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Can't speak for BB, but J2ME, Symbian, and PocketPC never had any centralized store that everything had to go through.

Well, I guess Symbian got N-Gage and the Ovi Store towards the end, but they never tried to lock it down against third party sources.




No the stores were run by the carriers. Sprint and Verizon had an App Store before the iPhone was introduced where they sold a third party J2ME apps. Those carriers took a 70% cut.


I suppose it might have been regional, but that was never the case here. You would just download the jars (or cabs) directly from the developer. The only cut would have been the ~2% credit card processing fee.


True, but my point was how much they charged developers for being there, not how many were available.


Wat? My point was that they weren't even in the equation. Who cares what they charged if everyone went straight to the source instead?


The source being the carriers shop and scummy online shops listed on newspapers getting paid via SMS codes, which one would need to pitch before they would even consider taking their royalties.


No, the source being the developer's website. Not everything has to be a walled garden.


Somehow I lived a different alternative universe regarding J2ME, Symbian, BlackBerry, PocketPC app stores.


I guess it may have been a regional thing. Or maybe you're thinking of Qualcomm's BREW?


Qualcomm wasn't available in Europe.




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