Despite increasing pressure on the BlackBerry brand and worldwide sales decreases, the BlackBerry brand is stronger than ever in Africa. BIS is still a very compelling deal in SA with its high data prices. But Blackberry’s App World still has very few apps, which was one of our primary criticisms against our recent review of the otherwise brilliant BlackBerry Bold 9900.

South African developers are also slow to adopt BlackBerry, as the choice of apps might suggest. But still we think it is necessary to focus on some the good Made in SA BlackBerry apps, scarce as they might be. Here is our favourite South African developed BlackBerry apps.

1) News24

There are only a few app developers in SA who cater for multiple mobile app platforms, and News24 is one of them. While the app is by no means as sexy as the iPhone and Android versions, it is functional and stable. Using a similiar structure to the other News24 apps, the app also focusses more on weather with a quick 3 days summary of upcoming weather. Users can also check Lotto results, but cannot seem to see comments, just like with the iPhone and Android. As many would agree, it is sometimes more interesting to see people’s comments on article than the article itself. Maybe we can see this in future.

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The iPhone is not exactly a niche product anymore, and especially not in SA. While not close to the popularity of Blackberry, SA developers are not ignoring iPhone. There is clearly a market to develop for South African iPhone users, and there has been a lot of apps released in recent times. We thought it might be time to list our favourite “Made in South Africa / for South Africans” apps. It should be pointed out that many of these apps are available on other smartphone platforms as well.

News 24: Yeah, we are not starting off with the little guy. News24′s app has been out almost ever since the first iPhones appeared on our shores, and the app has had quite a few updates. While sometimes buggy, it is still one of the first apps to recommend to someone fresh to iPhone. It is versatile as well – you do not have to only read news – it can be customized to have your favorite sections of the 24.com empire right within one touch. For example – I like having Fin24 and Wheels24 links on the bottom of my News24 install. (more…)

It sure is great to see some well known SA brand names in the App-space – those of you sporting smartphones might already be using News24. I personally use the app every single day, and it is currently available on iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry and the Nokia Ovi store.. So if you have not gotten round to download the News24 app, head to your relevant appstore.

Apparently the News24 iPad app has taken off very quickly with South African iPad users:

South Africans definitely don’t lag behind in the tech savvy arena, with the both the iPad 1 and iPad 2 sold out within days after the launch it’s no surprise that South Africa’s biggest online news portal has had massive success with their iPad app. 

The News24 free iPad app has grown in leaps and bounds with a total of 28,303 downloads.

Says Geoff Cohen, General Manager of 24.com: “Currently we have more than 15,000 active iPad users on the News24 app since its launch which indicates a huge uptake in content consumption on tablet devices. This trend is bound to progress and we have positioned ourselves to get the various brands digitally enabled to keep abreast of what consumers want with cutting edge apps.

 In saying that, we are also very pleased about the success of the recently launched City Press iPad app which has shown its successful integration from print to digital.” says Cohen.

 With some exciting new apps currently under development to be launched in the near future, as Cohen would say “watch this digital space”.

Bandwidth Blog has posted screen shots of the upcoming News24 application – read the full story here

24.com will expand their mobile strategy in the next few weeks when they launch an iPhone application for all their 24 portals which include Wheels24, Sport24, News24, Fin24 & Entertainment24. The News24 iPhone application will enable all iPhone users to gain access to Africa’s #1 online destination and have breaking news at their finger tips.