One disgruntled developer sounded off in an open letter to Research In Motion over what he deems to be a convoluted and costly process for creating apps for the BlackBerry PlayBook.
The letter complaining about RIM’s app policies grabbed the attention of top management at RIM (NASDAQ: RIMM), which responded with a blog post at its developer community forum site.
At issue is the cost to developers for submitting apps to BlackBerry App World, complex sign-in and download steps required to begin coding a PlayBook app and requirements for notarized documentation of identity, among others.
RIM’s Tyler Lessard, who heads the developer relations team, responded to the criticism, though he fell short of supplying concrete details for changes to the policy.
Still, it shows that RIM is listening, as the stakes are high for its soon-to-be-released tablet, the PlayBook, which will be competing with a host of new Android-based media slates as well as Apple’s iPad, which could get a refresh as early as this week.