Ask HN: what's it like to develop on Blackberry, vs say Android/iOS?
I've heard that perhaps BB is inferior to Android/iOS for app developers, and would like to know why exactly this is the case from your experiences.
2 comments
I would agree that the Blackberry experience for app developers is indeed inferior to that of Android and iOS.
Here are my observations:
The Blackberry Vendor Portal.
1. App submission An absolutely dated interface for submitting applications. One thing that really upsets me is that Blackberry did not segregate the interface for pre-BB10 applications and BB10 applications. Throughout the submission process, I was constantly given the option to submit my Cascades/BB10 application as a pre-BB10 bundle. Even after I submitted my application as a BB10 application, I was given reports that someone had downloaded my application on their pre-BB10 device. How could this happen?
2. Viewing reports Again, a dated interface for viewing reports. Reports are only produced on-demand either as a ZIP file of CSVs or a static GIF that looks like it was exported with excel. I could imagine those who rely on BB apps as a source of income have written excel applications to process this data into a user-friendly format. Both iOS and Android have reports in beautiful charted format directly in their app portal.
3. Responding to users I had a review on my applications in which the reviewer was requesting a feature. I did have this feature in my application, but due to a ux flaw, it was not easily recognizable. I would have loved to drop the user a comment notifying them of this feature. Regardless of denying/approving the review, I think this is a fantastic feature in the Android (Google Play) model.
iOS and Android app portals are built for the common developer. As they are built for the common consumer. Blackberry vendor portal is built for the enterprise, very much like their original phones.
4. I would consider myself a "Qt/QML expert", so from a programming standpoint, I find it much easier to convert complex UI designs into working code. This is thanks to the wonderful Cascades framework with QML syntax (originally built by The Astonishing Tribe, acquired by BB a few years ago). I think it's much easier to deploy code with BB compared to iOS/Android. This is of course dependent on the developer.
5. Blackberry, prior to releasing the Z10 in the US, released an "Application Generator". This generator converted RSS feeds into running, "native" applications for BB10. This flooded the BB10 app world with garbage applications. There are still hundreds of applications on the store that are blatant rip-offs of Android applications (search Maps on your Z10 and you will see several GMaps rebundles)
6. App services like advertisements and push notifications are still not up to par as iAd or Admob, and APNS.
Here are my observations:
The Blackberry Vendor Portal.
1. App submission An absolutely dated interface for submitting applications. One thing that really upsets me is that Blackberry did not segregate the interface for pre-BB10 applications and BB10 applications. Throughout the submission process, I was constantly given the option to submit my Cascades/BB10 application as a pre-BB10 bundle. Even after I submitted my application as a BB10 application, I was given reports that someone had downloaded my application on their pre-BB10 device. How could this happen?
2. Viewing reports Again, a dated interface for viewing reports. Reports are only produced on-demand either as a ZIP file of CSVs or a static GIF that looks like it was exported with excel. I could imagine those who rely on BB apps as a source of income have written excel applications to process this data into a user-friendly format. Both iOS and Android have reports in beautiful charted format directly in their app portal.
3. Responding to users I had a review on my applications in which the reviewer was requesting a feature. I did have this feature in my application, but due to a ux flaw, it was not easily recognizable. I would have loved to drop the user a comment notifying them of this feature. Regardless of denying/approving the review, I think this is a fantastic feature in the Android (Google Play) model.
iOS and Android app portals are built for the common developer. As they are built for the common consumer. Blackberry vendor portal is built for the enterprise, very much like their original phones.
4. I would consider myself a "Qt/QML expert", so from a programming standpoint, I find it much easier to convert complex UI designs into working code. This is thanks to the wonderful Cascades framework with QML syntax (originally built by The Astonishing Tribe, acquired by BB a few years ago). I think it's much easier to deploy code with BB compared to iOS/Android. This is of course dependent on the developer.
5. Blackberry, prior to releasing the Z10 in the US, released an "Application Generator". This generator converted RSS feeds into running, "native" applications for BB10. This flooded the BB10 app world with garbage applications. There are still hundreds of applications on the store that are blatant rip-offs of Android applications (search Maps on your Z10 and you will see several GMaps rebundles)
6. App services like advertisements and push notifications are still not up to par as iAd or Admob, and APNS.
Disclaimer: I've never developed for iOS or Android.
Honestly I think Developing for BlackBerry is actually pretty good. The other commenter makes good points about the vendor portal and responding to users, but the actual tools for development are great. There are so many options on what programming language to use, and the API documentation is pretty good. I don't know what it was like pre BB10, but I'm pretty sure it is a lot better now. They still have things to work on but I wouldn't say it is inferior to iOS/Android.
Honestly I think Developing for BlackBerry is actually pretty good. The other commenter makes good points about the vendor portal and responding to users, but the actual tools for development are great. There are so many options on what programming language to use, and the API documentation is pretty good. I don't know what it was like pre BB10, but I'm pretty sure it is a lot better now. They still have things to work on but I wouldn't say it is inferior to iOS/Android.