BlackBerry Limited has announced that it will forcibly remove all paid apps from its app store dubbed as “BlackBerry World” from April 1, 2018, onwards. It has also reportedly started to inform all the paid app developers through email.
According to a report by SlashGear, BB10 users will not be able to purchase anything from the app store from April 1 as BlackBerry is set to scrap all paid apps from that day. The company has said that its app store “BlackBerry World” will become a free for all store from April 1 onwards and that “all purchasing mechanisms will be disabled” from that day. Any app that fails to convert from paid to free by March 31, 2018, will simply be removed from the app store from April 1. However, all app developers who offer free apps on the app store does not have to worry about anything and no action on their part is required now.
In December 2017, BlackBerry had announced that it is going to support BB10 for a minimum of two years, with the app store “BlackBerry World” set to shut down on December 31, 2019. With this latest announcement, it seems that BlackBerry is going to fulfill its promise to BB10 users.
To recall, BlackBerry 10 (BB10) is an in-house mobile operating system by BlackBerry Limited for the BlackBerry line of devices. BlackBerry Limited also manages the BlackBerry brand licensing and software updates.
According to some reports, BlackBerry had sold over 8,50,000 devices in 2017 which was a record considering the condition of BlackBerry in the market right now after the success of Google-powered Android devices. The company also revealed that it was happy with the sales figure of last year but is still in pursuit to reach the 1 million mark. The company could now focus on the sales of its latest device, the BlackBerry Keyone to reach the one million mark. It has also announced a new black edition of the Keyone and is pegged to launch in the US markets soon.
