Built For BlackBerry

[georg22]

deleted

[Alec_Saunders]

Tomas (and Peter) we will let people know when we reject a category of apps, and it will just be from B4BB.  Having said that, if you have a novel take on a rejected category, you are free to submit it and the appeals committee will decide whether it's different enough.  Not closing out whole categories completely, but... with 106 flashlight apps in the BBW today, do we need another?

A

[thubalek]

@georg22 it was not on you, sorry if I caused that feeling.

I just wanted to say that I'm not much happy with unnatural selection (unless performed very well). Current execution of B4BB seems a bit unfortunate and making it more and more complicated (by adding/changing rules) may be contraproductive.

After my visit at BB Jam Amsterdam last September I got very friendly feeling from BB and I hoped that BB will be 3rd ecosystem. I bet a lot of time on it.

But in January I got completely different feeling because of port-a-thons, changing deadlines, extremely long review times, unequal interpretation of B4BB criteria etc.

There was a lot of negative emotions around that and I would expect that BB don't want to lose developers attracted to new platform. Every rejection from B4BB is potential loss of recruited developer.

If there would not be such a artificial selection then developer may complain on himself only.

[peter9477]

---

thubalek wrote:
I just wanted to say that I'm not much happy with unnatural selection (unless performed very well). Current execution of B4BB seems a bit unfortunate and making it more and more complicated (by adding/changing rules) may be contraproductive.

---

I don't see the changes as complicating it at all. It's about making it work the way we were originally told it was going to work, but with some tweaks to ensure that can happen effectively. Nothing Alec has said really changed the program from how it has always been presented, except the addition of an appeals process.

---

thubalek wrote:
But in January I got completely different feeling because of port-a-thons, changing deadlines, extremely long review times, unequal interpretation of B4BB criteria etc.

---

These things were all one-time situations because of this being a new platform, which was on the verge of launching, and a program (BFB) which itself was just launching. There's no reason to expect that this sort of turmoil will continue. Until the portathons really messed it up, we had many many months of stability with the vetting process. Approval times were as little as a day in many cases.

[thubalek]

@alec I'm always a bit nervous if my work is judged by committee ;-)

[helex]

I'm sure we are fine to simply have 106 flashlight Apps in the store and I hope the B4BB rules will keep strict enought to get never ever a single flashlight App B4BB approved. Just my point of view.

Strict rules are good to keep B4BB as quality seal for the users and customers. But it should be clear and understandable for every developer and not as strict as they were at least in the beginning when even Apps like Magellan Compass by o2interactive were rejected.

We got now the promise and first good signs that BlackBerry is checking and improving the whole process. They are listening and we have even a open conversation not just with a small project member, this got in the meantime addressed and handled by the head of the organization. We got open words and official replies at our discussion by this guy at a saturday evening.

Thank you Alec, thank you very much. If I would be able I would give you now a hug.

It will get improved. I'm sure. We will perhaps never get to a level at which every developer is fine with the rules made by BlackBerry or is able to transform the short and bare rejection reasons into fixes and improvements to get their Apps approved.

I can every developer just recommend to post here at this Subforum the Name and the link to your App and ask for constructive feedback what may be needed to get it finally approved. If you're not confident enought about your work and have the opinion there will be too much bad feedback you have perhaps already the reason for the rejection. It's not good enought. If you think it's good enought to get analyzed by other developers ask for feedback and you will get a lot of new good ideas. It worked IMHO at least in the past. 

[thubalek]

@peter I'm completely new to this platform (as well as many developers) so my first impression is quite negative (not complaining just stating). BB did a lot of cool work at jams, attracted new people but I guess that they lose them now. There are new deadlines, another round of reviews (and rejections), appeal process.

My trust in these changes is affected by previous experience so I would rather see raw competition as on Android is.

[peter9477]

---

thubalek wrote:
My trust in these changes is affected by previous experience so I would rather see raw competition as on Android is.

---

Are you advocating for the elimination of the entire Built For BlackBerry program then?

If so, what about the "featured" apps, which are chosen by BlackBerry from amongst the most popular and best apps. These are the ones with the big banner images that are the first thing users see when they run BlackBerry World.

Don't the other platforms also have programs like this, which identify and promote certain apps?

None of these things are "raw competition" in one sense... they all provide an uneven playing field for the chosen apps.

But all apps have the chance to get into those. In that sense, they're also perfectly even playing fields.

I don't actually understand what you're talking about with "raw competition", I think.

[thubalek]

99% of business on Android is outside these banners.

There is daily competition where hundreds of similar apps is competing (I'm battery widget expert and I have about 1000 competitors). No committee has chance to find best battery widgets and give them sticker Built for Android.

We are fighting for customers by innovations.

I just want to say that B4BB is expensive (you need reviewers) and at the beginning of the platform does not have much sense as there is no competition and when platform developed then it will be almost impossible to implement it because of effort.

On Android you fight for customers by active installs. The more active installs the better position in search. It is quite difficult to cheat this metric and quite easy to calculate it.

[thubalek]

Correction: 99% of competition.