customers back to the platform. As a jet setting artist with an awful lot of talent, she can promote BlackBerry 10′s ability to share rich media and collaborate without smoke and mirrors. Her BlackBerry sponsored Set The World On Fire Tour is sure to showcase her using the new device as if it were a laptop when it kicks off on March 7th. If she does it right, an awful lot of people will view BlackBerry 10 phones as a tool belonging to the successful, the same mojo that BlackBerry had in it’s prime.

Click here to check out the BlackBerry Keep Moving Hub, a place where you can follow the BlackBerry-driven projects of screenwriter film maker Robert Rodriguez, fantasy writer Neil Gaiman, and the multitalented Alicia Keys.

Read the full DuJour Magazine article “Return of the BlackBerry” available at this link.

1. Apps come and go like any trend – Snapchat was really cool but interest in it is already dying. By the time BlackBerry 10 is in the hands of millions of people worldwide, there’s going to be 10 apps that have duplicated, altered and relaunched the Snapchat app in a variety of ways with varying uptake. It seems ridiculous, in a world where apps can gain 100 million users in a few years, to think that any app will be around for long. Apps are like any trend, they’re popular one day, but it’s only a matter of time until the next big thing hits.

Snapchat Interest on Google Trends

2. Porting is easy – I recently talked to a game publishing company that had made a Flash game for facebook and managed to port the entire game over to BlackBerry 10 in under 3 weeks. That’s an incredible turnaround time for a large publishing company. We also talked to Michael Schade of Fishlabs who said they ported their game Galaxy on Fire 2 from iPad to PlayBook in “one fucking day”. Many developers are ready to port their apps, but they’re waiting to see if the user uptake will justify the porting cost. The important thing to note though, is that the porting cost is low. So while a company might be waiting for 50 million Windows Mobile users to justify porting, it might take only 10 million BlackBerry 10 users to be able to justify a port.

3. There are commitments and talks – For those apps that we have come to love such as Skype and Netflix, it’s good to know that Martyn Mallick’s team at BlackBerry is “in talks” to bring those apps to the platform. Again, just give it time for the user base to build and the platform to mature a little more.

4. Where one developer won’t port, another will cash in – Remember Angry Farm? The guys at Smarter Apps knew that Rovio didn’t have any plans to bring Angry Birds to the legacy BlackBerry platform, so they cashed in and created a clone for those devices. It was probably the most successful game on BlackBerry, revenue wise, and all they did was fill the demand gap. There’s no reason why developers won’t be doing something similar for BlackBerry 10. Most big services out there have APIs just for that very purpose.

5. Games are bigger than apps – The App Gap is exactly that. It’s not a “Game Gap”. BlackBerry has done a great job of bringing top tier games to the platform and they’ve attracted developers from the big publishers and code bases. In the end, apps are but a fraction of mobile usage compared to apps. Instagram isn’t even in the list of the Top 20 Free titles and most of that list is comprised of games. So before you start talking about how crucial it is to have apps, realize that you’re not the norm.

So while it’s important to have all the apps, it’s more about focusing on a platform that makes it easy for developers to come on board and to build a solid base of loyal users. I think early reviews of the device are not taking a step back to look at how the app industry is playing out. Tech reviewers that are quick to say “it doesn’t have Instagram, therefore it sucks”, are placing far too much emphasis on Instagram being a killer app even 1 year from now. I’d like to think that the next billion dollar app will be developed on BlackBerry first. There’s absolutely no reason why not.

1) Sort by popularity is gone – All of the most successful apps that have been developed over the years will be no longer be showing up at the top in each of the sub categories.

2) Sort by rating does not take the total number of ratings into account – An app with a single, 5-Star review, will be listed at the same position as an app with 500 5-Start reviews. Even worse, the single 5-Star app will be listed ahead of an app that have 499 5-Stars and 1 4-Star review.

Since the ‘popularity’ sorting has gone, the only way for an application to stay on top of a list is to have constant 5-Star reviews. This means that a vendor such as myself has to deny any none 5-Star review. This does not make sense for the customers and will likely lend itself to abuse.

3) Search index changes and supported devices – This new search index does not work at all. It’s a total disaster. As soon as you select a specific device, the Search is unable to return any results. See the below screenshots.

This is the search without a device selected:

Now, when you select a device, the search returns nothing:

As you can see in the supported device details of the application, the 9900 is for sure supported by FileScout (in all countries, for all carriers):

4) No RSS-feed for reviews any longer – One of the cool features of the old BlackBerry App World was that you could subscribe to the reviews made for an app via RSS. This made it very convenient for a Vendor to stay up to date with reviews and the things that are said about his apps. This is something that even Apple didn’t have and where you needed a third party. I have no clue why this very useful feature has been simply removed from BlackBerry World.

UPDATE:

5) No way to format text in the product description – The Vendor Portal says “Descriptions can be up to a maximum of 4000 bytes in length and must be in plain text; HTML tags are not supported but newlines and spacings are preserved.” This is simply not the case in the newly launched BlackBerry World. The given formatting will be removed completely which makes it unnecessarily hard for potential customers to get additional information about the product.

I would really like to think that BlackBerry will be updating its store and it’s a shame that we’ve taken a leap forward in some areas, such as additional Music and Video content, but we’ve taken a few steps back with BlackBerry World, at least with the Desktop version.

I’m curious, as a BlackBerry app consumer, do you use the Desktop version of BlackBerry World? What do you think of the changes?

1. Typing Experience – The iOS keyboard still sucks. Autocorrect is still an issue and my friends with iPhones are consistently sending me emails with typos. Personally, I’ve always hated BlackBerry’s virtual keyboards but this one is completely different. The spelling correction is great and it only gets better with time.

2. Standard Connections – Aren’t you tired of how Apple constantly changes its connections and renders all accessories useless? If you’re an iPhone 5 user, how often have you asked someone “do you have a spare charger?” only for them to pull out the non-Lightning charger. With the BlackBerry Z10, you’ve got a standard Micro-USB charger that’s compatible with even Android devices.

3. Multiple Screens – As mentioned above, one of the great things about BB10 is standard connections, including HDMI. You can not only share your screen with the standard HDMI, but you can even share your mobile screen over BBM. This is going to have some really interesting implications for business and consumers.

4. Maps – The new BlackBerry 10 maps are powered by Tom Tom and they’re impressive. The map app comes with the ability to view traffic as well as set favorites for easy and quick navigation. If you’re tired of your crApple Maps and easy navigation is important to you, consider switching to BlackBerry 10.

5. Bigger Screen – If you’re an iPhone 5 user, you’ll definitely appreciate the bigger screen as it was probably one of the reasons you upgraded. The BlackBerry Z10 has an even bigger screen, but not ridiculously big like the Samsung Note. It’s still manageable but gives you more space to do the things you love.

First, let’s talk about screen sizes. The Z10 is the first device on the market with its 1280×768 screen. This display resolution is bittersweet for developers in a way. Although it’s an amazing display it is not going to be the touch-phone resolution in the future; it will be replaced in market by a phone (or phones) with a 1280×720 display. What a lot of developers will do is design for 1280×720 and provide an extra aesthetic for the extra 24 pixels on either side. This isn’t nearly as bad as what happened with the iPhone 5 launch where nearly every app was (and many still are) black-barred on either side. With this scenario we get to start with the larger screen size and crop down by 24 pixels instead of stretch up by 88. I cannot stress enough the importance of this move; it’s a big deal.

Developers that already have their PlayBook applications running at 1024×600 can keep their layout designed for the same shape (16:9) of screen if they plan for the 1280×720 displays. The Q10 physical keyboard phone has a 720×720 display. Not only is a 1:1 aspect ratio the easiest thing in the world to design for it has the same dimensions as the Z10 width and presumably the same pixel density meaning you can keep all of your layout the same size.

If you find me someone who says that isn’t a big deal I’ll find you someone who has never developed for Android or legacy BlackBerrys before. Those developers moving to this platform will be very happy.

I’ve talked before about what goodies we’re given to work with and more specifically what BlackBerry is doing in the open source community. What that means for BlackBerry users is that your favorite apps are going to have the same powerhouse back end that you’ve seen on the other smartphone platforms. What’s going to make it stand out though is the set of UI tools BlackBerry gives us with Cascades.

Cascades is a UI framework that simply leaps ahead of the solutions you find on iOS, Android or WP8. I’m trying not to sound too much like a salesman for BB10 but it’s sincerely a real treat. It’s built on top of familiar technologies that we can use in house and it’s easy enough to use that our creative teams can use it without needing to know the code underneath.

Finally let’s go over briefly what it’s like to code for the platform. BlackBerry 10 is built on top of the same OS as the PlayBook made by a great Canadian company called QNX. QNX has always been widely regarded by its customers for its speed and stability. I could talk for days about the QNX micro-kernel, what that means and why it’s really cool but I’ll leave that talk for the water cooler. Basically QNX is the beating heart of BB10 and it gives developers an old and tried yet modern platform to develop on. Developer or not this is great news for all of us.

1. Her last name is Keys! Get it?

Blackberry hires Alicia Keys as Global Creative Director. KEYS. GET IT? #OnBrand

— David Hicks (@ALL_CAPS) January 30, 2013

2. Keys was raised by her white, Scotch Irish mother since the age of 2. Get it? Okay, this joke takes a little more explaining. Here it goes: the BLACKBerry grew up on Wall Street, with its predominantly WHITE investors. Get it? Yes, I know there are minorities on Wall Street but when you think of Wall Street you typically think of “rich white men” types.

3. New York City is where BlackBerry 10 launched because the company has an Empire State of Mind.

This was all way funnier in my head. I’m done.

After a couple demos from some people in the personal health and analytics space, Nike came out to present. The company did a great job of explaining Nike’s mission which is to inspire athletes*. The term “athletes” at Nike always comes with an asterix because the company defines an athlete as every human. To drive this point home, they showed a series of videos from the Nike Fuel and “Find Your Greatness” campaigns. Check out the videos:

After some inspirational videos from Nike, TechStars came out to talk a little about what they bring to the table and some of the finer details of the program. According to Dave Drach, VP of Business Development at TechStars, the deal is that Nike provides unique access to the Nike+ data and TechStars is in it for $20K and 6% on the cap table. It’s Nike’s money so it’s an amazing deal for TechStars. In order to get accepted to the program, you go through the same process of applying to the Nike+ Accelerator as you would for TechStars. So it’s a pretty competitive process. If you’re accepted to the program, you’ll be working out of Portland, Oregon, a short drive from the Nike World Headquarters.

Overall, it looks like a great program for any startups looking to work closely with Nike on a health industry startup. TechStars brings their network to the table and Nike brings the API. All you have to do is figure out how to build a billion dollar business from there. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Read more about the Nike+ Accelerator from the TechStars site.

Here are the official details about the accelerator from Nike on their site.

Here is the official legislation:

“Computer programs, in the form of firmware or software, that enable a wireless telephone handset originally acquired from the operator of a wireless telecommunications network or retailer no later than ninety days after the effective date of this exemption to connect to a different wireless telecommunications network, if the operator of the wireless communications network to which the handset is locked has failed to unlock it within a reasonable period of time following a request by the owner of the wireless telephone handset, and when circumvention is initiated by the owner, an individual consumer, who is also the owner of the copy of the computer program in such wireless telephone handset, solely in order to connect to a different wireless telecommunications network, and such access to the network is authorized by the operator of the network.”

It’s pretty convoluted but it seems like you still have the right to request it to be unlocked and that might help your case if they don’t respond but the government tries to come after you. But all this is legal speak wrapped in so many “ifs” that it makes your eyes cross.

For comment, we reached out to our friends at unlockscodes.com to see what they thought. Here’s their response:

“After reading that unlocking cell phones is becoming illegal in the US, I’m absolutely baffled. It’s like saying after you’ve bought a house can’t redecorate. If you buy a mobile phone, then you’ree the rightful owner. If you want to switch carriers for cheaper service then you should have the option to take yourself to an independent unlocking website such as ours and purchase an unlocking code.

Now, we undertand the carrier’s position that if you opt into a contract with them, you’re getting a deal and you have no option but to stick with the carrier until the contract is up. But what happens if you want to go away on holiday and the plan that the service provider offers is too expensive? It’s important that the consumer be able to use an independent travel SIM with companies that specialize in cheap roaming calls and SMS. To do this, you’ll need to unlock the phone, but this legislation is at odds with this scenario. Even if the carrier is able to compete with independent service providers, this legislation seems bad for the economy as it would make thousands of small businesses illegal.

If you buy a phone you should have the right to tamper with it as you rightfully own that cell phone. Making cell phone unlocking illegal would put thousands of unlocking websites out of business. I the owner of unlockscodes.com and would really struggle as this is my only source of income and I’m not trained in any other sector. The government really needs to rethink the implications of this legislation.”

So like an email, we’ll sign off on this post with “thoughts?”.

#bbdevs Last Chance Portathon is still going strong… 6 hours left, and already over 15K apps submitted.Join here: cgs.adobeconnect.com/_a829239487/r8…

— Alec Saunders (@asaunders) January 19, 2013

Wow!Congrats to the hard working RIM developer relations team.Another 19,071 apps added to the #blackberry10 catalog since Friday noon.

— Alec Saunders (@asaunders) January 20, 2013

Remember when Alec said at BlackBerry DevCon Europe: “If we fill App World with garbage, then we’ve done ourselves and our users a disservice.”

The very nature of a hackathon dictates that your app will be small in scope and not as polished as it could be. It’s great if these hackathons are producing beta versions of apps that will be much bigger in scope and polished, but considering the incentive system RIM has in place, it’s likely that developers are just dipping their toes in the water and producing many small, unpolished apps.

Take for example, the developers AshishKumar.Org and Rudi Suriyanto that both come up in the “Recently Added” section of BlackBerry World. Both developers have submitted apps that could really be combined into a single app. We don’t know if these apps were submitted during a hackathon, but they’re definitely indicative of hackathon-style apps.

It’s hard to get a better idea of what apps have been submitted lately because RIM’s BlackBerry World doesn’t seem working the way it normally does. It’s not easy to browse to the “Newest Apps” section because it keeps directing users in a loop to the “Top Apps” section. Maybe RIM is trying to hide the latest submissions? Or perhaps it stems from the latest web bug we uncovered in BlackBerry World.

While the hackathons are a great idea and an excellent way to engage the users, it remains unclear whether it’s the best strategy for getting quality apps in the door. Perhaps the only way to do that is to sell millions of devices and convince the AAA development studios that the business case is there.

As far as we can tell, there seems to be only one solution for Native BlackBerry 10 developers and that solution is offered by Localytics. The company has a solution because one of their customers implemented Localytics on BlackBerry 10 and since there’s no official support for BB10, the client open sourced it.

Here is the official response from the Localytics team:

“Hello,

At this point Localytics does not have a native BB10 SDK built but as all of our SDKs are provided in source code one of our customers created their own BB10 SDK. As this is not an SDK written by Localytics we cannot assure that it will work 100% flawlessly but it would certainly be worth testing. If you have any feedback about the SDK please feel free to share it with the developer as well as us.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.”

Flurry has responded to a request about BlackBerry 10 support and the company has said that it doesn’t have any plans to support BlackBerry 10. Now, that doesn’t mean they won’t support it down the road, it just means that at this exact time it doesn’t look like they’re working on it.

Since BlackBerry 10 supports a wide range of code bases, there are some apps that will be able to leverage analytics on BB10. For example, Flurry’s Android SDK will work with Android apps that are ported using the Android Player. Also, there’s Adobe AIR support with Flurry so any AIR apps on BB10 will be able to leverage the SDK.

Also of note, RIM doesn’t even have support for BlackBerry 10 with its own analytics service.

So we’re curious, if you’re a BlackBerry 10 developer, what are you going to use for analytics?

1) Pulling the Battery

Any seasoned BlackBerry user knows that you’ve got to reset your device once in a while for things to run smoothly. Doing a battery pull has become a daily routine for me even though it’s much less of a problem on my memory-rich BlackBerry 7 device.

I also find it confusing for users that turning your BlackBerry off using the power button, doesn’t turn your BlackBerry off as much as it does put it to sleep.

Doing a full reset seemed to solve 90% of my BlackBerry issues, so I’m guessing I’ll be experiencing way less less phone issues with BlackBerry 10.

2) Installation Difficulties

If you’ve ever updated your BlackBerry’s OS or had to revive a “nuked” BlackBerry that’s had a JVM error then we’ve had exactly the same nightmare. I’m pretty good at getting tech stuff to work but the amount of times that my will has been broken by loading a new OS on a BlackBerry has been the same amount of times I’ve attempted loading a new OS on a BlackBerry.

3) App glass ceiling

If you’ve ever gone nuts with downloading apps on a BlackBerry you’ve probably noticed things like extra-long boot-up times and general multitasking issues. Though BlackBerry 6 and 7 devices could handle a lot more installed apps thanks to more memory, you can tell how taxing having lots of apps on your phone can be.

I get the feeling that years ago, someone at RIM offered a quote similar to Bill Gates’ famous “640K ought to be enough memory for anyone” but it probably sounded more like: “This new BlackBerry will be able to install up to 20 apps: more than anyone will ever attempt.”

I certainly don’t blame them for their lack of foresight, who could have guessed that the mobile app market would get this big this fast, or that people would naturally tend to collect apps. If the PlayBook offers any clues to how this will work on the new platform, you’ll only be taking a negligible performance hit when installing lots of apps on a BlackBerry 10 device.

4) BlackBerry Browser

Though it was pretty awesome having a webkit browser when it launched, the old BB browser leaves something to be desired.

The PlayBook browser is amazing and is one of the main reasons that people are talking about the BlackBerry 10 platform as potentially being a laptop killer. At home my PlayBook acts a bit like a spare laptop and I have no trouble imagining the laptop gathering a bit of dust with future PlayBook and BlackBerry 10 releases.

5) Porting and device fragmentation

For the few years RIM has been breathing new life into their smartphone platform by offering better hardware. Unfortunately this meant that early adopters of new BlackBerry handsets had to wait for their favourite apps to be ported to the new screen size and updated OS.

It’s tough for developers to put legwork into a port for a device that has less than a percent of market share. Early adopters of the Torch 9810 or the Bold 9900 know that it takes a few of months for all their apps to appear in App World.

BlackBerry 10 will work a bit differently in that it’s much easier to port apps from other platforms and the new architecture is less dependant on specific screen resolutions. RIM’s developer relations team has also done a terrific job in offering the right programs and perks to commit developers to porting before a big device launch. I can’t wait to see how many apps are available at launch for BlackBerry 10, I’m sure their final tally will impress anyone.

Launch Time

BlackBerry 10 launches in two weeks and It’ll be interesting to see how RIM executes their biggest launch in history. I’ll be paying particular attention to the carrier and retail channels because that’s where RIM has lost a lot of it’s lustre in the recent few years.

RIM has developed an advanced mobile platform, made some good long-term architecture decisions and have the apps to back it all up. Will these solid fundamentals add up to RIM growing their smartphone market share?

Photo credit Shawn Collins

All of this started when Scoble went around in 2011 saying RIM is going to die from lack of developer support.

Scoble: RIM in Death Spiral. In this Fox Business video, Scoble talks about RIM’s lack of apps and its inevitable death.

RIM got him to get on a call with Alec Saunders to likely talk about how they’re going to rally developers and change attitudes.

Here is the lead up to Scoble’s call with Alec Saunders:

Wish me well, RIM is calling in half an hour

Research in Motion, you know, the folks that make the Blackberry, aren’t too happy with me. Why not? Because I keep pointing out to them that developers have deserted its platform. In the past week I’ve visited 25 startups (which explains why I haven’t been so active on Google+ or Twitter lately) and only a couple of them have supported Blackberry in any way (and even those two admit that Android and iOS are way better choices for most developers).

I just don’t see how RIM turns around this lack of developer support and, to me, that dooms them to falling market share, falling profits, and many many deep problems that most of us call “a death spiral” for a company.

Now, we’ve seen that companies can pull out. Apple, back in 1997, was in much the same spot, except Apple didn’t face two strong competitors who were battling each other.

Most of these developers say it’s a no brainer to build apps for iOS first, then Android. Some say the other way around. But when you ask them “what else?” then the answers are a lot less strong. MIcrosoft is even struggling to get developer support, with about 2% marketshare against Android and iOS. But Microsoft is in a stronger position than RIM is.

I just don’t see how most of the world’s “pro” development shops (I.E. the ones that are venture backed) will support more than Android and iOS. They just don’t have the resources to do that. And if they did I don’t see why they would support four OS’s. That just doesn’t seem to be a smart business decision.

So, what’s my advice for RIM? Punt and go with Android. It’ll be interesting to see what they say about that advice and whether or not they let me discuss their answers in public.

So, if you are a RIM fan, tell me why RIM has a future, even without developer support?

And don’t answer that they have great marketshare in some weird market like Africa or Brazil. That’s true, but only because they are giving away SMS and data plans for near nothing. That won’t save them because it’s like having a chicken without a head. It will run around the yard for a while and look “alive.” But it still has no head and eventually Android figures out how to match the pricing in those markets too and then the chicken stops running around the yard.

After his call with Alec and Scoble’s post, Eric of Ebscer, a prominent BlackBerry developer, wrote up a great post detailing why RIM and Silicon Valley may never work.

“So as long as Saunders and Scoble are talking about two different things it is unlikely that they are going to see eye to eye on the issue. So maybe RIM is not that relevant in the nonsense of Silicon Valley venture capital games. Who cares? For the most part these venture backed companies do not matter in the larger world at all. It would be (in all honesty) a waste of time for RIM to care what these “companies” think.”

Now after all of this, Scoble seems to be changing his tune. To say “I liked it a lot” without mentioning the lack of developer support or “death spiral” in the same breath is pretty impressive. More and more it looks like BlackBerry 10 is coming along nicely.

Here are the Top 5 most popular posts on the site (excluding the homepage which is by far the biggest traffic destination):

BlackBerry Slow? Basic Tips to Make Your BlackBerry Run Faster

The BlackBerry Curve 8520 setup guide and tips and tricks

BlackBerry OS 5 download for the Bold, 8900, Tour, 8520 and Storm

How To Improve the Speed of Your BlackBerry (for OS 5 and OS 6)

BlackBerry Torch 2 (9810) Setup Guide with Tips and Tricks

It does seem like RIM is fixing these problems, and here’s how:

Problem: BlackBerry OS is difficult to update
Fix: BlackBerry 10 is updated Over The Air and requires almost no technical ability. Just press “Update”.

Problem: BlackBerry is slow
Fix: A lot of the issues with the legacy BlackBerry performing poorly has to do with Java. The phone gets easily bogged down with garbage memory and running background processes it can’t handle. The new OS by QNX is designed to run multiple processes simultaneously and reliably.

Problem: BlackBerry device setup is difficult
Fix: This one is actually a little unknown. While we’ve tried the BlackBerry Dev Alpha, as well as some early BB10 units, it’s not clear what the setup process for BB10 will be like. If it’s like the PlayBook, it should be pretty easy, but even the PlayBook wasn’t perfect. We’ll have to wait and see about this. What we do know, is that “PlayBook setup”, was an insignificant search query for our site.

Glick had some interesting statistics to share about what makes free-to-play so difficult but rewarding. The free-to-play market is essentially a 99:1 business (as opposed to 80:20), where 1 percent of your users will generate 99 percent of your revenue. This is why it’s so important to provide longevity to the game. If you don’t fully monetize the game for that 1%, you’re losing a significant share of your revenue potential.

Another important free-to-play statistic is that you’re going to lose 95% of your users in the first quarter after launch. This comes from a Playnomics study that states the following:

“[Playnomics] found that almost 95 percent of all U.S. players acquired in the first part of Q3 were inactive by the end of Q3 and about 85 percent of U.S. players acquired in Q3 do not return after their first day.”

When you combine the fact that most of your players will not return after the first quarter, and that only a fraction of them will be responsible for the majority of your revenue, you realize that stickiness and retention are hugely important in the free to play market. It’s crucial that at launch, your game has mechanics to capture user data, keep them engaged in the game, and if they leave, incentivize them to return.

Rubber Tacos is an “energy-based” game meaning you play for free and if you run out of energy, you can wait or pay to continue playing. The game also features powerups, a virtual currency, and all of the features you would expect in a free-to-play game with Zynga as the publisher.

Check out Rubber Tacos on iOS at this link.

The fact that BlackBerry 10 devices are initially provisioned as consumer devices is really telling when it comes to the “New RIM”. The Old RIM was first an enterprise device and the consumer features came second. It seems now that RIM is realizing the shift in the industry that the enterprise looks increasingly consumerized, and yet IT still demands security and protection from data leaks.

If you’re a BlackBerry developer or someone considering BlackBerry 10, realize that Balance is a big part of opening up a world of customers that no other device has access to (unless they own multiple devices).

Developers:

1. Build in HTML5/Webworks

According to Ostrowski, enterprise developers have been really positive about HTML5 and BlackBerry Webworks because it allows them to hit the most number of devices. In an organization of 5,000-10,000 employees, you’ll find a range of BlackBerry devices from OS 5 up to BlackBerry 10 and PlayBook. Webworks allows the enterprise to target all of these devices with a single build.

2. Leverage Push

With the ability to push data to the device, those using the enterprise app will have more timely access to information. If there’s an urgent message from corporate or something your field technicians need to be aware of immediately, Push gives the app the ability to send this data at the time of need.

3. Leverage the Inbox

The inbox has always been a core productivity space, especially on BlackBerry. With BlackBerry 10, the inbox becomes even more powerful with the Hub. The Hub is the space on BlackBerry 10 where all messages can reside and the user “Peaks” into the Hub whenever something comes up.

Sales

4. Truly Understand the Business Problem

When selling into enterprise, it’s important to truly understand the needs of business and the problem that you’re trying to solve for them. It’s important to build the solution with the exact problem in mind and not try and jam a previously built solution to fit the enterprise needs. All too often someone tries to simply sell a solution to enterprise because they think it could be another client, but the solution isn’t specifically tailored to that problem or client.

5. Use Public App World to Demo

One promotional method for Enterprise apps that sales can leverage is to put a demo app in the public App World (versus the private Enterprise App World that exists behind the firewall). By putting a demo of the enterprise app you’re trying to sell in App World, potential clients can check out the app and if they like it, make a recommendation to IT to flag it as an enterprise app. RIM could really help this by either creating a “Demo” category in App World or allowing star reviews to be turned off. Too often users outside of enterprise will give a demo app 1 star and say it doesn’t work without really understanding that it was meant to be a demo.

You can follow Gregg Ostrowski on the BlackBerry biz blog at this link.

A problem that crept up on RIM in their attempt to innovate the legacy BlackBerry OS is the amount of device fragmentation the platform started experiencing. Since BlackBerry launched color screens, they’ve produced dozens of screen sizes, resolutions and aspect ratios. Compounding the conundrum are the hundreds of carrier partners that all demand individual attention for each and every supported device.

RIM has tried all sorts of different permutations of screen size and aspect ratios in an attempt to offer a diverse lineup of phones. Every time a new BlackBerry device gets released, the BlackBerry developers would take a long time to port their apps and games. This is mostly because porting apps for a device launch isn’t a very efficient use of developer time considering that over 99 percent of your potential user base don’t have the latest device yet.

A great example of this is the infamous BlackBerry Style that had a clamshell design, mini-external screen and irregular-sized main display screen. Many developers had good enough sense to ignore support for this model altogether. Come launch week for a new OS6 or OS 7 BlackBerry, the early adopters end up suffering because their apps aren’t available yet and developers miss out on the bulk of app purchases that a user typically makes are within the first two months ownership. Other devices that suffered a slow start were the BlackBerry Storm and both the Torch 9800 and 9810 models.

In the past, RIM has launched new smartphones and mobile OSes with a good showing of 1st party apps. For various reasons apps from 3rd party developers habitually missed launch week, with many developers waiting as long as several months to consider a laborious java port. Thanks to a solid OS transition plan that takes a clever tablet-first approach to build up an app ecosystem years before the new BlackBerry smartphones even hit shelves.

What gives me the most hope for the BlackBerry 10 launch is that RIM fully understands that apps are the main thing that drive smartphone sales. This new methodology will lead to many more apps ready for BlackBerry 10 launch week than any other BlackBerry OS or device launch in history.

Head over to the official MIGS site to learn more.