RIM tries to attract BlackBerry 10 developers with awful music video | Hacker News Reader

RIM tries to attract BlackBerry 10 developers with awful music video

venturebeat.com

49 pointsstdclass37 comments

Instead of this low-quality garbage, why not post something newsworthy about BlackBerry 10, like the first look at their next OS? http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/25/3386444/blackberry-10-beta...

Looks very "android-y" from that video. I'm not sure how they going to differentiate.

So far it seems like the Windows Phone stategy of "cool and different" isn't working, so maybe BB's strategy is to have consumers thinking that BB 10 and Android look and act similar, so they might as well go with either one!

They can android apps on the playbook. Having a Android like styling, makes the foreign apps look more native.

> RIM CEO Thorsten Heins guaranteed developers that their BlackBerry 10 applications would make at least $10,000 in their first year. If those apps don’t generate $10,000, Heins said RIM would make up the difference.

Wait. That can't be right. Last I heard, you had to make $1,000 on your own first. Is this new item a misquote, or can I release a free app, get 0 downloads, and have RIM pay me $10,000 a year later? No way, it's gotta be an incorrect quote.

Edit: They updated the article with sources. The situation has not changed. "Any developer that makes $1,000 from a BlackBerry 10 app submitted by January 23rd is eligible for a payout from RIM for up to $9,000."

Are there other restrictions? What's to stop someone from putting together something and putting it on the store for $1000, having a friend buy 1 copy (which makes $1000 in sales for your company), then split the $9000?

They need to be certified by RIM ahead of time.

This is a no lose situation for RIM.

  A) They only certify Apps that pass their arbitrary quality test.
  B) They don't have to market your apps initially.
  C) If you can get enough money from your likely already reasonably 
     quality apps, then RIM can then market them in the store, 
     and easily push you over the $10K line.

Everybody comes out a winner. Very difficult to game, though.

"...then RIM can then market them in the store, and easily push you over the $10K line."

I don't quite agree with the assumption that their app ecosystem will be popular enough to make this happen "easily". First let's see if BB 10 is released successfully...

Just have them as a featured app (or whatever Blackberry's version of that will be) for a few days - it would be pretty hard _not_ to be pushed over the $10K line. And, if a couple days as a featured App won't get you $10K, then RIM is dead, and this is all for naught anyways. An extra $10K for the 900-1000 developers they chose won't make a difference one way or another.

use an add network to bump your app to 1g revenue

In my short 5 year career as a software developer, my absolute lowest point was working with Blackberry creating applications.

This was around July 2010-ish.

The development environment: Sucked. Eclipse with some rubbish plugins that didn't work all the time.

Each change in the UI, I had to compile, publish to my BB device (which took about 20 minutes each time) and see how it ran there because the simulator was nowhere near to the actual representation on the phone.

Using Java to make BB apps wasn't so bad, I mean, I was only used to C# at that point, and the transition wasn't that painful. It was the god damn awful developer tools.

I wouldn't go back to making Blackberry apps ever again; I value my happiness much more these days and I can afford to pick and choose my jobs.

I wonder if they have made things easier this iteration. It's been 2 years since I've seen things in the ecosystem after all.

My absolute favorite platform to make Mobile apps is Windows Phone 7 (I hear 8 is pretty much the same). You just can match the developer tools for it. It's so simple.

You were targeting the Java devices (probably BB5, BB6?) Unlike those devices, the BB10 devices (like the Playbook) are based upon the QNX OS and so the overall development experience is significantly better. But don't just take my word for it, click any of the BB10 links that talk about the development experience for a more in depth discussion.

I watched a friend write an app for the playbook, and he kept firing up a virtual machine to do something. Why would the dev environment need a virtual machine running every time you need to run a test?

Because you need to test it in the actual runtime environment, not your machine? That's how mobile development works.

Looked at in an alternative light, this video can be seen as rather courageous. It acknowledges the problems that developers for the BB platform have faced, and directly addresses some of the doubts and fears developers must be experiencing. For example:

* "A whole new mobile platform may be one tough proposition" * "And though I know you're all wondering, when? It won't be forever."

I'm not really all that opposed to the rather human and self-deprecating approach taken here.

That would be assuming they haven't closed the tab in disgust by that point.

Agreed. Thought it was clearly a self deprecatory parody. And putting Steve Jobs on guitar was a nice touch.

Yep, clearly tongue in cheek.

This story has just the right mix of condescension, editorialization, and an absence of meaningful journalism.

Forgive my cynicism but do a search for RIM or Blackberry 10 on HN and its easy to see why this is on the front page instead of something discussing the merits and flaws of the OS that was shown during the keynote today.

This is definitely material for a future version of "N years of high tech marketing disasters", which, by the way, is a pretty good - and entertaining - look at the history of computing from the point of view of the various errors and screwups along the way: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001G0OANQ/?tag=dedasys-20

I think the other commenters are right that we ought to be focusing on the technology that they are releasing. And yet, sometimes something like this is really emblematic of what is otherwise a long, drawn out, slow motion failure without any really moments where it's easy to say that is when things blew up.

Edit incidentally, I went and had a look at the links showing actual information about the launch, and I don't see anything that would cause me to switch from Android.

The casual negativity in the headline is really too bad. I kind-of enjoyed the video, even though I'd been primed not to.

Went to BlackBerry Jam in Waterloo with a co-worker who did a co-op at RIM previously. They played a similar music video and the key joke from my co-worker was "The cost of that music video could've paid the salary of the guy who used to be beside me."

If this video gets the ball rolling in getting bb10 a chunk developer mindshare - and we are talking about it - then it's likely worth the cost.

For me, "BlackBerry 10" no longer sits on the "laughable boondoggle" shelf. Now it's on the "meltdown in progress" shelf. That's not better.

Bad publicity is not good publicity.

why would this video get any ball rolling?

when was the last time a bad video inspired a bunch of developers to start working with the product?

Genuinely the saddest marketing stunt I've ever seen.

Nah come on. Why so serious. There's worse music in the charts. This is kind of cute.

Wow. VB wastes no time in editorializing, it's right there in the headline.

Was the video that bad really? I didn't even know about BB10 at all (I honestly didn't even know it still was being made). I'm not going to watch it again, but I wouldn't call it awful.

I never understood why companies think developers would care for their platforms with such type of videos.

I feel bad for them. I mean, at least they're trying.

Maybe I'll make a pity app.

I found this video funny

RIM should probably cut the crap and laser-focus on whatever the hell it is they're good at, instead of trying to battle apple, google, and microsoft. This video just makes the blackberry seem pathetic, and who would want to develop for a pathetic platform?

Tongue in cheek or not, it reeks of desperation.

If I developed for the Blackberry, this would increase my skepticism that RIM will be around for a long time, and thus make me less inclined to continue developing blackberry software.

A very desperate and sad move by RIM. It's decision making like this that continues to cost RIM jobs.

These videos tend to go viral - just for the wrong reasons.

All I can say is they have hit Rock n' Roll bottom.

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