BlackBerry’s Beta Zone has, through the years, hosted early versions of popular first-party apps like BBM, Twitter, Facebook, Evernote and others. More recently, the company released a standalone BB10 portal that consolidates all eligible programs into a single place.
Today, the company sent an email to all participants of the BlackBerry Beta Zone informing them that the program is now open to all developers to “test their BlackBerry 10 apps.” Until now, BlackBerry developers haven’t had a centralized repository for app dissemination, feedback and community support, similar to what Google+ Communities offers for Android users.
The full email is below:
“Hello,
We are pleased to announce that BlackBerry developers are now able to beta test their BlackBerry 10 apps through Beta Zone. Very soon you will start to see new “Third Party” beta programs available to you, which will be posted and fully managed by the developers themselves.
What do you need to know?
The process for participating in these beta programs remains the same, but all of your feedback will be submitted directly to the developers. Here are a few important things to note:
1. You can easily distinguish between a Third Party and a BlackBerry beta application by taking a look at the ‘Author’ of the download in the Beta Zone app – BlackBerry apps will have “BlackBerry” listed as the Author, while Third Party apps will have the BlackBerry World Vendor name listed, example: “OSBB”.
2. ‘Submit Feedback’– After joining a Third Party beta program, you can contact the developer directly by using the ‘Submit Feedback’ form in the Beta Zone app. Be sure to select the appropriate beta program name from the “What is your feedback about?” dropdown, so that your feedback is sent to the correct developer.
Start testing!
We are quite excited about this and expect that it will go a long way towards improving the quality of the apps available to you in BlackBerry World. We hope that you too are just as excited as we are, and that you will provide developers with the same amazing level of support and quality feedback that you have provided to BlackBerry over the years.
As always, thank you for the continued support and happy testing!”
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