Far be it from us to be criticize something like this, but RIM has been spilling some serious beans lately. The newest (and pehaps tastiest) comes to us from CrackBerry, where they've uncovered a few screens of the BlackBerry App Center. They've also got a wealth of information about the service, which will unfortunately be available for Storm users only. RIM's take on an app store is much less ambitious than Apple's for one fatal reason: the store will be run on the carrier's side, which will give your mobile provider the chance to veto an app even after it's been approved by RIM. The apps — and this is pretty weird — are actually downloaded through the device's browser, as the App Center is only able to search, monitor and delete programs from the device. Yeah, that's right: the App Center program can't directly install apps.
The interface looks clean and simple, and its different behaviors remind me more of Linux's many package managers than of Apple's App Store. That similarity extends even further with the odd choice of using the green install/update/delete radio buttons from popular open source Debian/Gnome package manager Synaptic. CrackBerry expects to hear more about this at BlackBerry's October 20th Developer Conference, and they're probably right. [CrackBerry]