BlackBerry Delivers on its cAPPabilities

A while ago while attending Verizon’s Wireless App Event, I listened to the RIM people talk about the company’s push capability. I thought that was a key differentiator, so much so that I sat with an app developer friend to map out an app. Unfortunately, at the end of the day he built it on Android, because as a developer “the tools were there,” and since it involved call control it was not possible on the iPhone.

Now with BlackBerry 10 that ability and a few others including Flow IO, and timewarp again are inspiring me to think about building apps for BlackBerry devices. So now the question comes into play, will there be enough momentum to build for BlackBerry? The answer lies in the company’s HTML5 implementation. As we heard at DevCon5 last week, devices have been the victim of locked down drivers not being optimized for the browser and the browsers themselves have not been robust enough.

Ultimately as we move to the next phase of mobile computing the power will be in the browser. As node.js and several other interfaces are showing us, the backend is the cloud and the interface is the browser.

Now comes the tricky part; the device IO needs to make the browser work seamlessly. As Thorsten Heins did his best to be Steve Jobs-like, the part that I recognized as valuable was the way the apps were able to be referenced without having to go back to the app screen.

Nokia’s commercial points out “the days of a being a smartphone alpha tester are over.”

I think the way RIM’s BlackBerry 10 manages app flow (hence Flow IO) should be our future.

Now comes the hard part; inspiring app developers to build for the system. Our friend Alec Saunders is charged with getting developers engaged and I think for many of us his history in Microsoft and his experience in contextual communications will make for compelling participation.

Now comes the question, what apps does BlackBerry need to come along for the ride? So much of the app marketplace is stuff that has limited markets. In my mind a few hundred well designed apps could be compelling. However, given my experience trying to inspire my app developer, I would say the integration to the Web and enabling the tight integration to HTML5 gives BlackBerry 10 OS the numbers it needs.

At DevCon5 we have seen that BlackBerry is making the transition, much like Apple did. Given the fact that the entire Web is changing, I think RIM has the opportunity to catch the wave and succeed.