RIM is ramping up its BlackBerry 10 preparations renaming its app store, inviting developers to enter the app revenue guarantee and allowing the most dedicated to sign up for the Dev Alpha C handset.
The latest news was announced at RIM's BlackBerry Jam event in Asia, where it was confirmed that devs who had submitted two or more apps would be ranked by a series of criteria, with the top 1,500 getting priority on the Dev Alpha C unit.
The Alpha C will be the first Dev handset to sport the famous BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard, and it may give us some idea of what the first consumer handset will look like – which due to land in early February 2013.
Research in Motion has given out over 7,500 handset to developers in a bid to encourage as many as possible to build apps for BB 10 – something the BlackBerry brand is sorely in need of.
A whole new world
We already know that the App World will be given a facelift to bring it more in line with the experience we get on Apple's App Store and Google Play, and RIM has now revealed its new name: BlackBerry World.
The removal of "App" from the title shows the firm's new direction of offering more than just applications in its store, with movies and music likely to feature.
Developers keen to guarantee themselves $10,000 (around £6,100/AU$9,500) of app revenue can now sign up for the incentive, with the Gold APK being released on December 11, providing everything required to complete apps before the January 21 deadline.
We've spoken to RIM and once the Dev Alpha C units arrive we will get hands on with the device to bring you all the latest from the new keyboard offering.
From RIM via CrackBerry
