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Blackberry is the #1 smartphone, yet the app ecosystem there is pretty dismal. Clearly there is another dynamic at work there, and pure installed base isn't as compelling a factor as it seems. One reason could be that the Blackberry platform is absolutely horrible to develop on.

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Why is it horrible? Do they have anything similar to the App Store, btw?

They have the Blackberry App World.

It's horrible because the platform views the web as an afterthought, so there are no modern APIs for dealing with it. The Java version is ancient as well, and you have ridiculously small system limitations, like number of open files and such. I could go on, it's so bad it's almost comical.

This is why there isn't a really healthy app ecosystem, only people who are paid enough by their employers to offset the pain develop apps, or people just pay Blackberry itself to develop something for them.

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