You know that one shining moment you might have after a shitty day that can help give you a positive outlook? RIM is experiencing that moment right now. The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet got horrible reviews, generated little sales, and was never able to attract developers to build apps for the platform. That is until one developer decided to port his Android app and saw 25 times the downloads with the BlackBerry Playbook than on Android.
The name is Pinelake Communications. Pinelake Creative Director Bill Larocque and developer Dave Wagler took the challenge to see just how difficult it might be to port the Android game Cubifice to the PlayBook and PlayBook 10 alpha device. It only ended up taking about an hour. The result? An influx of new downloads Pinelake hadn’t seen before.
“With this application, not only do we have 25 times more downloads on BlackBerry App World than on Google Play, but we’ve also been able to maintain that high number and visibility,” Larocque told RIM. “This visibility translates into a far better return on investment once the app becomes monetized because we will have to spend far less on marketing the application to users.”
The visibility he’s referring to is his app being showcased so easily on the PlayBook. On Android, there’s hundreds of thousands of apps that dramatically overcrowd Google Play and give developers less exposure. On the other hand, the PlayBook is seriously lacking apps and any new app should get a decent amount of attention.
Pinelake’s success is excellent news for RIM. If other developers start porting their apps, the PlayBook’s app marketplace could potentially thrive after all… and pave the way for some new hardware.
[via BGR]