IM+ from Shape Services had out on Google+ a little letter in regards to RIM pretty much ignoring them about their PlayBook application, and that it’s been a while since they heard anything.  Ronen from BerryReview spotted that the IM+ client for PlayBook has been submitted, but remains to be under review for two whole months now!

It’s very unfortunate that App World is the only way to load apps on the BlackBerry PlayBook.  On BlackBerry smartphones, we are able to sideload apps through the browser which is a key benefit to developers and their beta testing of applications.  In best hopes this is just a mistake with the whole two month wait for IM+ but that seems too optimistic to consider at this point in time.  Any way, here’s the letter SHAPE Services put out on Google+, which looks like their last straw on trying to find out what’s going on with their IM+ app for PlayBook.

First of all I have to say that we love BlackBerry, many of us in SHAPE have BB Bolds and Curves as main devices, we support BlackBerry by developing apps since the BlackBerry platform appeared and we wish RIM to succeed.

But how are they going to compete with Apple and Google if they don’t work with developer community? The situation with developing for Playbook scares me.
We have hired a flash developer who developed IM+ before Playbook went on sale in Europe. It was a very big and challenging work (I won’t tell anything about the quality of the developer tools for Playbook as I’m not a developer) and finally we have submitted IM+ for App World testing on May 19th. We expected the app to be approved in a week or ten days at latest.
Two weeks went, and nothing happened. We started to contact our main contact at App World but it appeared she’s no longer with that team and she recommended to contact other App World representatives. App World support didn’t answer any of the multiple emails we’ve sent.

Three weeks went and we’ve sent emails to Developer Relations team we had talks with on different events like MWC and WES. Multiple times we were trying to contact them via Twitter (@BlackBerryDev). But they didn’t help.

A month went, we tried all possible ways to contact RIM team. Sent emails from our CEO and COO, contacted App World management people via LinkedIn, nothing helped. RIM didn’t provide an official answer and it seems they just do not want IM+ to be published.

Maybe we could live with it if we could distribute the app from our site, but the real problem is, there’s no possibility to install a Playbook app without the developers SDK. So the only option to install Playbook app is through BlackBerry App World.
I didn’t want to write this post , as there are already too much claims for BlackBerry from both employees and developers. Again, I wish RIM a success. All I want is just to find the right person at RIM who will take care of the developers questions. And finally have our app published.

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