Research in Motion has officially launched the next version of its app store for BlackBerry phones. BlackBerry App World 2.0 has been in beta testing for the past few weeks, but last night it went live to the general public.
App World 2.0 is available as a free download for customers in 65 different countries, as long as you have a BlackBerry phone running Blackberry OS 4.5 or higher.
The new app store includes better search, support for QR codes, information about apps you’ve installed in the new “My World” section, and support for carrier billing or PayPal payments.
Developers can also price apps as low as $0.99, which is about $2 lower than the previous threshold. That could have a huge impact in the number of third party apps sold for BlackBerry devices. Apple’s iPhone is the runaway success story in the mobile app space, largely due to the number of inexpensive apps available for download from the App Store. Turns out Apple has demonstrated that people are willing to pay for mobile software — as long as it’s cheap.
On the other hand, it’s possible that lowering the price of BlackBerry apps won’t have a big impact at all, and that we’ll simply confirm something that a lot of people already guessed — customers buy BlackBerry devices for their excellent communications features, not necessarily for their ability to play video games.