There are some pretty cool PlayBook apps being demonstrated at Mobile World Congress 2011. The PlayBook is slated to be shipped around April 1st and everyone is hoping RIM hits this target date. Although, would anyone really be surprised if it gets delayed?
Lots of news this week came out of Mobile World Congress 2010 and the biggest news from RIM is the announcement of BES Express. BES Express is a free version of BES, with watered-down features but a lot of the same functionality. This is big news for the SMB market, but it’s a little disappointing to the average consumer. It would be great if RIM could host these services for the growing number of consumers who don’t have a small business. The other news to come out of MWC is Mike Lazaridis talking about BlackBerry Super Apps: a concept which completely eludes BlackBerry users and seems like marketing fluff. Basically, a Super App is an app that takes advantage of all the APIs that RIM have out there. The only apps RIM have pointed to explicitly as being Super Apps are the ones they have developed, which I personally think sends the wrong message to developers. Continue to catch up on a week of BlackBerry
During his keynote at MWC 2010, Mike Lazaridis introduced the concept of a Super App. It’s not clear exactly what is meant by “Super App”, but it seems that it’s a name given to apps that take advantage of all that the BlackBerry platform has to offer. Personally, I think this is a marketing initiative to get people exposed to the fact that the BlackBerry OS can do more than the iPhone in terms of functionality, and it doesn’t really mean anything to current BlackBerry users.
The Always-on Experience – the app runs in the background.
Tight Integration with the Native Apps – integrates with the calendar, messages, contacts etc.
Proactive and Notification-driven – takes advantage of Push APIs.
Highly Contextualized – make it continuously relevant with GPS, menu and app integration.
Social and Connected – invoke SMS, social networks, email etc.
Designed for Efficiency – doesn’t drain on the battery or memory.
The apps that RIM point to as being Super Apps include Facebook and Myspace (two apps that need serious overhauls). While I understand what Mike L is trying to say, I think this is a lot of marketing fluff with nothing really substantial behind it. If Lazaridis was going to make this sort of presentation, it should be followed with an announcement that RIM has opened up new APIs that were previously unavailable to developers. Without this substance, it just sounds like Google’s attempt to label their phone a SuperPhone.
Are there any apps you would like to nominate as Super Apps?
With so many more employees using smartphones, companies will want to have these users on a BES, without paying the exorbitant costs for every user. BES Express opens up new doors for these companies, allowing them to connect with more functionality than “activesync-connected” and yet same price – free. This announcement therefore goes a long way to addressing the claim that the BES solution was too expensive, and providing companies with a freemium style service. It almost makes you wonder why it took so long to get here. Continue reading this article
Polar Mobile are known for creating BlackBerry and smartphone apps for content publishers. At MWC, the company announced a new platform called MINT, which is a white label solution for businesses that want a BlackBerry app. From the press release, it seems as though they’ve made so many BlackBerry apps that they now have templates they can use to quickly churn out an app for any content company.
RIM have put up video demoing the WebKit browser that we’re expecting later this year and it looks really awesome so far. Mike Lazaridis was showing it off at MWC and it handles pages very smoothly. AJAX and JavaScripts run nicely in the browser and it scores a 100/100 on the ACID3 compliance test. The upcoming browser will support HTML 5, CSS3, DOM L3, Widgets and JIL Widgets. I can’t wait until this browser gets leaked so we can try it out for ourselves.
