Hold the Fire phone: Amazon is bringing its Appstore to BlackBerry?
At a moment when most developers were focusing more on the online juggernaut's launch of its Fire smartphone, BlackBerry momentarily stole the spotlight by announcing that some 200,000 Android apps from the company's app store would be available on its own devices later this summer. The company suggested the move was a way to address what has been a deficit of app choices across smartphones such as the Z30 and the Q10.
On Twitter, app developer reaction ranged from the encouraging and positive:
BlackBerry Turns To Amazon - this is huge, probably the turn around BB has been looking for! http://t.co/hceKRnU7Y7 via @techcrunch
— Akhil Sharma (@akhiltwitting) June 18, 2014
To the uneasy...
Yeaaaa, not sure about that strategy... BlackBerry Turns To Amazon To Fix BlackBerry's App Problem http://t.co/BZ615vvcsb by @mjburnsy
— Hillel Fuld (@HilzFuld) June 18, 2014
To the downright angry...
What a #FAIL; BlackBerry will bring thousands of apps from Amazon's store to its phones http://t.co/vuBILp2dbs
— Jerko Čilaš (@zvjer) June 18, 2014
... and the just plain confused.
Huh? Incase you missed it... Amazon's Appstore Is Coming to BlackBerry http://t.co/XMUioK80wy #amazon #blackberry #appstore #mobile
— ThinkApps (@WeThinkApps) June 18, 2014
There was a side issue that was raised by a number of developers, but BlackBerry seemed quick to respond. We won't know until later this year, however, if bringing Android to BlackBerry hardware offers a significant impact to developers or not.
@BlackBerryDev How does this affect native developers?
— Alejandro Díaz (@PolemicalTweets) June 18, 2014
@PolemicalTweets All apps will remain in BlackBerry World. We'll help interested developers migrate to the Amazon Appstore over the summer.
— BlackBerryDev (@BlackBerryDev) June 18, 2014