One of the main complaints about RIM’s BlackBerry App World was that there wasn’t a desktop counterpart.  Sure, the mobile application let you wirelessly download applications, but unlike Apple’s iTunes App Store, there was no way to browse, search, or get applications from your computer.  That’s all changed as today RIM launched their BlackBerry App World Web Store.

The applications are broken down by category — including Free, Paid, Newest Apps, Business, Entertainment, etc. While this does seem way overdue, RIM is really going full speed ahead lately.   They’ve updated the mobile App World application, continue to expand App World into other countries, announced the end-of-life for their Mobile Data Systems (MDS) Runtime Studio support to focus on Java and Web application development, and are ramping up for their second annual BlackBerry Developer’s conference (last year’s winning apps included one of my faves for both the BlackBerry and iPhone platforms — Slacker Radio).

I have to say, RIM, these changes are very welcome.  Now, if we can get a totally refreshed OS (sorry, 5.0 is not looking awfully exciting), some serious on-device memory and a true web browser to match up with the apps developers are putting out…well, I think I may be tempted to retire some other devices .