The BlackBerry App World launch - Is this pent-up demand or what?

It's been less than 36 hours since the App World was launched, and I have to say we're surprised at the rate of take-up. Our own app, WorldMate Live, is one of the apps featured there and hovers around #12 in the top downloads tables.


Extrapolating from our download numbers over these 36 hours, I'm expecting there were over 1M downloads from the App World in the first 24 hours. A million! Considering that the App Store was NOT pre-installed in any BlackBerry, but people actually had to download it to get at the apps in it, this is extremely impressive.

The App World itself still has some quirks - strange process of acquiring and displaying reviews, some usability issues here and there. But it's 100% functional and does the job. And the apps are top-notch. So very different from what we see on the iPhone App Store for instance.

I guess we're off to a good start then!