RIM hunts iOS devs for mystery iPhone and iPad apps

RIM is hunting iOS developers to create apps for the iPhone and iPad, according to a job posting, with the possibility that the BlackBerry company intends to bring BBM to Apple’s hardware. Specific app details are not, unsurprisingly, given – beyond the suggestion that RIM is looking for “exciting enterprise applications for distribution on the iOS platform” – though there are a number of possibilities given the rise of the iPhone in business environments. The more underwhelming option is some sort of app connected with BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, RIM’s system for managing iOS and Android devices in enterprise environments much as BlackBerry OS devices can be organized. Announced back in November 2011, Fusion was seen as RIM’s acknowledgement that it had lost ground in the business segment, and a move to try to cement its importance despite that. Exactly what functionality an iOS Fusion app would deliver is unclear, however. More exciting – but perhaps less likely – is a port of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) to its first non-BlackBerry platform, expanding RIM’s footprint onto the significant install-base of iOS users. That would run contrary to new CEO Thorsten Heins’ attitude to splitting up RIM’s “integrated solution“, however, with the chief exec arguing that it’s the joined up ecosystem that makes BlackBerry appealing. RIM’s successful candidate will be “an experienced iOS/Objective-C developer capable of architecting, designing, developing and testing complex applications for iPhone and iPad devices” and with a track record of App Store content that can be demonstrated in interview.