Product Management: The BlackBerry Application Platform

[makahn64]

After being pretty impressed with what I saw at DEVCON, I decided to pitch my Bold and upgrade to a Torch (which I ordered from the show floor). I've been debating a move back to iPhone (gasp!) but I really like programming the BB (for the, ahem, challenge) and I love BBM.

The Torch arrived a couple of hours ago.

My initial happiness turned (rather quickly) to "here we go again RIM."  The first thing I do is install my favorite apps, many of which are *not* on ApWorld. Case in point: E*trade Mobile Pro (love the baby trader!)

Well, the new WebKit browser does not identify itself as a BB, so E*Trade won't give me the app. Turns out this is a common complaint (Google it). RIM, I can appreciate your Apple-like wish for the right solution (somewhere you tell software developers to fix their websites for the Torch), but come on. How hard would it have been to put a BB emulation switch in the options menu? Not very hard, I imagine.

So now, as a user, I am pissed many of my favorite apps are unloadable. Pissed customers are not cool when you are trying to regain momentum lost to Android and iPhone. Fix this one PRONTO before the Torch burns out.

Next up is unrenderable websites. My own website is a good example. My website has about 50 lines of exceedingly simple HTML, yet it will not render on the Torch.

Really? Straight HTML too tough for you? It works on iPhone, all BB south of OS 6, Chrome, IE, Firefox, iPad and wooden spatula, my dishwasher...everything but Torch. And I use it to test web deployment of apps (no it does not test the browser ID). 

And now, I am trying to transfer my contacts from my Bold and yet another CF (google it). The Wizard in the new BB Desktop tries to overwrite a newer version of ApWorld and subsequently crashes the Bold. Really? You don't check the version before blindly overwriting it? Really?

Oh, and as I'm writing this, BB Desktop just crashed. Crazy.

I've put up with all the idiosyncrasies of the BB for a while now, but it is just getting old.

Ironically, I bought an iPad this week too, and well, it just worked.

RIM, you've got cool stuff that just always feels kind of 95% done. You need some folks in marketing that beat the hell out of this stuff from a real world user perspective then get it FIXED. I find it hard to believe these problems weren't seen in Beta. Why are they still there?

[makahn64]

This is insanity. I just finished with the New Device Wizard and here's the result:

- ApWorld: deleted, gone.

- BBM: deleted, gone (the new one, pre installed). Of course, all the PINs I entrered by hand are also gone.

- Other pre-installed apps: GONE

WHAT THE F%^%! ARE YOU DOING RIM? Are you singlehandedly trying to destroy your own product.

Pathetic!

Oh, and I'm a Java programmer on this device. I can only imagine if my girlfriend or a parent with no technical background came upon this mess.

[JSanders Resident Expert]

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makahn64 wrote:

Ironically, I bought an iPad this week too, and well, it just worked.

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But did you try installing those same apps which failed you on the Torch?

And how was the CF when you tried to transfer your existing data, contacts, calendar, etc., from your old Bold to the iPad?

Just curious.

[makahn64]

Everything synched fine to the iPad...it was synched thru google.

I just feel like the RIM folks don't do enough real world testing. I really want them to succeed, but I think there's too many coders and not enough people testing this stuff with normal humans.

[JSanders Resident Expert]

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makahn64 wrote:

I just feel like the RIM folks don't do enough real world testing. I really want them to succeed, but I think there's too many coders and not enough people testing this stuff with normal humans.

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Now, that I can agree with.