14 DAY TRIAL // According to the latest news on the Web, the highly-expected BlackBerry App Store should be ready for launch by March this year. It seems that Research in Motion, the maker of BlackBerry, is already accepting developer submissions for the Storefront application catalog.
Storefront comes as a wireless online catalog that comprises mobile applications. Users are offered the possibility to browse the content, download apps to their BlackBerry devices, as well as to purchase them online. The App Store has been expected for the past few months, and today we learn that the company might prepare its launch. As many of you know, Blackberry already has a mobile site from which users can get applications directly to their handsets.
Back in September, RIM CEO, Jim Balsillie, stated that there was no BlackBerry App Store in the works, but it seems that the company has changed its mind pretty fast. The not so long ago released Apple App Store seems to have attracted a lot of fans, driving the launch of the BlackBerry App Store only a few months later. Apple seems to have set an example to the industry, as other players like Google, Microsoft and RIM are also prepping their own application stores.
The one thing that remains to be seen from now on is what restrictions the RIM App Store will impose. It’s a common fact that Apple does not allow on its app store competing products to iPhone built-in applications. At the same time, some exceptions from this rule have been seen with the release of four different iPhone browsers, but things are not as fortunate all the time. For what it’s worth, RIM might approach the matter more permissively than Google would do with its Android app store.
Some voices over the Internet suggest that RIM's store might comprise a whole range of applications, as the company has announced plans to become more consumer friendly, meaning that, besides the business-related apps, we'll also be able to see “fun” apps, as well as multimedia-related ones, designed to fit the functionality of the more recent multimedia-friendly BlackBerry devices.