The complaints are:<p>$200 price to develop with 10 app limit.<p>Multiple registration forms.<p>Requiring multiple downloads.<p>Requiring to purchase vmware fusion.<p>Installer that just copies an iso.<p>Having to password protect the simulator.<p>Bad documentation on how to load an app on the simulator.<p>The comparative ease with which you can do these things with android and ios.
Don’t forget Kik (<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1935093" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1935093</a>) and the arbitrary way RIM may decide to not only take your app down, but sue you (<a href="http://www.kik.com/blog/2010/12/a-sad-day-in-waterloo/" rel="nofollow">http://www.kik.com/blog/2010/12/a-sad-day-in-waterloo/</a>), to boot.
"Knowing what a pleasure it is to use Apple and Google’s tools,"<p>I haven't used the iOS SDK, but the Android SDK is far from "a pleasure to use". The 3.0 emulator is so unusably slow that it makes it practically impossible for me to adapt my app to the new tablet UI without going insane in the process.
Ok, as an iPhone + iPad app developer (I created Trainyard), and as a Flash developer who has created a PlayBook app, and as a fellow Canadian, I feel I should weigh in on this.<p>Despite the whiny tone and bizarre "Bueller?" moments, there were a bunch of valid points made. Yes, the amount of forms you have to fill out is ridiculous. Yes, the fact that the simulator .iso has an installer is crazy. With those things, I absolutely agree with you. They're just silly... but they're also not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.<p>It took me less than 2 hours from when I decided I wanted to make a Playbook app to when I had something running in the simulator. You're correct that the iOS SDK is easier to get started with, and it's only a single download... but it's also 3.5 gigs, <i>every single time</i>. I'll take three 100mb downloads over a 3.5 gig download any day.<p>Ok, as for the cost of things... You only need to pay for VMWare if you're on a Mac, on a PC it's free. I've talked to some guys at RIM about this, and they said they were trying to work out a deal with VMWare to make it free for Mac users as well.<p>There's no more $200 fee. I don't know why anyone still brings it up. The 10 app limit is a GOOD THING, and keep in mind that you're also getting a 100% <i>free</i> Playbook if you make an app right now, surely that's gotta be worth something.<p>As for the notary thing, I'm guessing that's because of the free Playbook offer. They don't want to give away 10 Playbooks to the same guy. If you're a company, Apple's process is even more painful. You actually have to snail-mail all your forms in and wait until they get them before you can publish anything.<p>All the other complaints were just petty. Who cares about the IP address and the password? That stuff takes 2 minutes to figure out.<p>There are a lots of positives about developing for Playbook that you didn't mention. For example, an interesting (and not well-known fact) is that application updates <i>do not</i> require approval on App World. That's a <i>huge</i> plus over iOS in my book.<p>Anyway, that's my thoughts on it.<p>TLDR: You definitely had some good points, but the rest of it got blown WAY out of proportion.
> You wanted me to print off a notarized statement of identification form....it goes without saying at this point, but neither Apple nor Google require you to do anything even close to that.<p>Actually, just a few months ago when renewing an Apple Developer Connection membership, they asked me to do the <i>exact</i> same thing.<p>To their credit, I emailed, summarized my history with ADC, bitched a little bit, and someone took care of it the next day.<p>edit: typo
The way I understand it, the $200 price is for 10 submissions, not 10 applications. So if your app has a bug, and you submit a version of the same app which fixed the bug, and/or added features, that counts against the limit.<p>Think of it as a $20 fee for app review, bought in blocks of 10.
One thing I am surprised to not see in this list is that, as an individual, you are required to have your form faxed back after been signed by a notary. AFAIK, this is not practice of Google or Apple either.
Thank you for showing me that I wasn't the only one that had the same HORRIBLE experience! I gave a valiant effort for a good 3 solid days, at which point, I was much MUCH further along with the same tasks on iOS. For shame, RIM.
Totally agree with the author. I too quit porting one of my apps to BB.<p>This is the reason why shortcuts (not making well integrated system) always fail.
The simulator in the BB SDK reloads the BB OS every time you run an app. This lead to a 60+ second delay every time I updated the app and wanted to run or debug it. I gave up and thankfully someone else wrote the app: <a href="http://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/source/browse/#hg%2Fmobile%2Fblackberry" rel="nofollow">http://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/source/browse/...</a><p>Disclaimer: I work for a possible competitor.
Ah, you definately have never developed for any sort of linuxy or embedded hardware that requires a full moon and the right software version every step of the way.
Oh, and the Android installer isn't flawless either: it does require some setting up of cumbersome paths, but the installer of individual SDKs (which to be fair are seperate files/downloads) works like a charm...
If you think that's bad, try writing an app for a BlackBerry phone.<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959433" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959433</a>
Yeah, the $200 was a major blocker for me. As a student, I just want to make silly free game apps. $200 for $0 income? Well that's certainly not appealing. On the other side, don't they not take any cut of your income from their app store?
I was participating in a developers survey by Rim around a year ago (one of those where they grab 10 engineers and put them in a room for some cash) and the complaints were exactly the same!
I went through the same process, but didn't think it was that bad.<p>RIMs web signup download process needs to be cleaned up, and the Mac installer thing was a bit weird, but I thought the docs were straightforward, and only took me a couple mins to get the sample app deployed.<p>My gosh.. A command line program to remote install to the vm image! At least there is a full intel compiled image, and not some buggy emulator.<p>You can also build decent apps using HTML and JavaScript, much like webos.<p>Is it just me, or has the HN crowd deteriorated to "enterprise-ey bad, apple good"<p>There is a lot of opportunity in this platform, but not for consumer apps. They will be very prevalent in business environments, and the os is damn responsive.
I was put off by having to get my forms notarized, not because it's particularly difficult, but it seems to be a completely unnecessary hurdle. After being dispirited by RIMs process, I immediately went and registered as an Android developer - simple and done within 20 minutes.<p>I can't comment on the BlackBerry tools (nor the iOS ones, as I don't own a Mac), but although Eclipse+ADT isn't the most elegant solution, it does seem to work fairly well, and didn't take too long to set up.<p>Obviously a free PlayBook would have been nice, and I would like to have gotten in at the ground-floor of a new platform, but RIM does have to take steps to ensure it's easier for developers to do what they do best - develop, not fight fires in the registration or set-up processes.
As developers, we don't want all of these platforms. RIM is very developer-unfriendly, and frankly so is Adobe, so I propose that we all do the sane thing here; <i>ignore</i> RIM to hasten its death. Or at least make them switch to Android.
The fundamental problem is that their devices works the same way as their developer model. It's unintuitive, clunky and overpriced. The only thing RIM has left is BBM. It's not worth developing for.<p>I got the legal bullshit from Apple too. Seriously, it had to be notarized, I had to send Apple docs that had some kind of embossed type seal (I'm surprised they didn't require it in wax) like I was delivering a proclaimation from the King in the 12th century.
RIM is a very developer hostile company, and they definitely don't care.<p>Most of the listed issues still exist for "legacy" BlackBerry development, plus about 100 other things that we could go into (e.g., still no way to do HTTP without having to worry about 6000 different connectivity methods and managing them all is up to each and every app).
I actually have an approved app for the PlayBook and actually found the entire process quite straight forward, especially considering that both the sdk and simulator are both in beta.
This is quite similar to my experience. I installed Adobe Builder 4.5 beta trial too, which after a bit of fiddling around (and confusion on my part about the differences between 4.0 and 4.5 while following the tutorials) does eventually get you a Build and Run button.<p>Edit: This page looks new, at least it lists all the downloads in one place: <a href="http://us.blackberry.com/developers/tablet/adobe.jsp" rel="nofollow">http://us.blackberry.com/developers/tablet/adobe.jsp</a>
All of this rings true, with the exception of having some forms notarized.<p>My name on my forms did not match the name on my credit card when I paid for my Apple Developer account. A short time later Apple deactivated my account and left it in that state until I could provide them with notarized proof of my identity. That is not terribly unusual, as far as I am concerned.
The one thing wrong about this critique is that it is a GOOD thing there is a charge for more apps on the app store. It stops the spamming that is prevalent on apple's platform. It should be free for the first 5 and then a charge after that.
Maybe it's moot - Android apps on Blackberrys soon, it seems.<p>Here's a commemorative new logo for RIM: <a href="http://go.danielodio.com/blackberry" rel="nofollow">http://go.danielodio.com/blackberry</a><p>DROdio
Hmm, I expected something ... well ... something really bad. But it looks like the guy has just a very thin skin.<p>I'm an iPhone developer who signed up with the program as soon as it became available and I can tell you: Becoming an iPhone developer was a major PITA. It started with the registration (Apple let you wait for weeks after you purchased the membership), then with taxes formalities (as a non us-citizen I had to call the I.R.S. and get a w8-ben number ... mix a polish name with a german address and an overseas phone call and you get a really fun time). Oh, and I had to print out all my contracts, sign them and send them via snail mail to some Apple subsidiary in Texas.<p>And then the fun just started - I spent days getting all the provisioning profile stuff working (only to get my app to run on my device). Uploading the finished app to the store was another story (there was no build & archive & submit 3 click way - you had to build the distribution package yourself).<p>Considering RIM has just started their developer program for their playbook I'd say that the blog post is exaggerated. The only thing that I think he's right on is the 10 app/$200 limit ...
The post is factually inaccurate.<p>- $200 per registration fee is waived for now. In fact its been waived for over a year now.<p>- 10 app limit is not enforced either.