BlackBerry Users Find Apps Aplenty At New Mobile Store
Posted April 1, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Sure it’s a business tool, but you can also check hockey scores, scroll news headlines and browse music.
As the smartphone battle heats up with rival Apple, BlackBerry has launched its answer to the popular iPhone App Store.
BlackBerry App World is available as of Wednesday and allows users to locate and download hundreds of mobile applications for their do-everything phones. There are 1,000 mobile apps currently available through the store, including everything from card games and maps to weather forecasts and news.
Apps, short for applications, are seen as a key growth area in the smartphone business. Last year Apple had about 25,000 programs available at its App Store and recorded about 800 million downloads.
RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie said consumers now expect applications for their mobile devices. Last year RIM was number one in terms of the number of smartphones shipped last year, with Apple coming in second.
There are tens of thousands of BlackBerry apps in existence but the store was created to allow software developers a ready-made platform.
As for Balsillie, he has a number of apps on his BlackBerry, among them one charting RIM sales and performance, Thehockeynews.com for the latest scores, Magmic for card games, and others for the latest news headlines.
