We knew it wouldn’t be long before RIM had a competitive response to Apple’s popular App store, and today, there’s finally details leaking out about the BlackBerry Application Center, which will be an on-device shopping portal for the BlackBerry, reports Crackberry.com. Perhaps the first evidence that BlackBerry was working on something came at CTIA when it’s keynote consisted of announcing a slew of content partnerships. The big question was how were consumers going to find out about these applications existed if there wasn’t some easy storefront on the phone?

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The disappointing part about this is that it sounds like the application center’s initial launch will be limited to the BlackBerry Storm, RIM’s first touchscreen device. But the center will offer a directory of downloadable applications and provide the user with an up to date list of applications available for download, along with a description of each application. The part where it differs from Apple’s App store is that carriers will be responsible for hosting the application data and sending updates to the directory, not RIM (NSDQ: RIMM). That means, in theory, carriers could prohibit an application from being sold even though it has been approved by RIM. No word on how revenues will be split, or how billing will take place. Depending on those factors, this likely will be another great option for developers to reach consumers, but we are hesitant to say it will be a game changer. Crackberry guesses there will be more details coming out at the Blackberry Developer Conference on Oct. 20-22.