BlackBerry App World 2.0 was revealed today at a press conference held by RIM, and what came out of it was the understanding of just how far behind the its competition RIM really is, and how difficult its climb back to the top will be. I am referring not to market share, of which RIM and BlackBerry still have a majority in North America, but rather about innovation, and the prospect of attracting developers to the aging platform.

Apps seem to be the only way to monetize an ecosystem these days for developers, and as iPhone has proved in less than two years, creativity and loyalty are two key features needed to spread the message of a great app. Developers are eager to make apps for the iOS platform because the schema is proven: 70% revenue of all sales go back to the developer, and as long as the app fits within the constraints of the App Store Terms of Service, it is sure to be approved. Granted, those terms of service often seem frustratingly changeable and temperamental, but with thousands of apps being submitted for approval every week, there has to be some sort of give and take.

Nevertheless, the BlackBerry App World has always been a shadow, a blip, a mere speck on the radar compared to its App Store (and Android Marketplace) competition. Developers have not been attracted to the clunky app submission process, the lack of payment diversity (previously PayPal-only) and limited pricing options (minimum of $2.99/app).

BB App World 2.0 looks to improve the experience dramatically in many respects: first, RIM plans to incorporated a BlackBerry ID for each login, which would sync up all downloaded and purchased apps over multiple phones. One of the huge drawbacks to owning a BlackBerry has been the exceptionally frustrating experience of trying to migrate all your data, apps and settings from one device to another. Inevitably something is going to be missing, it happens every time.

Carrier billing will also be enabled, allowing operators like Rogers or Verizon to apply payment to your monthly post-paid phone bill instead of relying exclusively on PayPal for purchases. Also, My World will show all installed apps and not just those that you’ve purchased.

QR codes, those little barcode things you see everywhere, will be enabled in the App World, to allow customers to take a picture using the built-in camera of a bar code from a paper or advertisement, and have it load the App World download page automatically. Very cool.

Unfortunately, this is too little, too late, for the App World. What it needs is some killer apps and games, giving people a legitimate reason to go online and purchase them. Right now, sifting through the top 20 free and paid apps in the App World, only a handful of them are ones I’d actually be interested in using, and many of the free ones are RIM’s first-party apps such as BB Messenger and Facebook for Blackberry.

Until developers have the impetus to create better apps for BlackBerry, and until the OS can handle running multiple apps seamlessly without slowdown, the BB app ecosystem will continue to suffer.