Comment by jammur | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jammur | Hacker News Reader

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Thanks for the response Matt. As the author, I'm gonna have to disagree about the whiny tone, haha, but obviously you have the right to your own interpretation. I realize the Bueller thing probably came across as bizarre if you're not familiar with the reference (to Ferris Bueller's Day Off), in this case it just kinda means "What? No response?".

The wording on RIM's site sure made it seem like the $200 fee would be coming at some point, so as a new Blackberry developer, I'm not sure you can fault me for not having the inside track on RIM's policies. If they don't want people to get turned off by the prospect of a $200 fee, I would suggest they take it off their registration page.

Overall, you are correct though. I did mention a lot of little things. But a lot of little problems add up to a big problem, especially when those problems aren't an issue with RIM's competitors. You have to keep in mind that RIM is not operating in a bubble. They are the underdog in a race where Apple and Google are pretty far ahead in terms of developer mind share. If they want to lure developers to the platform, putting out inferior tools and processes is not going to help them at all. The underdog never wins by maintaining the status quo.

And come on Matt, where's the national solidarity? We Canucks gotta stick together! :)

All I meant about the whiny tone is that it seemed like it was written in a bit of a sensationalist way, rather than giving both sides of the story. That being said, your intention was to get RIM's attention, and so I think the sensational tone paid off, because it's here on Hacker News and on DF :)

Hah, I know Ferris Bueller, so I get the joke, don't worry, I just thought it seemed redundant after the first one.

I agree that it's way easier to get an app running in the Simulator with iOS development, but to actually test apps on a device, and publish to the App Store, it's an awful process. Apple's been working to improve it a lot in the past year, but it's still pretty painful.

To be honest I think RIM is just trying to make a giant transition. Keep in mind that all the Playbook stuff came from QNX, so I imagine it's a bit of a nightmare merging it all that stuff into RIM's bizarre system. There's a ton of room for improvement, but it actually works quite well once you get it all set up. I think that was part of the idea with the free Playbook offer, trying to make up the gap between themselves and Apple/Google.

RIM's also tapping into the unloved but massive group of Flash Developers out there. You're gonna see a ton of apps from developers that haven't made apps before. These are developers for whom the App Store really isn't an option. A ton of the apps will be total crap (just like on the App Store), but there'll be some gems too. Having used the device myself, I can safely say that the hardware and the OS are solid, and so if the apps are good too, RIM will be doing very well, and the process will only get better.

I have to disagree that it's an awful process to get apps on an iOS device. I was up and running in under 30 minutes from the time I started the registration process to the time I had an app running on a device.

Point taken about the untapped market of Flash developers. Honestly I hope RIM can turn it around. Like I said, they're the #1 supporter of my university and they support the local economy in a big way. The things I hear from friends who work there though don't give me a lot of hope. The impression I get is that the front line developers share a lot of same concerns that I do.

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