Thread: Email From PayPal Could Suggest Lack of Support In App World 3.0

Many BlackBerry users have received a similar email to the one pictured above from PayPal which mentions that pre-approved payments plan Research In Motion will expire July 29th, 2011. What does this mean? While none of us can be entirely sure without an official word from RIM, we can speculate a little about it.

What are pre-approved payments?
From PayPal.com:

A Recurring Payment is a payment in which you provide an advance authorization to a merchant to charge your PayPal account directly on a one-time, regular, or sporadic basis. Recurring Payments are sometimes called "Subscriptions" or "Preapproved Payments".

In essence when you set up PayPal as your preferred payment method in App World, a billing agreement is created by you and RIM. This billing agreement allows you to make purchases in BlackBerry App World using PayPal without having to enter your PayPal username and password for each purchase. It's basically the act of allowing someone to charge you (or you paying someone) for something (one time, regular, or sporadically) without logging in every time.

The fact that this prepayment plan will expire on July 29th, 2011 could suggest a couple of things:

• App World 3.0 is coming out on or around July 29th, 2011 which needs a new preapprovement plan from RIM.
• App World will no longer be supporting PayPal as a payment option.
• We'll need to log in to PayPal each time we want to buy an app.

When App World first started PayPal was the only option given to us to purchase apps so I would find it hard to believe that RIM would not be able to agree on whatever terms they have with PayPal for the use of their services. Stranger things have happened though and how long you've been with a certain partner does take a backseat to the reality of business sometimes so it would not be as surprising to see RIM cut ties with PayPal and be content with carrier billing and credit/debit card as the only payment options.

This could also be a sign that BlackBerry App World 3.0 is close to release at least in the Beta Zone for the time being and that RIM will be using a different method of allowing users to purchase and pay for apps with PayPal which would require a new type of prepayment plan. Again all of this is speculation until we get official word from RIM about it. We'll have more news as it rolls in.

• Did you receive a similar email to the one above? Let us know!

Just got the email this morning.. I'd really like to see 3.0 in the beta zone soooon!!!

Turns out that BlackBerry App World 2.0 launched in Beta Zone on July 29th, 2010 (see this link from CrackBerry) which leads me to believe that it's simply a case of an expiring PayPal preapproval. For those who receive this email, my guess is that when you initially arranged your App World 2.0 payments, you may have been prompted to allow PayPal to preapprove payments to RIM. This likely showed up for those who use their banking account as a primary PayPal payment method rather than a credit card.

If you received this message today, then you probably signed up for the App World 2.0 beta on July 29th of last year and arranged your payment method then. For those who did not receive this email, you may still get it in the future, or if your PayPal account did not require preapproval, you won't see it at all.

And for those who do receive this message, I would expect that you will simply be prompted to reauthorize PayPal for App World preapproval on July 29th (or whenever your email indicates).

I hope that makes sense!

Way to be a kill joy Krypto