BlackBerry paid apps to start at $2.99, require PayPal

Official app store price tiers

Official app store price tiers

It seems that phone app stores are on everyone’s mind, at least that’s the impression you get when you see all the buzz that accompanies the announcement of yet another one.  RIM went live last night with the announcement of their upcoming BlackBerry App World, and details are leaking out about what that might mean to both customers and developers.

The devil is in the details, as it usually is with stuff like this, and RIM’s app price list is attracting a lot of attention.  The BlackBerry maker intends to allow free apps in the store, a good thing for sure, but some are up in arms that the lowest price allowed for apps is $2.99.  This doesn’t sound like much but in such a highly competitive market, developers like the ability to go as cheap as they can.  I don’t see a problem with this starting price point; it’s still darn cheap, but I understand the concern that some developers are expressing. It probably does kill off the demand for those popular fart apps like those on the iPhone.

The real issue with RIM’s policies in the App World is the requirement that PayPal is the only method of payment accepted, at least initially.  This makes sense on RIM’s part, as they intend the store to be global very quickly, but it’s never a good thing to place restrictions on how customers can pay.  PayPal adds their own fees on top of every customer transaction so that becomes a real financial burden on sales in the store.  Hopefully RIM will open up payment options besides PayPal soon.

It was also confirmed that apps downloaded from the store cannot be stored on external memory cards.  They must go into main memory and that has a limiting effect on how many apps can be installed.  This is the same as the T-Mobile G1 Android phone and one of the biggest limits on the usefulness of that device.

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