If you're a BlackBerry application developer who is building apps for the BlackBerry OS then it is pretty crucial to know where the majority of your potential users are. That said; Research In Motion has just put some great charts outlining data that puts a few things into perspective.
You'll need to know which OS' the majority of your users are going to be working off of. Much of that decision will be based off of the fact whether or not your app will be that of a free one or a paid one. If you are working on paid app, then of course you'll not want to be working on an OS that is no longer supported and most people downloading apps are only making use of free ones. You would want to target the audience with current supported OS' and the one where paid apps leading over top of free apps to maximize sales and leverage use of the newer system integrations and tools.
The landscape for BlackBerry Developers as we know it is changing -- with the launch of the PlayBook we're getting amplified look at the way BlackBerry Development is headed. But until then, knowing which BlackBerry Smartphone and audience to cater to is still a big part of day-to-day operation in developing BlackBerry apps. Head on over to the BlackBerry Developers page to get a further look at the numbers.
Reader comments
Developers: Which OS do you build for?
My goodness is RIM or ANYBODY suggesting that developers still be concerned about people running 4.6??? Anything before 5 I would call a waste. LTE PEOPLE WAKE UP. You can't be concerned with that old junk when other devices are downloading at 20mbps.
And maxing out the data allowance in 30 minutes or so...
I typically only develop for devices with OS 5+. It's too much of a hassle to make apps work with 4.7 and earlier, and it's not worth it anyways considering most users (80%+) have OS 5.
This chart has been out for a long time now, but it does periodically get updated.
As far as I can tell, 4.5 is the "I hate this stupid ancient-looking BlackBerry 83xx, and I'm ditching the whole platform when I finally feel like upgrading my phone." version.
Meanwhile, 4.6 and 4.7 are the "I can't be bothered figuring out how to upgrade my OS" version.
That being said, a sizable number of people are still on pre-5.0 devices, especially ones with more modest app needs. This is why I still develop for 4.5+ (albeit with an approach that lets me still use newer-OS features on newer-OS devices), at least for the time being. Heck, it was only a few months ago that I finally stopped building for 4.2/4.3.
Interesting. That's a lot more people in the 4's than I would have expected. I don't bother with anything before 5.0 either.
As crazy as it sounds, I usually create 2 versions of the app for 4.5 and 4.7 where the only difference is the touch interface. it is pretty easy to add a preprocessor directive in the development environment so for a little bit of effort, many more users can be supported. if possible, I will still make a build for 4.2, but usually the apps I create require at least the 4.5 apis.
For the most part I have been using a minimum OS of 5.0 for the majority of new applications. I don't support any application with an OS version lower then 4.6.0
Also glad to see RIM update these numbers to break out OS 6.0 from 5.0+ this time. The numbers are very similar to what I've seen myself. http://news.ebscer.com/2011/03/10-months-of-blackberry-os-usage/
If you develop corporate software, it's look like you have to support OS 4.2-4.5. In general, corporations are slow to upgrade their staff's handhelds. But if the target is consumer market, we prefer to stay on OS 5.0 and 6.0.
This almost gave me a stroke a year ago. I have made some successful iPhone and Android apps in the past and thought I could easily port one to the blackberry platform. When I looked at the App World at that time I found, that most apps looked crappy.
And I was very enthusiastic, that I could do better...
RIM was very helpful they gave me two free phones and free access to all information I needed, I thought wow this gonna be good.
Then I had a look at the App World OS usage statistics (marked as confidential). Almost half of users were still at 4.2, 4.5, and 4.6.x. So to actually make an application, that could be used by a majority of the users it had to be 4.5 minimal. So I gave up.
In my personal opinion RIM should never have entered the consumer market. It's still great for business and administrators.
They should create a graph for amount of payment developers get.