14 DAY TRIAL // One of the newly introduced concepts in the mobile applications area is that of Super Apps, unveiled by Mike Lazaridis, Research In Motion co-CEO, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. What this is all about includes those applications that users can't live without, it seems, and which the BlackBerry maker decided to list on a separate page on its App World software solutions portal.
“Mike Lazaridis introduced the concept of a ‘Super App’, representing a new class of mobile applications that make you wonder how you ever lived without them. […] Super Apps are the kinds of apps that people love, that they use every day because they offer such a seamless, integrated, contextualized and efficient experience. Our developers are able to build in that enhanced experience because of the unique capabilities of the BlackBerry platform,” a recent post on the BlackBerry Developer's Blog notes.
In other words, the Canadian mobile phone maker is pushing developers towards the building of applications that not only appeal to users, but which are capable of making them fall in love with the software solutions they encounter. “Apps that become a seamless part of the core user experience, an integrated extension of the inbox, calendar, address book and other native apps,” RIM says, adding that these applications need to be both compelling and engaging, and that users will have to enjoy interacting with them every day, so that they “can’t remember how they lived without.”
For what it's worth, the idea seems pretty interesting. When it comes to smartphones, the applications used each day are those that can make a difference between an extraordinary experience and an average one, which means that as soon as users are able to enjoy a larger number of Super Apps, they will also start loving their handsets more. RIM is committed to helping developers build Super Apps for its BlackBerry devices, and to offering them the possibility to leverage the capabilities of their solutions through providing them with sample code, tutorials and other resources, it seems. Additional details on the matter are available on BlackBerry Developer's Blog here.