Why Playbook has NO NATIVE APPS from 3rd parties, JUST JUNK GAMES
I double-checked the BlackBerry Playbook developers' page just now:
- There is NO information about the Native Development Toolkit. None.
- There is NO information about porting Android apps to PlayBook. None.
- There IS info about developing using web specs (HTML) and Flash/AIR.
Enterprise developers essentially NEVER write apps in Flash/AIR, although they may use it in data display, etc. on their web pages. Some apps can be written in HTML; it's about the same as if you were on a website but you wouldn't want to do complex database searches, incorporate photos, or fine-tuned interaction/response.
RIM has apparently worked with a few devs, e.g., FaceBook, to write native apps on the PlayBook but unless you have privileged access, “sorry” is the best response you can get.
Third-party apps are mostly web games ported from Flash to Flash. At least they're easy. The quality, speed and capabilities are all limited.
RIM has big plans for PlayBook apps, but they are NOT working with 3rd parties or in-house developers to build “real” apps of the sort that Android and Apple users take for granted. So this is a non-starter for the Enterprise, and a non-starter for consumers.
RIM seems to have an honest, hard-working and smart Developer Relations guy but he's hobbled by working for co-CEOs who dismiss apps as "tonnage" and utterly fail to appreciate how valuable developers are to RIM's business. Apple had to learn this the hard way (developers were stunned back in 2007 when Jobs said no tools), but learn they did.
Until native and/or Android toolkits are available to developers, there will be thousands of junk games, but zero expense tracking/reporting systems that Enterprise types (myself) depend on. Zero video editors to allow putting your kids' birthdays on FaceBook. Zero third-party mapping, or any other consumer or business apps. Just junk games.
Nobody needs the hundreds of Fart apps that run on iPads. (I've counted them.) But nobody can work on a platform that has zero true productivity and consumer apps in virtually ALL the major categories.