We’ve always been proud of Toshl working on multiple platforms. Our personal finance apps are available on iPhone, Android, Symbian^3, Windows Phone and, yes, BlackBerry. Lately, it’s become untenable and unwise for us to keep developing for BlackBerry and here are the reasons why.
First, I’m sorry BlackBerry users of Toshl. If it made sense for us to keep developing for BlackBerry we would, but sadly it doesn’t. The app will remain available and continue to work as-is, but there are many reasons why we cannot continue do develop for it.
The user experience is horrible
We try to create the best user experiences we can and BlackBerry has always been a sore spot. The whole user interface is outdated and quite honestly a pain to use, especially for people used to other, more modern mobile platforms. While that has been the case for a while, with the pace of development on other platforms, BlackBerry is sticking out even more in contrast. We want to put love in the products that we make. That makes us want to keep making it better and better, sadly we can’t muster up such motivation for BlackBerry anymore.
Our resources of time, money and energy are limited. We want to focus our efforts to where we can really make an impact and create great user experiences.
Platform in freefall, fragmentation
RIM is on the way out. They’ve been out-innovated across the board, their product line is stale. Not to mention the myriad of different devices with different resolutions, device-specific bugs and that BlackBerry network internet for which you have to apply to use, jump through bureaucracy hoops…
In the few cases where there seem to be glimmers of hope it’s too little, too late. The QNX-based PlayBook takes literally 5+ minutes to boot from personal experience, phones based on the BlackBerry 10 OS aren’t due until 2013 and even then it’s a question if it can gain some popular support. The
first previews of the system look nice, but what is there to lure away users from other mobile platforms with more established app ecosystems to one that’s few years late to the game?
With QNX under the hood and a new UI it would require us to make a completely new app anyway. I wish them all the best, diversity and competition in the mobile arena is good for competition. But from what I’ve seen from RIM over the past few years I’m quite doubtful about the future prospects and mass market adoption. If they ever manage to get into the two digit market share area with BB10 we’ll be more than happy to reconsider and develop for the platform once again.
Toshl Finance for BlackBerry remains available
Toshl Finance for BlackBerry app will remain available online, the sync and all the functionality will continue to work as well. We simply won’t be making any further updates to the app in the future. We will try to provide support to our existing users in ways that we can help solve potential issues that don’t require us to update the app.
Toshl for BlackBerry on Toshl.com
Toshl on the BlackBerry App World
Death of RIM infographic
To shed some more light on the story of RIM, BlackBerry maker’s downfall here’s a infographic created by the friendly people at
MBAonline. Quick correction, when the infographic was made, the stock price is listed ad $15, it has since fallen to $8.
