As you likely know by now, BlackBerry has suspended all payments and app purchases to third-party developers for BlackBerry phones and is removing all paid content from the BlackBerry AppStore.
Goodbye BlackBerry 10!
After 7 or so years of developing and releasing BlackBerry 10 applications (wow it has been a long time) the shutting down of paid applications means we are no longer generating revenue for the platform.
This marks a final, sad day indeed, for a great platform that was (in my opinion) abandoned far to early by its creators.
You will be missed
It has been an incredible journey.
I’ve met some amazing people, incredible developers, and amazing supportive users and just all around good people. This was a transformational step in my life, leading me to be one of the founders of a VR / AR video game company called Red Iron Labs, as well as helping other startups launch their own incredible products.
All of this was made possible by the encouragement I got from the BlackBerry community. Without you, there would be no Red Iron Labs.
Discontinuing support
It is with a heavy heart that we are announcing that we can no longer provide support for BlackBerry 10 users.
In preparation of the big change on April 1st, 2018, we’ve decided that any applications with ongoing maintenance costs (i.e. Secure AntiVirus Pro) will no longer be available. We’ve been running most of those servers at a loss for a long time, and it is time to let them go. However, not all of our applications fit into this category!
So, as a small thank you back to the community, all of our other paid applications (Zeus Browser, Text Edit, and dozens of other applications and games) will be made entirely free.
Free applications comes at a cost
Without a way to fund future development, and with myself no longer using a BlackBerry 10 device – it has become impossible to provide support. It is hard enough for me to remember the options menus and features for every one of our applications, and providing help… has become very difficult.
For this reason, I’ve decided that going forward – I simply cannot provide help with the applications (I’m sorry!).
What about Secure AntiVirus Pro?
If you bought Secure AV, don’t sweat, you can continue to download and reinstall the application. Further, I have not set a date for disabling antivirus updates at this time.
However, when this time comes I will:
- Provide one final definition update that you will continue to have access to
- Provide instructions on how to use your (own) definitions to continue updating the antivirus program
Sad as I am, it has been an absolute blast. And I wish BlackBerry all the best in their journey 🙂
I think somebody lied to you about apps in BlackBerry World needing to be free, and those perpetuating the lie did a REALLY good job convincing everybody to make apps free, because there are only a few that we have to pay for. I can’t believe how many people are SO gullible as to essentially kill BlackBerry10 by not providing apps annd support.
Well, to be fair, BlackBerry killed support itself. In fact appworld will become completely unavailable to everyone by the end of the year. And it was BlackBerry themselves who stopped making payments to vendors for apps. In my case though, none of my apps were exactly a huge hit. And I decided to make all my apps free with the exception of one which I discontinued. But honestly, I can’t use blackberry anymore anyways. I started a cutting edge AR and VR company – and both BB10 and their BBry Android equivilent aren’t powerful enough to support either. Just my opinion but they kind of chose to make themselves irrelevrnt and it’s a shame because BB10 was incredible.
Too bad their was no option to disable the Double tap for Fullscreen which caused some SWF to become unresponsive to Keyboard also if they could have an On-Screen Mouse & Click or use Passport Touch Keyboard. Other than that if they could do this on Android by wrapping SWF games in a SWF Player…they charge a small fee per purchase from developers of games (Acruz 2, Sonny 2, Last Stand 3: Union City, Raze 2, Sonic Charrie Maker, etc) But I’m too late and your shutting down. A Zeus SWF2BAR Converter would allow all those Adobe app Developers to avoid having to rewrite apps (Sonny on Android was terrible and Last Stand 4 attempted Facebook). There is no Android App that can run SWF games as good as Zeus…maybe if make enough money buy BBos10 & BBM Devices (Passport) from them and get me to give you ideas on how to design (BB Passport to Zeus Kilowatts -Lo-end Hardware Line, Bolt is Hi-end Hardware line- with KaiOS, Blank Hard Keyboard, Glass/Plastic Protector that you can slip a Paper between for Labeling Hard Keyboard to sell international & a Remapping Keyboard section in Settings) …snip… …snip…
Too bad their was no option to disable the Double tap for Fullscreen which caused some SWF to become unresponsive to Keyboard also if they could have an On-Screen Mouse & Click or use Passport Touch Keyboard. Other than that if they could do this on Android by wrapping SWF games in a SWF Player…they charge a small fee per purchase from developers of games (Acruz 2, Sonny 2, Last Stand 3: Union City, Raze 2, Sonic Charrie Maker, etc) But I’m too late and your shutting down. A Zeus SWF2BAR Converter would allow all those Adobe app Developers to avoid having to rewrite apps (Sonny on Android was terrible and Last Stand 4 attempted Facebook). There is no Android App that can run SWF games as good as Zeus…maybe if make enough money buy BBos10 & BBM Devices (Passport) from them and get me to give you ideas on how to design (BB Passport to Zeus Kilowatts -Lo-end Hardware Line, Bolt is Hi-end Hardware line- with KaiOS, Blank Hard Keyboard, Glass/Plastic Protector that you can slip a Paper between for Labeling Hard Keyboard to sell international & a Remapping Keyboard section in Settings) …snip… …snip… I don’t know if my comment went thru
Android is tough, I feel like anything we try to build there, someone will have already built better … but I know what you mean 🙂 I miss my BB10 phone