“With the Blackberry app store launching by the end of March 2009, a dramatic new problem will emerge with full force: Where is the application memory to run these new applications? In order to understand the magnitude of this problem, we have to look at the mother of all app store pioneers: Apple and the iPhone,” Anton Wahlman writes for Seeking Alpha.
“Ask almost any iPhone user what excites them about the iPhone, and almost all of them answer immediately that it’s the app store, with many thousands of apps available. Many iPhone users have page after page after page worth of applications that they have downloaded. It seems like iPhone users install dozens and dozens of applications, and I don’t see any signs of abatement. We may be entering a situation where most iPhone users love their platform so much because they have hundreds of applications running,” Wahlman writes.
“The Blackberry app store is being launched for the obvious reason that it’s becoming the critical tool in the competitive tool kit. Without a vibrant developer community, it’s very difficult to compete,” Wahlman writes. “Here is the problem: An iPhone has 8 gig or 16 gig worth of memory, compared to a Blackberry, which has 64, 96, 128 or 256 meg worth of app memory, depending on the model… keep in mind that the Blackberry’s expansion memory is for multimedia (pictures, music, etc) storage, not for running apps or even containing things such as the address book.”
“The smallest iPhone (8 gig) has 32x the application memory of the largest Blackberry (256 meg for the 8900 model). The manner in which most users will feel this dramatic 32x difference is in the ability to install new apps. Clearly, while some Blackberry apps have tended to carry a small memory footprint, one of the attractions of the iPhone is that those apps are very rich in their appearance and functionality, so in order to compete, Blackberry apps may have to become larger in order to be competitive,” Wahlman writes. “What does this mean? It looks like this clash of Blackberry’s app store vs the very small app memory will mean many unsatisfied users who will be lighting up the customer service switchboards like a Christmas Tree.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The problem for RIM is, what percentage of current BlackBerry device owners will upgrade to a larger capacity BlackBerry device in order to be able to download and run apps? The answer, unfortunately for RIM, is not 100%. Some measure of current BlackBerry users will go to other devices that offer not only more storage space, but also perfect compatibility with a vastly larger media store (music, TV, movies, podcasts, audiobooks, etc.) and a thriving, successful, and hugely-stocked App Store. Guess which company stands to benefit the most?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Kevin P.” for the heads up.]
