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You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

blog.jamiemurai.com

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Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#21

Post by ardell »

SriniK wrote: post #4

Totally agree with the author. I too quit porting one of my apps to BB. This is the reason why shortcuts (not making well integrated system) always fail.

We've been frustrated to the point of abandonment on trying to install a Blackberry simulator to test out jquery-mobile apps. Similar story to tell--just kept hitting wall after wall of poorly thought-out and poorly documented steps.

It's a shame because most of our customers use Blackberries but it's just not practical for us to support Blackberry on our mobile apps.

Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#22

Post by leon_ »

Hmm, I expected something ... well ... something really bad. But it looks like the guy has just a very thin skin.

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.

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).

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 ...

Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#23

Post by mortenjorck »

kin wrote: post #15

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?

Can anyone verify that, that RIM doesn't take a cut of sales?

Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#24

Post by mishmash »

> 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.

Actually, just a few months ago when renewing an Apple Developer Connection membership, they asked me to do the exact same thing.

To their credit, I emailed, summarized my history with ADC, bitched a little bit, and someone took care of it the next day.

edit: typo

Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#26

Post by veeti »

"Knowing what a pleasure it is to use Apple and Google’s tools,"

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.

Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#27

Post by acangiano »

jammur wrote: post #11
btipling wrote: post #9

The complaints are: $200 price to develop with 10 app limit. Multiple registration forms. Requiring multiple downloads. Requiring to purchase vmware fusion. Installer that just copies an iso. Having to password protect the simulator. Bad documentation on how to load an app on the simulator. The comparative ease with which you can do these things with android and ios.

Now I feel like an idiot for spending an hour and half writing it, lol.

Articles can often be summarized in a few lines which make them seem trivial. What really counts for me is why those points mentioned above are worth complaining about.

Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#28

Post by mikereed »

leon_ wrote: post #22

Hmm, I expected something ... well ... something really bad. But it looks like the guy has just a very thin skin. 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 ha…

C'mon. Did it really take you _days_ to get the provisioning profile stuff working?

Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#29

Post by foresterh »

jammur wrote: post #11
btipling wrote: post #9

The complaints are: $200 price to develop with 10 app limit. Multiple registration forms. Requiring multiple downloads. Requiring to purchase vmware fusion. Installer that just copies an iso. Having to password protect the simulator. Bad documentation on how to load an app on the simulator. The comparative ease with which you can do these things with android and ios.

Now I feel like an idiot for spending an hour and half writing it, lol.

The summarized points are good, but the article is great. I might read those points and think "hmm... not too bad", but read the article and think "hmm.. wtf!"

Re: You win, RIM (An open letter to RIM's developer relations)

#30

Post by pkulak »

jammur wrote: post #11
btipling wrote: post #9

The complaints are: $200 price to develop with 10 app limit. Multiple registration forms. Requiring multiple downloads. Requiring to purchase vmware fusion. Installer that just copies an iso. Having to password protect the simulator. Bad documentation on how to load an app on the simulator. The comparative ease with which you can do these things with android and ios.

Now I feel like an idiot for spending an hour and half writing it, lol.

Yours was a lot more funny than the bullet points.
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