After a weekend that saw 15,000 BlackBerry 10 app submissions, RIM writes that 19,000 apps were submitted over the weekend. The run has prompted the company to extend the application deadline for its $10,000 developer incentive to February 18th, 2013. RIM has spent more than a year aggressively trying to get a critical mass of apps, and it's been bullish on its prospects; VP of Developer Relations Alec Saunders told The Verge earlier this month that the company already has the apps it needs to have a successful launch. The stakes are high for RIM, and it won't be clear if BlackBerry 10 really will have the apps it needs until the product is delivered.

Wow!Congrats to the hard working RIM developer relations team.Another 19,071 apps added to the #blackberry10 catalog since Friday noon. — Alec Saunders (@asaunders) January 20, 2013

In a November interview, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins spoke of an ambitious goal of 100,000 apps for BlackBerry 10, but as The Next Web notes, he recently estimated that about 70,000 applications would be available at launch (of course, those numbers could change if RIM has another weekend rush of app submissions). In today's blog post announcing the new deadline, RIM writes that "the volume of apps being submitted for review and entry into the program has been remarkable." Now we just need to find out if the apps themselves are remarkable.