How to Clear the BlackBerry App World Cache and View Updated App List

By Ray Nicolini

BlackBerry App World caches data on your device which will result in your App World not displaying the most recent content. In order to check something like the latest apps in the featured carousel, you’ll have to clear the cache. RIM has published an article in their knowledge base explaining how to clear the cache and it’s complicated. It’s the smartphone equivalent of the Konami Code.

The knowledge base article has a caveat that the process may remove any applications that have been archived to the media card so keep that in mind before you try this out.

There are two ways to clear the App World cache depending on which device you have. For BlackBerrys that use SureType or QWERTY keyboard, use the following:

1. Launch the BlackBerry App World application.
2. While pressing and holding the ALT key, type RST.

For Storm devices:

1. Launch the BlackBerry App World application.
2. Ensure the smartphone is being held in the landscape position.
3. Activate the onscreen keyboard.
4. Press and hold the “!?123″ button until it locks.
5. Type the following characters in sequence: 34(

Even after performing the code your BlackBerry “may become unresponsive for a few moments while the cache data is cleared.”

It’s small things like this that RIM needs to fix and hopefully App World updates address this issue. Smartphones are becoming ubiquitous and a big part of customer satisfaction is making them easy to use. You can’t expect a user to know how to enter a secret code to clear the cache. They need a menu item.

The App World cache clear isn’t the only code either. Viewing the source code for a website on a BlackBerry requires you to hold ALT and type RBVS while in the Browser application. While it’s probably not a feature that’s used very often, it’s surprising that these features are still hidden in codes even on BlackBerry 6.