RIM tweeted yesterday that the BlackBerry App World portal is now home to 15,000 apps, up from 10,000 in September. It’s still a far cry from the iOS App Store’s 300,000-ish and the Android Market’s 100,000-odd apps, plus Windows Phone isn’t that far behind BlackBerry with 3,000 apps after just a few weeks. Also, as Kyle points out, about 3800 of those in App World are themes, and another 3200 are references and e-books; whether or not those count as proper “apps” is your call. This 15,000 app-mark shouldn’t be indicative of the entire marketplace, though; that number doesn’t take into account the BlackBerry apps sold through third parties like GetJar, MobiHand, Handango, and other popular destinations.

Even though having a bustling app ecosystem results in a lot of great competition to make the best apps, the name of the game is quality over quantity. There’s a point for end-users where it really doesn’t matter if there’s a thousand, ten thousand, or a hundred thousand apps – all that counts is that they can find what they’re looking for, that it runs smoothly, and is priced reasonably.

I have no doubt that App World will see a whole new level of activity once the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is released sometime early next year, especially since it has more horsepower, screen real estate, and developer-friendliness than any of RIM’s previous devices. After the PlayBook has paved the way for the new QNX-based operating system, I’ll be really excited to see developers already comfortable with the environment making apps for the OS on phones.

That’s still a ways off, mind you. In the meantime, hats-off to RIM and here’s to the next 15,000, even if that doesn’t catch you up to the Android Market.