RIM: 'We don't need 200 fart apps'
Quality not toots and poots
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RIM has announced that its BlackBerry App World now contains over 10,000 apps. That count may seem paltry compared with the Apple App Store's quarter million or the Android Market's estimated 70,000-plus. But that doesn't bother RIM, which claims that its goal is quality, not quantity.
"We don't need 200 fart apps in App World," Recombu quotes RIM's platform product management VP Alan Panezic as saying at the company's BlackBerry Devcon earlier this week.
He did not say how many farts apps they do need.
"We aren't focusing on, say, hitting the 50,000 app mark," said Panezic. "For us, apps are all about adding real value to the end-user's life and creating revenue for developers."
This February, RIM gave their class of classy apps the somewhat nebulous name of "super apps." Speaking with ME at the Mobile World Congress, RIM’s director of developer relations Mike Kirkup said: "We've talked a little bit about it before, but this is really announcing a formal title for it." Kirkup defined super apps as a "new class of apps that are rich, contextual and heavily integrated into the other apps on the device."
In other words, no digital flatulence for the cultured Canucks. "Those are apps you'll use three or four times then never open again," Panezic said. "You're not looking at ads, clicking on ads or buying premium upgrades, and the app isn't adding any value to your device."
Interestingly, pootlessness is a virture that Apple is now promoting as well. In its App Store Review Guidelines announced earlier this month, Cupertino declared: "We have over 250,000 apps in the App Store. We don't need any more Fart apps."
The Android Market had better get with the program. Does the world really need Android offerings such as 101 Farts, Fart Sound Board, Blue Bunny Fart Sounds, Sneaky Fart, Big Fart Button, and their odoriferous ilk?
Apple has launched its iAD mobile-ad platform — reportedly to great success. RIM has relaxed its developer guidelines to allow in-app purchases, is beefing up it enterprise-level developer offerings, and has debuted its iPad competitor, the BlackBerry PlayBook. And now both companies have committed themselves to a fart-free future.
The Reg suggests Apple and RIM may be onto something with this move to maturity, and that Google CEO Eric Schmidt had better take heed. ®
