According to RIM's VP of global alliances and developer relations Tyler Lessard, the number of apps available for a platform isn't necessarily the best indicator of its health.

Speaking in an interview with FierceWireless, Lessard said apps are just one of many factors that help paint a picture of where the platform is at for onlooker - the fact BlackBerry App World trails Android Market when it comes to content doesn't mean RIM is playing catch up.

Of course, indicator or not, Lessard had time enough to reveal that there are now 17,000 apps on BlackBerry App World, with users downloading 2 million titles each and every day.

Apps away"It's great to see developers pumping out applications, and it's an indicator of some things, but by no means do we view that as the true sort of barometer of what's going on out there," said Lessard.

"We have a very large and productive developer community doing apps through App World as well as distributing applications directly into enterprises. I think that's one reason why you see the number of apps in the store as sometimes a poor estimation of the amount of activity going on."

Nevertheless, Lessard said the number of apps had grown by 5,000 in the last couple of months alone.

Sticking it to 6

Despite such reassurances, however, the general view is that the launch of BlackBerry OS 6 hasn't reignited the platform's flame in the way many had hoped.

RIM managed to ship a record 14.2 million units to retail in the last quarter, yet BlackBerry has failed to claw back market share from both iOS and Android according to most surveys.

As such, just a few months after BlackBerry OS 6 made its debut, RIM has had to talk up the possibility of rolling out its new PlayBook OS – designed by QNX, which RIM purchased in April – to its smartphone line up in the coming years.

Unlike BlackBerry OS 6, PlayBook's OS has impressed most commentators, but Lessard said RIM refuses to launch it on its smartphones until they are equipped with dual-core processors.

"What we've been fairly clear on in our focus with the tablet OS has been to bring it as a no compromise, high performance platform as the future of mobile computing. So today, it will be running on dual-core Gigahertz processor with a GPU product - the PlayBook," he said.

"What we've been able to accomplish with Flash and Air and so on with the PlayBook is best in class, and it's going to be a great experience for consumers, and we really want to make sure we don't back-step from that and offer a degraded experience because hardware is not ready or the performance isn't there. So we'll see how things evolve."

[source: FierceWireless]