Hello RIM moderators, BlackBerry theme devs and theme fans.
My name is Dragos, I am a theme developer/designer known as BerryGlowDesigns. I’ve been a BlackBerry user and fan for almost 2 years now, and a theme developer for this platform for about 6 months. I don't usually spend much time on forums, and I've registered here just now to show support for my theme dev colleagues and also state my own thoughts on this matter. Maybe this has already been talked about, but I haven't seen it on this particular topic so here goes.
What I've realized these past 2 years, by using themes on my BlackBerry device is that Themes BlackBerry themes specifically, are something special. I believe RIM created amazing potential for their products when they launched the theme building software for developers. Since then, this simple, underestimated mobile theming concept has truly stepped up on the smartphone market. Themes no longer consists of 'a plain stock wallpaper that matches a new color scheme'. Sure, there still are thousands of products out there that do just that, but then again, there really are a lot of users out there that want just that for their device.
As earlier mentioned on this topic, themes allow worldwide users to customize their BlackBerry smartphone that they love, and make it a more personal device. I would like to add to that - you could personalize just about any smartphone with a colored case for example, but with this platform, it's not just about the visual aspect of your device, its style and how people around you see your phone. Here, it's about how the theme works for you. The feel you get from using your device running a certain theme, about having an overly graphics wise complicated home screen simply because you as a consumer feel like it, about having a strictly productivity oriented layout but with various graphics styles spiced on it, or about having a wallpaper friendly home screen to show a picture of your family on the screen of your on-the-go personal assistant, agenda, organizer, heavy email tool and whatever else you use your BlackBerry device for.
In my opinion, themes have become so popular on this particular platform because this platform altogether is so popular. And I'd like to point out that the 70+ million registered BlackBerry users - either business or just regular users - will almost always only ever use one app at a time, while they will use a theme 24/7 once they've downloaded and activated it.
I’m not familiar with the total revenue that themes provide on App World, but I think those numbers would certainly go up if the actual theming concept on this platform would be advertised more. To do so, of course, a few changes might need to happen first. I’ve read this over and over from other theme developers on social networks: it would be great if there were some sort of advanced filters or categories for themes on App World, as there are currently over 13thousand themes out there. A method for users to easily sort through the available themes by, complexity and functionality levels for example, would be very useful.
All of this potential would be lost if themes won’t be compatible with the QNX OS.
And last but not least, I’d like to quickly point out an example of how properly marketing a graphics UI (which is what a nowadays theme really is) can actually work. Please note that I’m not an Android smartphone user, I’m not trying to promote another platform, and hopefully I’m not breaking any forums rules by talking about another brand here, but this really is a case worth mentioning. I’m talking about HTC’s ‘Sense’ UI and how they’ve managed to differentiate themselves from other smartphone companies that also use the Android OS, by deeply integrating graphics and functionality features through their UI.
The great thing here is that theme developers (I'm not going to give out any names since that's not the point here, but congratulations for achieveing such works of art) have already created a wide range of consistent themes that grant amazing functionality and graphics UI for BlackBerry devices. If themes would be compatible on the next platform as well, and marketed more, I'm sure that not only theme based revenues will grow for App World, but the awareness on the potential of customizing your BlackBerry device would also be greater.
PS - I did not write this post because I'm affraid I will lose my job as a theme developer. I make BlackBerry themes (part time) out of passion for this platform, what it stands for and its potential, and if themes will eventually not be be supported on the QNX OS, I will still stick to an OS 7 or an OS 6 device, which will.
Regards,
Dragos
BerryGlowDesigns
