Could it be that maybe there's some kind of quirk in the BB API that turns out to be conducive to developing BlackBerry apps in a declaritive fashion?
So like, what if you dump a bunch of API calls into a table, and then aggregate the varying permutations with a SQL query, and wrap it all up in appropriate XML markup, programatically, and the call each variant an "app"?
The reason I'm pondering this, is because I think Microsoft has a similar situation, where even something as trivial as an RSS feed might be counted among the "app" statistics:
In the Ubuntu "App" Store, a good chunk of the content are simply PDF magazines. There's no other place to purchase them (eg a dedicated book store), so they got rolled into packages programattically and put into their own section of the store.
I imagine something similar could be going on with Blackberry -- wrapping content as an app.
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Could it be that maybe there's some kind of quirk in the BB API that turns out to be conducive to developing BlackBerry apps in a declaritive fashion?
So like, what if you dump a bunch of API calls into a table, and then aggregate the varying permutations with a SQL query, and wrap it all up in appropriate XML markup, programatically, and the call each variant an "app"?
The reason I'm pondering this, is because I think Microsoft has a similar situation, where even something as trivial as an RSS feed might be counted among the "app" statistics:
http://www.itworld.com/software/369727/microsoft-updates-win...
...and then there's also Firefox OS to consider. Where do you draw the line between an "app" and somebody's crappy web page?
In the Ubuntu "App" Store, a good chunk of the content are simply PDF magazines. There's no other place to purchase them (eg a dedicated book store), so they got rolled into packages programattically and put into their own section of the store.
I imagine something similar could be going on with Blackberry -- wrapping content as an app.
That is a tricky line, indeed. Assuming http://photos.appleinsider.com/App%20Store%20Review%20Guidel... is the real deal, Apple tries to do it with the following rules:
2.20: Developers "spamming" the App Store with many versions of similar apps will be removed from the iOS Developer Program
12.4: Apps that are simply web clippings, content aggregators, or a collection of links, may be rejected
Notice the 'may' in that last clause.
Sadly, I don't think Apple enforces these guidelines very much — the top three (by number of apps) developers in the iOS App Store are [1]:
* Libriance Inc (2,100 apps): http://itunes.apple.com/artist/libriance-inc/id336845065?uo=...
* NTT Solmare (1,600 apps): http://itunes.apple.com/artist/ntt-solmare/id291585690?uo=5
* Tobit.Software (1,300 apps): http://itunes.apple.com/artist/tobit.software/id284971906?uo...
A lot of the apps for each of these companies are very similar or are basic web clips.
1 — Source: iTunes Enterprise Partner Feed dump from a month or so ago.