Ask HN: Is anyone doing Blackberry app development?

I know coding in Java is unappealing, but it seems like there is a lot of opportunity for the Blackberry appstore launch in March 2009. Do you think Blackberry users will be less likely to buy apps than iPhone users?

Yes, kind of. I have a neat little app on the Android Market (http://phonalyzr.com), which I am going to port to the Blackberry in time for their store launch. The reason I'm targeting Android and BB is because of the iPhone's ridiculously restrictive SDK - on these devices the OS notifies the user that my app will be reading their call log/contact list and the user can choose to proceed or not, whereas on the iPhone that decision has already been made for the user by someone in Apple's HQ.

At my day job I use python and js to do web development while this is my spare-time project and to be honest, Java isn't so bad. Yes, it's tiresomely verbose, but Eclipse and the Android plug-in are an awesome IDE and since you're dealing only with the mobile-specific SDK, you don't have to contend with issues that make Java bad in other contexts (heavy frameworks, endless XML config files, etc). Perhaps someone with experience in both can clue me in, but I doubt Objective C is less verbose or more dynamic than Java.

But I think you're right in that people might be missing an opportunity by focusing so heavily on the iPhone. The BB SDK is more powerful than the iPhone's, there's more than twice as many BB users than iPhone users and I don't think anyone will argue that they're any less affluent than iPhone users.

Mostly, I think, it'll depend on how RIM promotes the app store and the kind of deals it manages to get the carriers to accept. I worked for RIM a few years ago and saw how incredibly difficult and demanding it is to work with carriers, as they are the actual manufacturer's "customers" and their interests are frequently at odds with those of users.

I've been using phonalyzr for about a week and absolutely love it. Just wanted to say thanks for that awesome app.

> I doubt Objective C is less verbose or more dynamic than Java

Oh, Objective C is certainly more dynamic. It uses a message passing mechanism. You can do this in Objective C without a compile error (note "id" is a generic object type)

id anObject = Do some initialization; [anObject passSomeMessage];

The closest in Java would be:

Object anObject = new SomeClass(); anObject.callSomeMethod();

Which wouldn't compile.

(Please note I haven't used Objective C nor Java in a while. Please excuse any errors.)

Brilliant app, just installed on my dev G1. Now if only I had a good idea for Android...