AllThingsD » App World

RIM Promises BlackBerry Developers Will Earn at Least $10,000 Per App

Ina Fried — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:06:04 +0000

Aiming to convince developers the next BlackBerry operating system is worth betting on, Research In Motion is promising that quality apps will earn at least $10,000.

The company said it will put its money where its mouth is, guaranteeing that amount for apps that meet certain quality levels and are submitted to its App World store before the launch of BlackBerry 10-based devices.

“Quality certified apps submitted to App World before launch will earn at least $10,000 in the 1st year on the market,” RIM said in a post on Twitter Tuesday, echoing comments made at its BlackBerry World conference in Orlando.

Gaining developer support for the new operating system will be critical for RIM, which has seen developer support wane as the company has been losing market share in recent years.

Earlier on Tuesday, RIM outlined several pieces of the new operating system, showed off a developer prototype running the software and brought out several partners that are building applications for BB10.

RIM: Don't Worry About PlayBook's Battery Life

Ina Fried — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 16:59:40 +0000

Speaking about its business plans on Thursday, Research In Motion briefly addressed its forthcoming PlayBook tablet and reported issues around the product’s battery life.

Senior Product Manager Ryan Bidan said that the tablet will have a 5,300-milliamp-hour battery that will offer plenty of battery life, but he wouldn’t quote a specific estimate.

“We’ll have good battery life,” he said. “Don’t worry about the battery life.”

Among other details, Bidan said that, unlike with the BlackBerry, RIM will deliver software updates directly to PlayBook devices. He also said that there would be a version of App World for downloading programs created by third-party developers.

The company also listed a number of technical specs for the device, including a 1GHz dual-core TI processor, a 3MP front-facing camera and a 5MP rear-facing camera, as well as mini-HDMI and mini-USB ports. Developers, he said, will have unfettered access to the camera and HDMI port, paving the way for all kinds of cool video-conferencing and presentation-delivery applications.

As for the key details, Bidan stuck to the company line, saying only that it will ship in North America this year and refusing to talk exact timing or pricing. “We’ll be competitively priced,” he said.

Bidan also demonstrated the tablet synching with his BlackBerry to display email and calendar information stored on the handheld. Each PlayBook can only synch with one BlackBerry at a time, Bidan said.

Update, 12:21 pm ET: Asked whether RIM is still aiming for eight hours of battery life, as it claimed at CES, Bidan said, “That is the case–our goal is to get a full day.”

That battery, by the way, is a fixed, nonremovable battery.

Asked about the size of the marketing campaign that will accompany PlayBook’s release, RIM executives declined to give specifics, but said it will be big.

“It’s not going to be a soft launch,” said VP Alec Taylor. “The magnitude will be commensurate with the opportunity.”

PREVIOUSLY

PlayBook Sequel Will Run on Sprint 4G

Analyst: Flash Could Be Hogging PlayBook Battery Life

RIM: PlayBook Battery Life Will Be “Comparable,” Not Crappy

BlackBerry PlayBook: Car Battery Not Included

Weathering the Storm, RIM Makes Its Business Case in Boston

Ina Fried — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 15:11:48 +0000

Mobilized is trudging through the snow in Beantown Thursday to hear Research In Motion talk about its plans for the enterprise. RIM is set to talk about why businesses should bet on both the BlackBerry and the forthcoming PlayBook tablet.

The event, at the Marriott Copley Place downtown, is just getting under way. I won’t bore you with every detail, but will post whenever things get interesting.

In the meantime, enjoy this take on Angry Birds for the BlackBerry.

Update, 10:17 am ET: The intro is still going on. RIM Vice President Alec Taylor is talking about the Cuban Missile Crisis for some reason. However, RIM was nice enough to pass out slides for the whole day. Here are some of the highlights:

BlackBerry Mobile Voice System
Launching in early 2011, this is an update to RIM’s effort to unify the desk and mobile phone, offering a single identity, voiceover Wi-Fi calling, a single voicemail box, dialing office extensions and more. RIM says the new version will support more types of business phone systems.

Other features coming later this year include automatic hand-off from Wi-Fi to mobile networks, a “move call from desk” feature and more.

BlackBerry Balance
A new effort to support mixing personal and corporate data on the BlackBerry. RIM is adding features such as the ability for IT to choose to wipe only corporate information from a device or to limit users from cutting work data and pasting it into a personal application or email. Other features include warnings when sending emails or calendar invites outside of the organization, the ability to encrypt media cards and options for preventing access to work data by third-party applications.

BlackBerry client for Microsoft SharePoint
Launching in early 2011, this will bring data from Microsoft’s portal software directly to BlackBerry handhelds. It will work with both the 2007 and 2010 versions of SharePoint and integrates into a number of BlackBerry programs, including E-mail, calendar, Documents To Go and the browser.

PlayBook
As for the forthcoming tablet, RIM says it will ship with 1GB of memory, have 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of flash memory, include a 3-megapixel front-facing and 5-megapixel rear-facing camera and have micro USB and Micro HDMI ports. (I can’t remember if they have said all of that before.) The slides say only that it will ship this quarter and will be “competitively priced,” reiterating past company positioning.

According to the slides, the company also plans to talk about cloud-based device management and changes to allow one BlackBerry server to support multiple corporations.

10:35 am ET: The Cuban Missile Crisis is apparently over, and VP Pete Devenyi is now outlining the company’s business product road map and making the pitch for its strategy.

“We really do have a great story,” he says, noting that the enterprise is different from the “arms race” of the consumer market.

“It’s not just about the number of apps in App world,” he says, noting that businesses can and are building programs just for use within the corporation. Some businesses, he says, have hundreds of internal apps, none of which show up in the public storefront. BlackBerry, he says, also allows businesses better control than rivals over what programs are on a worker’s device. For example, Devenyi says, when workers change groups within a company, the programs they have access to can be updated automatically with programs deleted and added from their devices.

“That kind of power is power that no one else has,” he says. “We don’t read about that much.”

10:43 am: In addition to both the paid BlackBerry Enterprise Server and the slimmed-down free “Express” version of the server, RIM plans to launch an email system aimed directly at small-to-midsize businesses–MDaemon Messaging Server, BlackBerry Edition. The idea is to give smaller businesses a full email server that has full BlackBerry support. The product stems from an acquisition RIM made a year or two ago and offers what RIM says are features similar to Microsoft’s Exchange Server but at a fraction of the price.

The company is also launching “very, very soon” a modest update to its flagship server product, BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0.3. It will add more support for employee-owned devices (including the BlackBerry Balance feature described earlier), support for encrypted attachments and certification for Microsoft’s Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and the latest version, known as Lync 2010.

11:18 am: RIM is launching yet another server this year, known as the BlackBerry Enterprise Application Middleware (BEAM). BEAM, which companies would have to buy in addition to their BlackBerry email server, aims to streamline enterprise content for use on a BlackBerry. ‘What that results in is a much more efficient application than you would otherwise have,” Devenyi says. It’s in beta now, he adds.

11:25 am: BlackBerry is launching its equivalent of Find My Phone, known as BlackBerry Protect, which will allow individuals to remotely wipe or post a message if a device is lost. Protect will launch later this year, Devenyi says.

Finally, the company is talking about a number of changes it is making to the core BlackBerry Enterprise Server so that it can run via the cloud. Launching later this year, RIM will have the ability for its server product to be remotely hosted and support more than one business. It’s not clear yet if this will be RIM offering BlackBerry as a cloud-based service or if this is a product for hosting partners, though it sounds more like the latter.

11:32 am: Devenyi told Mobilized that the company is just showing the architectural changes it is making, not saying how it will bring the cloud-based capabilities to market. “We’re still working through a number of those details ourselves.” Devenyi said. “It could be both, but we are not announcing.”

11:42 am: On to the PlayBook finally. Senior Product manager Ryan Bidan gives the spiel. He says there is a lot that the company isn’t ready to share. Addressing concerns around battery life, Bidan notes the PlayBook has a 5300-miliamp battery, but doesn’t give specifics on how much battery life that will translate to.

“We’ll have good battery life,” he says. “Don’t worry about the battery life.”

Other details:
Software updates will be pushed down to the device on an ongoing basis. There will be a version of App World on the device for downloading developer-created programs.

And with that, the formal part of the event is over.

RIM Needs More Fart Apps, Not Fewer

John Paczkowski — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 10:30:49 +0000

There are some 10,000 apps in Research in Motion’s BlackBerry App World, and while that’s a pittance compared with the 250,000 in Apple’s iTunes App Store and 70,000 in Google’s (GOOG) Android Market, RIM is in no big rush to raise the number, particularly if it means bolstering it with a bunch of throwaway apps that are going to drag its staid enterprise brethren into the gutter.

Or the toilet.

“For us, apps are all about adding real value to the end-user’s life and creating revenue for developers,” Alan Panezic, RIM’s VP of platform product management, said at the 2010 BlackBerry Developer Conference this week. “We don’t need 200 fart apps in App World. Those are apps you’ll use three or four times then never open again. You’re not looking at ads, clicking on ads or buying premium upgrades, and the app isn’t adding any value to your device.” (Which is exactly what Apple (AAPL) said earlier this month in its new developer guidelines.)

So RIM (RIMM) envisions a BlackBerry App World that’s all signal, no–ahem–noise. But signal and noise are not mutually exclusive. And, as iOS developer Joel Comm will tell you, sometimes that noise can be very lucrative. Comm made nearly $30,000 in one day–from a 99-cent fart app. How many mobile developers redoubled their iOS efforts when they caught wind of Comm’s success in the New York Times? How many new developers began writing apps thinking they could score a similar payday?

Ultimately, RIM just needs more apps, and more that reach beyond the enterprise space. If it has to suffer through a fart app onslaught to get there, who cares? Users will either buy them or they won’t. If they do, that’s money in the pockets of the devs who made them and great encouragement for others who might write software for the platform. If they don’t, it’s great encouragement for devs to try again with a different app.

In the end, RIM just needs to build developer interest in its platform. And issuing mandates about what sort of apps it “needs,” seems a poor way of doing it.

And who knows? maybe enterprise wants a good fart app.

Analyst: Palm May Be Acquired in the Next Two Years

John Paczkowski — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:55:12 +0000

Palm’s got potential–M&A potential.

That’s the word from Deutsche Bank analyst Jonathan Goldberg, who believes there’s a good chance the company will be acquired in the next two years.

In a note to clients this week, Goldberg argues that Palm (PALM), with its new Verizon (VZ) distribution deal in hand and nearly nearly 1,300 webOS applications in its App Catalog, is building the sort of market momentum that would be attractive to a larger company looking to break into the mobile device market–or shake it up.

“Big consumer electronics companies need some way to participate in the market and most of them have failed to come up with a successful strategy,” Goldberg writes. “Street consensus appears to be that Palm will be acquired in the next year or two, which given the current environment we think could be a reasonable possibility.”

But to make it a reality, Palm must first demonstrate its viability. “We think Palm needs to prove it can be a stand-alone entity, a viable business in its own right. We clearly think that it can.”

Clearly. Goldberg believes Palm will likely sell 600 thousand webOS devices through Verizon this quarter, and he says that Palm’s App Catalog, whose applications already outnumber those in Nokia (NOK) and Microsoft (MSFT) stores, will soon exceed those available in RIM’s (RIMM) App World and possibly the Android Market as well. That would certainly be enough to elicit an acquisitive glance from a company with mobile ambitions. Just who that would be, however, Goldberg doesn’t speculate about.

Of course, Goldberg is far from the first analyst to posit Palm as a takeover target. I’ve written here before about speculation that the company might be acquired by Dell (DELL) or Nokia.

A Downsized BlackBerry Bold With Oomph

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:16:08 +0000

Almost exactly one year ago, Research In Motion introduced what I then called the Buick of BlackBerrys: the BlackBerry Bold. It was bulky, heavy and seemed made for the holster-wearing set. But what it lacked in style it made up for in comfort. It had a generously sized keyboard, bright screen and even a leatherette back to accent its luxurious side. The Bold was RIM’s first BlackBerry to run on the fast 3G network, and AT&T was asking $300 for it—$100 more than the least expensive Apple iPhone at the time.

Much has changed in a year, most notably the growing number of serious competitors vying to steal customers from RIM (RIMM) and Apple (AAPL), and the surge of applications (“apps” for short) available for these super smart phones.

[ See post to watch video ]

This week, I tested RIM’s new BlackBerry Bold 9700 (na.blackberry.com), which will be available on Nov. 27 for $200 with a two-year T-Mobile contract. Like the original Bold, the Bold 9700 has a leatherette back. But that’s where the similarities end. This new version reminds me of the original Bold after a diet: smaller in every dimension—width, height, depth and weight—and, physically, it’s a lot like the newer BlackBerry Curve models. (I use the Curve 8900 every day, and after using the two together for a week I still mistook them for one another at a glance.)

RIM has long been proud of its diverse selection and the fact that it doesn’t force a “one size fits all” theory on its users. Instead, it offers BlackBerrys in all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Pearl Flip, a flip phone with a built-in BlackBerry, to the Storm 2, a touch-screen device without a physical keyboard, and several models in between.

Now, the Bold has dropped its distinguished characteristics. The Buick of BlackBerrys has become as common as the Toyota Camry. Is there nothing left for the user who likes a large, luxurious BlackBerry?

In a side-by-side comparison between this new Bold 9700, the Curve 8900 ($150 after a $100 mail-in rebate) and the Tour 9630 ($150 after Verizon’s $100 online discount), the physical differences are almost imperceptible. And these models don’t look all that different from the Curve 8520, which costs $50 with a two-year T-Mobile contract when bought at Wal-Mart (WMT).

The new Bold’s smaller size means its keyboard also is slightly smaller than its predecessor: It measures about 5.5 centimeters across rather than 5.9 centimeters. I still found it relatively comfortable to use. But this keyboard is almost exactly the same as the keyboard on the BlackBerry Tour, except the new Bold’s bottom row of keys is slightly shorter. Unlike the keyboard found on the Curve 8900 and other less-expensive Curves, the keys on the Bold 9700 are positioned side by side with no spaces between them, and horizontal rows are divided by chrome frets.

Look familiar? The BlackBerry Bold 9700 now resembles existing BlackBerrys.

While the Bold 9700 looks rather undistinguished, it has a few less-obvious attributes that give it a little oomph. For starters, it uses a trackpad for scrolling the screen. Longtime Blackberry users will remember the original scroll wheel, which was on the right side of the device. In 2006, the scroll wheel was replaced with a trackball on the front of the device. This September, that trackball was replaced by a trackpad as first seen on the Curve 8520, and its appearance on this new Bold confirms RIM’s decision to use it as the navigational tool of choice.

This trackpad is a tiny, touch-sensitive square that works by sensing a finger’s directional movements. Pressing in on the trackpad, like pressing in on the trackball, selects something on the screen. At first, I missed the satisfying physical feel of scrolling with the trackball, and the trackpad felt fast and less controllable to my thumb. But I soon got used to the trackpad and appreciated that it does away with all moving parts that could possibly get stuck—a trackball hazard for many BlackBerry users. The trackpad also establishes a flat layer beneath the screen that looks sleek and smooth in line with the four navigational buttons.

Another advantage of the Bold 9700 is its battery life. If you take off this BlackBerry’s leatherette back, a battery that measures almost the size of the device itself lies beneath. This large battery supplies the Bold 9700 with enough juice to last up to 19 days in standby mode. By comparison, the BlackBerry Tour and Curve 8900 last for up to 14 days each in standby. The new Bold’s talk time is up to six hours, slightly better than the Curve 8900′s 5½ and an hour better than the Tour’s five-hour talk time.

This thinner, lighter, smaller Bold is more comfortable to use for phone calls than the original, which could make users feel like they were holding a small piece of toast up to their ear during calls. I made several calls with no problems. Emailing on this Bold 9700 was as simple as always, and I set up four email accounts for testing.

Despite its fancy new BlackBerrys, RIM needs to overhaul the way it handles apps. The Bold 9700 comes preloaded with a prominently positioned icon for RIM’s BlackBerry App World store. But apps downloaded from here still go right into the “Downloads” folder, sending users unfamiliar with this system into a frantic search for their newly downloaded app.

And not all apps go into that folder; the Facebook app goes straight to the “Apps” folder. Why not put every new app right on the home screen and let me put them into folders if I so choose?

Once apps are downloaded, RIM neglects to notify you when all apps need to be updated. On my personal Curve 8900, I recently dug into the settings of my TwitterBerry and Facebook apps and manually checked to see if updated versions were available for each. This was the case, and I downloaded the new versions, but most people would never think to check for this kind of thing. Instead, RIM should send notifications about available updates for all apps.

The Bold 9700 runs on T-Mobile’s 3G network, which isn’t nearly as established as the 3G networks that Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) offer. It also can connect to Wi-Fi and allows voice calls to be made over Wi-Fi. (The BlackBerry Tour connects to Verizon’s 3G network but doesn’t have Wi-Fi—a huge downside. The Curve 8900 connects to Wi-Fi but not to 3G.)

The other attributes of the Bold 9700 are like the BlackBerry Curve 8900 and Tour: They all have cameras with flashes that are capable of capturing 3.2-megapixel photographs, bright 480×360-pixel displays, built-in GPS and slots for microSD memory cards so as to expand their memory.

If you’re considering a BlackBerry upgrade, the Bold 9700 offers 3G and Wi-Fi, a combination not offered by another BlackBerry with a full physical keyboard—other than the original Bold. But since many of the Bold 9700′s features are about the same as less-expensive BlackBerrys, it’s worth considering the Tour and Curve 8900 before you spend $200 on a device that no longer lives up to its bold name.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

New Perspective On BlackBerrys And iPhones

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:02:04 +0000

The old adage that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence can be extended to our technology cravings. Even the person holding the shiniest new gadget can’t help but eye a neighbor who has a different device and wonder, “What does that do that mine doesn’t?”

Thoughts like these are especially prevalent when it comes to the devoted owners of BlackBerrys and iPhones. All too often, the people carrying these smart phones are curious about what one device has that the other lacks. This week, I’m going to save you the trouble and outline some of the personal usage ups and downs to each device.

Because I regularly use both gadgets and am accustomed to their different features, I have included fresh observations from five people who recently switched from BlackBerrys to iPhones. At my request, these people kept track of their impressions, noting the things they missed on their BlackBerrys along with things they preferred on the iPhones. This column isn’t meant to promote one device over the other; rather, it is a summary of some people’s sentiments, combined with my own observations in hopes of enlightening readers. I inevitably left out some differences.

The most outstanding observation from my switch group in favor of the iPhone was an appreciation for its applications, or apps.

They used things like driving directions for the first time because these apps looked and worked better on the iPhone than on the BlackBerry. And they went through a downloading frenzy during which time they found all sorts of apps for the iPhone, such as games, entertainment and those that enhanced business-travel productivity. “Browsing for games. Probably should leave the office now,” said one person’s notes.

Though Research in Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerrys also run apps (including some of the same ones as for the iPhone), BlackBerry’s App World offers only a little better than 2,000 apps. Apple’s (AAPL) App Store boasts more than 65,000. A shortcut to the App Store ships preloaded on iPhones. BlackBerry App World is preloaded or virtually preloaded by carriers at their discretion, so a shortcut to App World may not be visible.

My switchers were frustrated by the iPhone’s battery life and complained of running low on battery. One person said, “I need to charge my iPhone a couple of times throughout the day which can be inconvenient, especially when traveling. With my BlackBerry I just charged it while I slept and it was good to go for the day.”

Granted, these people were all using the iPhone 3GS and had previously used various models of BlackBerrys that ran on slower networks and had smaller screens—two features that require less battery. Still, worrying about running out of juice is a hassle. One person said his iPhone’s weak battery was a tribute to the fact that he used it more often and for more things than he did the BlackBerry.

The most obvious difference between iPhones and BlackBerrys are the keyboards. The iPhone uses an on-screen keyboard, while the BlackBerry (except the touch-screen Storm model) uses a tactile QWERTY keyboard. As expected, the switchers had trouble using the iPhone keyboard–especially for the first few days. But after about a week, most people in the group had adjusted well to the on-screen keys and the iPhone’s auto-correct feature that fixes mistakes as long as you keep typing rather than stopping to fix an error. One person said, “I was a skeptic, and didn’t think the typing would work for me at all, but it actually hasn’t been too bad.”

Another said typing can be a real challenge at first, but that this could be overcome with a bit of practice.

Several people said they were still able to use their thumbs for iPhone typing as they did on the BlackBerry, though most preferred turning the screen horizontally to do this with slightly larger keys. Some said that they weren’t typing quite as fast as with the BlackBerry’s QWERTY keys but that they weren’t too far off.

The BlackBerry keyboard’s static position below its screen means all letters, numbers and symbols must come solely from pressing those keys; this is done by pressing ALT or Shift keys for numbers and symbols. Some switchers noted that pressing a button to change the iPhone’s on-screen keyboard from letters to capital letters or numbers took a bit longer than on the BlackBerry.

My switchers were ecstatic about using the iPhone’s Safari Web browser. They enthusiastically said searching, browsing and reading were all made much better and more visually pleasing compared with their experiences on the BlackBerry browser.

If you are a BlackBerry user, you know that all received and sent emails are listed on the same screen. The iPhone behaves more like a computer, storing sent emails in a special folder you must back up to open. This takes a little while to get used to.

Some switchers said they wished the iPhone had something like BlackBerry Messenger, the always-on messaging system that works to allow communication between all BlackBerrys.

The iPhone automatically changes its time when you enter a new time zone. BlackBerrys remain set to their home time zone for time stamping all emails with that time–unless you change the time in settings.

RIM prides itself on being able to run multiple applications at once; the iPhone allows this with its own preloaded programs like Mail and Safari, but not with other apps.

One switcher, for example, was frustrated that Pandora, a radio-like app that plays music according to user likes and dislikes, turned off when he opened Mail to read emails while listening to songs.

The BlackBerry’s AC adaptor takes up two power outlet spots, while the small, square iPhone plug occupies only one outlet, making it more versatile and able to charge in more locations.

The iPhone only works on one cellular service: AT&T (T). The BlackBerry is available from Verizon (VZ), AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint (S) and other carriers. My group used T-Mobile before changing to the iPhone’s AT&T service.

There will always be something on someone else’s device that looks more appealing than the one in your hand.

But the experience of using apps on the iPhone–and the huge selection of apps in the App Store–significantly enhance Apple’s device.

RIM is continually improving its own store, but it needs to move quickly to keep its loyal users contented.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

A BlackBerry Priced Right For Newcomers

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 07:52:03 +0000

Web browsing and email have comfortably migrated to mobile handhelds like the iPhone, BlackBerry and Palm (PALM) Pre. But many of these gadgets still cost a lot compared with cellphones that come free with renewed two-year contracts.

This week, I tested a new BlackBerry that costs less than any other BlackBerry did at launch—that is, if you buy it at the right place. Research in Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry Curve 8520 costs just $49 at Wal-Mart (WMT)—or $130 if you buy it at T-Mobile. Both prices are with two-year T-Mobile contracts.

[ See post to watch video ]

The BlackBerry Curve has been one of the company’s most popular models. All iterations of the Curve combine a full QWERTY keyboard with a sleeker, more stylish look than bigger BlackBerry models like the Bold. And Curves typically cost less than their larger counterparts. In February, RIM refreshed its Curve brand for the first time in over two years with the 8900. This model was a real upgrade for Curve users, thanks to a brighter screen, faster performance and flatter keys that were easier to press. But six months later, it still costs as much as $199 (after rebate)—a steep asking price considering how some older 8300-series Curves are offered for around $50 with two-year contracts.

This newest $49 Curve 8520 lowers that price barrier. Its monthly T-Mobile service plans are also relatively inexpensive, starting at $55 for voice and data (not including MMS or SMS messaging).

It has two features never before seen on a BlackBerry. First, in place of a trackball or scroll wheel, this Curve uses a trackpad—a mini version of those used for mouse navigation on laptops.

Second, it has designated physical buttons for playing, pausing and skipping ahead or back within media like videos and music. These rubbery buttons are built into the top edge of the BlackBerry.

I like the look of the Curve 8520—especially how the surface covering its screen extends down to the trackpad and its four surrounding buttons, giving it a smooth facade. It comes in two colors, black and frost (I used the black). Its low price, alone, will be enough to draw customers.

But something about the way its keyboard and navigational keys worked felt cheap. Letter keys felt light and hollow while the Send, Menu, Escape and End keys around the trackpad clicked as I touched them.

The specifications of this BlackBerry tell the tale more specifically. Its 320×240 pixel screen looks faded next to that of the Curve 8900, which is 480×360. The blinking red indicator light at the top front corner of all BlackBerrys is a barely noticeable dot on this device.

And its camera is only two megapixels, not 3.2 megapixels like on the 8900, and is the first on a BlackBerry not to have a built-in flash. Also, it doesn’t run on the fast 3G network, though it uses Wi-Fi and automatically connects to trusted networks when in range of them.

First-time smartphone owners may not notice or care about these small details, but veteran BlackBerry users will pick up on them right away.

The Curve 8520 incorporates useful physical features found on previous models like right- and left-side convenience keys that work as handy shortcuts. It comes with a 1-gigabyte microSD memory card so users don’t have to buy their own before loading this device with photos, music and videos.

A strip of rubber runs around the Curve’s edge, covering up and smoothing over its convenience keys and volume buttons. This rugged addition isn’t visible from the front of the BlackBerry and it will probably go a long way in preventing nicks and dings. The word “Curve” is imprinted on the back of the BlackBerry, proudly branding this model.

The navigational trackpad is a cinch to use and moves the cursor up, down, right and left with very little effort. To select, one needs only to press in on the trackpad just as with the trackball. Unlike the trackball, which rolls in place and can get stuck once in a great while, the trackpad doesn’t have any moving parts.

The physical media keys on the Curve 8520′s top edge work to instantly start playing media from any screen, like a music video that I watched. If you were to use your BlackBerry as your sole portable media player, these would be more valuable. And their position on the top of the Curve makes them easy to reach if the device is in a pocket or purse.

In my everyday usage scenarios, I usually forgot about these shortcut buttons and just used the trackpad to find and select a track or video for playing.

BlackBerry’s App World store for applications that users can load onto the device still only offers 2,000 apps, compared to Apple’s (AAPL) 65,000. This means that for now, this new Curve can’t be enhanced with as many outside programs, which is a real downside. And if you do download a lot of apps, or music or videos or photos, you may have to get a bigger memory card.

The Curve 8520 isn’t made for BlackBerry fanatics. But it’s a good entry-level BlackBerry for users who still haven’t let go of their basic cellphones. At Wal-Mart’s $49 price, it’s hard to beat.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

First Impressions of the New BlackBerry App Store

Walt Mossberg — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:09:49 +0000

There have long been third-party programs for the BlackBerry, but in light of Apple’s enormous success with an easy, built-in App Store for the iPhone, Research in Motion today unveiled its own similar store, called BlackBerry App World. The store has hundreds of apps available at launch, and RIM says it expects around a thousand to be available in its first week. Like Apple’s store, RIM’s offers both free and paid apps that download directly to your device.

I haven’t had time to do a full review of App World, but I tried it out for a couple of hours on a top-of-the-line BlackBerry Bold and a fast network connection. Here are my first impressions.

RIM’s store is clumsier to use than Apple’s (AAPL), but it works. The selection at launch is decent, but with some surprising omissions. The emphasis seems, at first glance, to be toward pricier apps. And, there are some limitations and oddities. Perhaps the biggest of these is that App World is only available for relatively recent BlackBerry models–the ones with trackballs instead of side wheels, starting with the Pearl, which came out in the fall of 2006. That means that millions of people with older models can’t use the app store.

App World has apps in all the major categories–Games, Productivity, Entertainment, News, Weather, Finance, Health, Social Networking, and so forth. The selection is broad. For instance, on the first day, it offers 166 games, 99 productivity and utility apps, and 69 reference and book apps. There are even a few of those fart apps that have proved so popular on the iPhone, something that seems so… unBlackBerry-like.

But there are some surprising omissions. There’s no dedicated Twitter client, at least none that either I or a RIM (RIMM) spokeswoman could find at this writing. There’s a Facebook app, but it’s the same rudimentary one RIM has offered for a long time. There’s no Google (GOOG) app, just a shortcut to a Google page in the BlackBerry’s browser. And there’s no app for shopping at Amazon (AMZN) or viewing Kindle books. No doubt these things will show up eventually, but given the competition and the time RIM has spent getting this ready, I was surprised they weren’t there at launch.

Still, I downloaded about a dozen apps and liked most of them, including the Bloomberg, Pandora, and Shazam apps. But a $2.99 Associated Press app didn’t work properly and looked crude compared with the free AP app on the iPhone. Shazam, which identifies songs playing nearby and gives you a chance to buy them, correctly identified several songs on the BlackBerry, but unlike on the iPhone, didn’t link to videos related to the songs.

The buying process is harder than on the iPhone. You have to download the store itself, then pay for any apps you want with PayPal, which requires going through a couple of screens each time. On several occasions, despite my fast, strong, steady network connection, app downloads stopped in midstream multiple times, And the least expensive apps are $2.99, about triple the cost of the cheapest typical paid apps on the iPhone. Indeed, I spotted a surprising number of $20, $30 and $40 apps on App World.

App World has other limitations and oddities. You can only save apps to the BlackBerry’s limited internal memory, not to a roomier flash memory card. RIM has made up for this by allowing you to also store your apps online, but that’s still a pain, especially when you’re not connected. And, oddly, the apps you obtain from App World aren’t located in the BlackBerry’s Applications folder, but in the Downloads folder. You can, of course, move them around, even placing them right on the home screen.

BlackBerry fans unfamiliar with the iPhone won’t care about some of these comparisons, of course. They will, and should, just be happy that their phones are now much richer and more versatile devices. And, in the end, that’s what counts. RIM is now truly in the platform game, which will make its products more attractive and could make its shareholders richer.