It didn't help that a couple of the Nokia blogs were app-ified and presented as "Featured apps" on the Ovi Store -- these "apps" would shove the app builder branding in your face, which meant more people were aware of this tool and used it to build their own "apps".
I know why I ditched that ecosystem as soon as I had the means!
I actually had a Microsoft engineer come to my school to do a workshop to promote this. It was done to show how to submit apps to the windows store, but the process involved using 3rd party software to create crappy whack a mole apps.
My class that day had about 20 people submit various whack a mole apps, most of which I know were successfully reviewed and approved. So we essentially got paid to attend a work shop while Microsoft got a nice boost in apps in their store.
I am not sure how widespread this promotion was, but I know my particular engineer that day said he had been to 3 or 4 other colleges in my area that month.
Also last I checked my wonderful whack a mole app had about 50 downloads. I am sorry to whoever downloaded that crap.
So like, what if you dump a bunch of API calls into a table, and then aggregate the varying permutations with a SQL query, and wrap it all up in appropriate XML markup, programatically, and the call each variant an "app"?
The reason I'm pondering this, is because I think Microsoft has a similar situation, where even something as trivial as an RSS feed might be counted among the "app" statistics:
http://www.itworld.com/software/369727/microsoft-updates-win...
...and then there's also Firefox OS to consider. Where do you draw the line between an "app" and somebody's crappy web page?
I imagine something similar could be going on with Blackberry -- wrapping content as an app.
2.20: Developers "spamming" the App Store with many versions of similar apps will be removed from the iOS Developer Program
12.4: Apps that are simply web clippings, content aggregators, or a collection of links, may be rejected
Notice the 'may' in that last clause.
* Libriance Inc (2,100 apps): http://itunes.apple.com/artist/libriance-inc/id336845065?uo=...
* NTT Solmare (1,600 apps): http://itunes.apple.com/artist/ntt-solmare/id291585690?uo=5
* Tobit.Software (1,300 apps): http://itunes.apple.com/artist/tobit.software/id284971906?uo...
A lot of the apps for each of these companies are very similar or are basic web clips.
1 — Source: iTunes Enterprise Partner Feed dump from a month or so ago.
Not sure if it should be prevented. In any case there will be more apps than anybody can browse manually, so all the app stores need good app discovery mechanisms anyway.
2.12 Apps that are not very useful, are simply web sites bundled as apps, or do not provide any lasting entertainment value may be rejected
Imagine trying to support that many apps?
I'm making what I consider to be "good" apps, but I'm just one dev. It's a really crappy problem of the fact that phones aren't selling due to lack of apps, which doesn't incentivize developers to create apps because there aren't many customers.
It's really an unfortunate problem to have that I don't have a good solution for them to get out of. It's a fantastic development platform, and a fantastic OS that really blows Android, Windows Phone, and even iOS out of the water in many ways.
I'm more excited for BlackBerry's future than ever, but I'm also more worried than ever. sigh
What exactly do you think is exciting about BB's future (as a platform)?
[1] http://forums.crackberry.com/news-rumors-f40/one-app-develop...
It's not style, not the call quality or even battery life that really can make or break BB. It's the available applications. If they can't get rid of the hackish nonsense, not to mention the equally unhelpful "reviews", nothing will change.
I know BB is rushing to fill this gap, but quantity over quality will tarnish the brand and make App World a joke. It looks like it's already done a lot of damage.
