Turns out BlackBerry’s proud claim that the new BB10 phones are launching with 70,000 bespoke apps was a bit of a lie — with one of the company’s own men admitting that up to 40 per cent of these are frantic Android port jobs.
Martyn Mallick, BB’s VP of global alliances and business development, told reporters after the launch event that “40 per cent [of BB10 apps] are wrapped Android applications”, many of which came about as part of the recent Port-a-thon initiative, in which anyone with any functional app could earn themselves a few quid by smashing together a BB10 version using BlackBerry’s porting tools.
Not to mention there are plenty of so-called BB10 apps that are little more than shortcuts to mobile websites. Still, it’s early days. Anyone who used an Android phone in the mobile platform’s first year or two of existence can testify to the amount of time it takes to build up a quality app portfolio. [RWW]
Gizmodo UK is gobbling up the news in a different timezone, so check them out if you need another Giz fix. [clear]