Hello all, I figured it might be helpful to put together a post with our experiences regarding what our timelines were for getting apps approved/qualified, getting the shipping details email, and then getting the actual Playbook, as well as the sorts of apps that we got approved. It might be of interest to anyone still awaiting approval, as well as anyone pursuing a similar offer in the future (since RIM has run this promotion twice now, hopefully they'll do it again). Feel free to suggest anything that you all think should be added, or anything that I might have gotten wrong.
Here's what the timeline looked like from my perspective:
- Feb 3: Free Playbook promotion goes live
- Feb 4: I requested a vendor account.
- Feb 6: A fellow developer submitted an app
- Feb 7: I received approval for a vendor account.
- Feb 8: Fellow developer got his app approved
- Feb 11: Fellow developer was notified that he would be receiving a free Playbook, shipping details requested.
- Feb 12: I submitted my app.
- Feb 13: This was the original deadline for app submission, but RIM extended the deadline on this day to March 2nd (as long as you applied for a vendor account by Feb 15).
- Feb 15: Deadline for requesting a vendor account in order to qualify for the free Playbook.
- Feb 29: I received approval for my app.
- March 2: I was notified that I would receive a free Playbook, shipping details requested.
As you can see (and this is geared towards anyone completing a similar promotion in the future), my fellow developer (someone who I read about on the Slickdeals forums) who submitted his app in advance of the deadline got approved much faster. As the deadline approached, RIM got pretty bogged down and the wait for approval/qualification went from a few days to over a week. So if you can, submit sooner rather than later! That said, many of the folks who got early approval got bogged down anyway by Playbook shipping delays, which RIM claimed to have resolved by Feb 28. At one point, the delay on being notified that your app had qualified for a free Playbook also seemed to stretch to five days or so.
Here are a few apps that I've heard of being approved, to give you an idea of whether or not your app will meet RIM's definition of being "in reasonable demand:"
- My app: The Sprint Start Trainer. It's meant to help sprinters train by simulating the "Ready, set, *bang*" of a sprint start, with a delay of random length between the word "set" and the pistol shot. It also measures your reaction time based on how long after the shot you lifted your finger from the screen.
- My fellow developer's app: "My application was to assist new shooters with the Appleseed Project familiarize themselves and practice the AQT. Involves both timers and recorded audio sequences."
- Another app that got approved: "A small memory game- has a menu screen, then 3 sub-games (4 Activities in total). Two of them are memory-based games that use playing cards, and the third is another memory game where you tap on lights in a certain order, recalling the order from memory. Graphics are fairly good-looking, not great but not totally lame. It's a decent app, simple but it looks finished, and the three game modes fill it out fairly well. It has high scores, game options, difficulty settings, etc."
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