blackberry,  rim

RIM: BlackBerry Play Book App Development Too Difficult

BlackBerry maker, Research in Motion, is clearly fighting an up hill battle for “mindshare” among customers and potential customers.

The latest problem for the company, whose handsets are in decline due to strong sales of the Apple iPhone and phones based on Google’s Android OS, could be coming from the very people RIM needs the most: application developers.

Jamie Murai, a small BlackBerry application developer has recently posted an open letter to RIM stating his displeasure with the tools for BlackBerry PlayBook application development. Mr. Murai writes:

“On a more serious note, being the underdog, you need to make your process AT LEAST as simple as Apple’s or Google’s, if not more so. You need to make your tools AT LEAST as good as Apple’s or Google’s, if not more so. You have failed at both.”

Ouch!  I encourage you to read the full open letter to get the full context of what Mr. Murai is talking about, but the bottom line gets summarized nicely with the quote above.
At least you don’t need to have a BlackBerry smartphone to use all the features of the new PlayBook, like Palm was planning to do with the Treo and the Foleo.  Oh, wait – you do need to pair a PlayBook with a BlackBerry.  Nevermind.

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