Thursday, 27 June 2013
BlackBerry to stop BB10 port rewards on June 30
BlackBerry will now stop paying developers to port existing apps to the new BlackBerry 10 OS, having already paid out $4 million.
The BlackBerry port-a-thon rewards will stop from June 30, BlackBerry has confirmed, winding down the campaign that started at the beginning of this year.
Around 40,000 BlackBerry apps have been ported over to fill the BB10 BlackBerry World app store since the port-a-thon campaign started in January.
Developers were offered $100 (£65) per ported app for up to 20 BB10 submissions. The reward would be given once the app was approved and appeared in the BlackBerry World store.
BlackBerry has already extended the port-a-thon campaign several times. It initially said it would spend $500,000 (£326,000) in rewards, but has now paid out around $4 million (£2.6 million) to developers to support its fledging OS.
Next, BlackBerry is said to be focusing on making BB10 gaming apps more successful.
The first BB10 port-a-thon back in January saw more than 15,000 BlackBerry 10 apps submitted for the then unreleased platform within the first two days.
Not only were existing BlackBerry apps transformed for BB10, but developers also made Android apps and games compatible with the latest BlackBerry OS.
Speaking during his BlackBerry Live keynote speech, BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins confirmed BB10 now supports 120,000 apps. Of course, this figure is still miles behind rival platforms, Apple and Android, but seeing as it launched with just 70,000 in January, the OS is definitely growing.
“One third of application developers are now targeting BlackBerry 10 as their primary platform,” said Heins after the announcement. “Thanks to all our developer for doing this with and for us.”
BlackBerry has already launched two BB10 handsets, the full touchscreen BlackBerry Z10 and physical QWERTY keyboard BlackBerry Q10. The Canadian smartphone manufacturer will also be releasing the BlackBerry Q5 early next month.
