

Blackberry captures 10.6% of US cell phone market - martythemaniak
http://www.rcrnews.com/article/20080811/WIRELESS/799815845/-1/rss01

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martythemaniak
I thought this was notable for several reasons.

-This figure is for the entire cell phone market, not just the smartphone market.

-There has been a lot of hype around the iPhone around the blogosphere (HN being no exception), yet the real-world figures are more telling. Despite what many may think, the iPhone isn't and won't be a BB killer (and vice versa).

\- The Blackberry is probably getting ignored by the HN/startup in favour of
iPhone apps. If you're doing something with mobile development, you probably
shouldn't ignore a platform with a bigger market share and a far more capable
API.

~~~
tstegart
A bigger market share and more capable API doesn't matter if you don't have
the capital to make a business out of it. Sure, you can build a Blackberry
app, but how would you sell it and get it in front of people without a lot of
money spent on marketing and promotion? Blackberry apps don't usually make the
front page of TechCrunch.

The capital requirements for making an iPhone app are lower. $99 to be exact,
at the lowest. And you get your app in front of millions of people while not
having to worry about building out a website, getting users to that website,
and accepting credit cards.

If you're a established mobile company, sure, ignoring the Blackberry would be
a bad move. But if you're a small shop or a programmer working in your spare
time, the advantages of the iPhone platform are hard to ignore.

I'm not saying there isn't too much hype, but I think a lot of the hype is
because developers sitting at home are saying to themselves "I can do that"
when it comes to iPhone apps, but not when it comes to Blackberry apps.

~~~
stcredzero
Just how hard would it be for BlackBerry to duplicate the important parts of
the AppStore? How about do that and lose the the obnoxious part, like setting
up a standardized framework that's easy for developers to opt-in to, and not
required?

~~~
iigs
The real coup with the the iPhone is Apple's handling of the user's experience
in the iPhone App store.

BB certainly has the least retarded relationship with US carriers (especially
now that they're so big), but their old-world mindset of small crappy web
portals reflects more on their history with the carriers and their tendency to
"eat their seed corn" and over-monetize channels (pay to get your app listed
and pay to download it? no thanks)

Otherwise BB has the iPhone beat for indie developers -- the SDK is free to
download and use, and you can transfer apps straight from your website to a
telephone. BB doesn't force themselves into the center of your transactions,
which means as a developer you're free to do things like charge per month or
per message, or distribute your app for free and allow people to buy it inside
the application itself.

