Yesterday I noticed that Xploding Boxes had snuck into the Top Paid chart on AppWorld. This is unusual because Xploding Boxes is listed as a free app.
Instead Xploding Boxes has made it onto the Top Paid charts by virtue of its in-app purchases. This represents a change by BlackBerry in how they determine their charts, and one that should benefit the consumer, as it gives additional promotion to those apps that can be tried for free. This will be a boost to those apps that make use of in-app purchases, which continues to be the best way to sell games on AppWorld.
Despite what I implied at the top of this post, it is actually rather common for these apps to do well. Previously there were plenty of times when Xploding Boxes would be outselling Pixelated Plus, yet Pixelated Plus would be the only one of my apps on the Top Paid chart. Currently four of the top twenty-five paid games on the PlayBook are technically free (including the number one game on the chart).
Last week The Verge posted an article arguing that Microsoft was in position to over take RIM in the smart phone market. This article in particular is rather silly (at one point saying that Microsoft has an early lead while pointing to a chart where it was clearly not in the lead), but it represents a long line of predictions to this effect. Analysts have been predicting Microsoft to surpass RIM in the phone market for a decade now, with it yet to happen.
Microsoft entrances the Market
From Microsoft’s start in the mobile market in late 2001 it was already behind RIM, but at the time it didn’t seem to matter as it was a small market that was an undefined mix of PDA’s, pagers, and phones. At the time there seemed to be little doubt that Microsoft could push out the tiny company from Ontario if they wished to.
A CNN article in 2004 was largely bullish on RIM, but warned that “some observers believe that RIM’s proprietary model is doomed” and warns of growing competition from Microsoft, HP, and Dell. Yet, Microsoft did not outsell RIM.
Microsoft partners with Palm
Having the Palm Treo run on Windows Mobile, was a major accomplishment from Microsoft. It was believed that the combined effort of these two companies would be enough to outsell BlackBerry. Except that they didn’t.
Push email on Exchange servers
In 2006 Microsoft announced that they would natively support push email from Exchange, which many saw as BlackBerry’s only advantage of RIM. Still Microsoft did not out sell RIM.
In 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone which brought touch screens to the forefront. At the time, RIM was still a year away from shipping their first touch screen phone, while Microsoft already had touch screen devices on the market. Of course, most Windows Mobile devices at the time also came with a stylus.
Microsoft release the Kin
Nobody expected this to help Microsoft catch up to BlackBerry, and this time they were right.
Windows Phone 7 is totally new
Ditching the old Windows Mobile platform is one of the best ideas that Microsoft has made. However, expectations that it would help Microsoft out sell RIM has proven to be unfounded.
Mango update will contain business features
Expectations that this would lead to Windows Phone outselling BlackBerry, proved untrue as most BlackBerry users are consumers anyhow.
Microsoft-Nokia partnership will surpass RIM
While the Nokia partnership has given Microsoft a base to work on, it isn’t translating into sales. This past quarter RIM has continued to outsell Windows Phone, despite having older devices that are running a much older OS.
Windows 8 will allow Microsoft to leverage their PC base
TBD
I actually like Windows Phone, and Windows 8 is looking to be very promising. Additionally, Microsoft will have three months (and a Christmas shopping season) to gain an early advantage before BlackBerry10 is released. So maybe this time will be different, and Microsoft will finally outsell BlackBerry. But forgive me if I am still a bit skeptical.
I am now officially registered for the BlackBerry Jam conference this September in San Jose. This will be my third time at a major BlackBerry conference, and even though I am not scheduled to speak this time, it will still be a great event. As always at these events, if you see me around, I would love to have the opportunity to chat.
BlackBerry PlayBook users are continuing to upgrade their devices to the newest operating system. July saw 95.6% of users running OS 2.0.1 and 98.2% of users running OS 2.0.0 (or higher).
While the adoption of OS 2.0.1 is actually a bit slower then the adoption of 2.0.0 or 1.0.8 was, it is still a significant majority of users, and a welcome improvement over the upgrade patterns of the old BlackBerry OS.
This data was taken from downloads of the popular PlayBook strategy game Pixelated. Data shown on the chart is from the beginning of June 2011 through the end of July 2012.
For the first time in July the majority (51.9%) of BlackBerry phones are running OS 6.0 or higher. OS 7 has seen a healthy gain as well, with almost a quarter (22.1%) of all users running the newest BlackBerry OS.
This data was taken from downloads of the popular BlackBerry strategy game Pixelated. Data shown on the chart is from the beginning of July 2011 through the end of July 2012.
One of the updates to the recent release of version 3.2 of Pixelated Plus, is a free version for the Nook Color, and Nook Tablet.
You can now download a free version of Pixelated Plus from the Nook Bookstore by clicking the “Download Trial” button right next to the option to purchase the app. The trial offers the same features of the free version of Pixelated on BlackBerry, where you can play the game as many times as you wish, but are limited to only a single grid size and difficulty level, and do not have access to any of the game statistics.
About Pixelated Plus
Pixelated Plus is an addicting puzzle based strategy game that requires a mixture of skill and luck in order to accomplish. The object of the game is to change the colour of the squares until the entire screen is a single solid colour. Starting with the square in the upper left corner you can change the colour of the blocks in order to match that of the surrounding squares. This is done repeatedly until the entire screen is a single colour. The object of the game is to clear the screen in as few moves as possible. Under the default settings you must do so in under 22 moves in order to win.
Following the recent update to Pixelated Plus, the free version of Pixelated has been updated to version 3.2 in BlackBerry AppWorld. This version adds support for diacritical marks on the PlayBook.
About Pixelated
Pixelated is an addicting puzzle based strategy game that requires a mixture of skill and luck in order to complete. Starting with the square in the upper left corner, the object of the game is to change the colour of the squares until the entire screen is a single solid colour. This is done by repeatedly by changing the colour of the blocks in order to match that of the surrounding squares until the entire screen is a single colour. The object of the game is to clear the screen in as few moves as possible.
