Blackberry Development Talk

Free access to MobileCloud for BlackBerry developers from Perfecto Mobile.

Mar 31, 2011 Blackberry Development, News

Perfecto Mobile, provider of cloud-based testing, automation and monitoring solutions for mobile apps and websites, has announced that it will provide free access of its MobileCloud services to BlackBerry developer groups.  BlackBerry app developers will get access 30 free hours of Perfecto’s MobileCloud usage for remote testing and collaboration between group members.  Blackberry developers who want to acquire more hours of MobileCloud services or wish to subscribe to advanced testing services will get discounts up to 30 percent on their purchase.

“Perfecto Mobile’s MobileCloud helps developers test their applications and websites on a wide variety of BlackBerry smartphones from virtually any location around the world,” said Tyler Lessard, vice president of Global Alliances & Developer Relations, Research In Motion.

“MobileCloud can help BlackBerry developers test that they are delivering reliable user experiences with apps that take advantage of unique capabilities and run consistently across different BlackBerry smartphones around the world,” he added.

MobileCloud for BlackBerry developers is a web-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that enables easy access to a large number of mobile handsets and tablets connected to mobile networks. It allows BlackBerry developers to simplify development, testing, support and monitoring processes.

Tags: BlackBerry app developer, BlackBerry app development, BlackBerry app testing, blackberry developers

tinyHippos team joins BlackBerry Developer team.

Mar 28, 2011 News

RIM has acquired tinyHippos Inc., makers of mobile environment emulator Ripple. In a post in its blog, RIM’s Tyler Lessard, VP Global Alliances & Developer Relation, writes “ We are pleased to announce that tinyHippos has joined Research In Motion (RIM). We’re excited that the tinyHippos team is joining the BlackBerry Developer team and bringing their expertise in cross-platform emulation environments to the BlackBerry platform.”

He further writes “We have been integrating support for web technologies like HTML5 and BlackBerry WebWorks into our developer platform, and working to continually deliver enhanced tools and frameworks to our developer community. We look forward to working with the team at tinyHippos to further provide a simplified and streamlined experience to our developers.”

A blog post on the tinyHippos website says “We are extremely excited about our future at RIM and continuing to grow and support Ripple. This is a great step towards our goal of providing a cross-platform mobile application development and testing tool to developers worldwide.  Specifically, we will be working to bring BlackBerry support to the Ripple product.

We also want to reassure all new and existing users that we expect that the Ripple product will continue to be offered for download and the team will continue to develop features, provide support, and help grow the mobile application developer community.”

Tags: blackberry developers, RIM, tinyHippos

RIM previews BlackBerry 6.1.

Mar 22, 2011 News

EMEA Team Lead for Developer Relations at RIM, Sanyu Kiruluta, provided a preview of the latest BlackBerry 6.1. The BlackBerry 6.1 will include:

• APIs for the device magnetometer and digital compass;
• OpenGL-ES 2.0 support;
• Window API to overlay native app surfaces (media player, camera, browser, etc) with Java UI or OpenGL elements;
• Event-based geo-fencing location APIs;
• Enhancements to the barcode APIs for additional formats and custom decoding;

He said that the supporting tools for BlackBerry developers for the OS will be available soon. The release date for BlackBerry 6.1 is yet to be known.

Sany Kiruluta further added that BlackBerry has no intentions to be an advertising company and will offer a mediation platform with access to other networks. The company is planning to rope in more networks to its platform. RIM will share 60 percent revenue share with BlackBerry developers under the mediation platform system.

Tags: Blackberry 6.1, blackberry developers, RIM

New Updates for BlackBerry developers from RIM.

Mar 9, 2011 News

RIM has announced some new updates for BlackBerry developers to make the app submission process simpler and easy. As per the new updates posted on its blog, BlackBerry developers will no longer be required to produce a notarized proof of identity to participate in BlackBerry App World. Now, they can simply fax or e-mail a copy of their driver’s license. However, businesses will still be required to validate their information through Articles of Incorporation, Business License, etc., to distribute their apps in BlackBerry’s app store.

The log post says that this is an interim measure and the company is looking for a sound long-term solution towards it. RIM is also working on providing a fully automated online process.

RIM has also extended the free BlackBerry PlayBook tablet offer deadline to March 31st to ensure that all BlackBerry app developers have an opportunity to participate and to get their apps submitted for BlackBerry PlayBook.

Tags: BlackBerry APP Developers, Blackberry app world updates, blackberry developers, RIM developers updates, RIM updates

Blackberry App World hits 10,000 apps mark

Sep 7, 2010 Blackberry Developer, News

As we are nearing the BlackBerry Developers Conference ,we come to hear more and more about it . Recently  Alex Kinsella, Senior Product Manager for BlackBerry App World at Research In Motion tweeted out some news for us all. BlackBerry App World has surpassed the 10,000 available application mark. This years BlackBerry Developer Conference is shaping up to be quite the event and hopefully, with all the great things happening within the BlackBerry platofrm it won’t be long now before BlackBerry App World passes its next 10,000 applications.

• Check out the DevCon 2010 Sneak Peek Videos
• Visit BlackBerry App World Today

Tags: blackberry app devlopers, Blackberry Developer, blackberry developer news, blackberry developers, Blackberry Development, developers news

New Blackberry developers group formed at Denver , Colorado

Aug 24, 2010 Blackberry Developer, Blackberry Development, News

We are seeing many new developer groups being formed these days and now its Colorado BlackBerry Developer Group , the inaugural meeting of the Colorado BlackBerry Developer Group will take place on August 25th at 6:30pm at the Rock Bottom Brewery. The meeting is open to all Blackberry developers and folks interested in learning more about Blackberry development. Developer Group meetings are a great opportunity for developers to share their learning’s and interests, network with other developers and receive ongoing support from other members!

For more information on the Colorado BlackBerry Developer Group and details on the upcoming meeting, please visit the official group page at http://www.coloradoblackberrydev.com/

Blackberry developers can check the list below for a group in your area. Blackberry developers can also start a new group if one doesn’t yet exist in your area!

Tags: Blackberry Developer, blackberry developers, Blackberry Development, BlackBerryDevelopment, developers news

BlackBerry OS 6.0 May Lack the Developers’ Faith

Aug 5, 2010 News

BlackBerry OS 6.0 is launched by RIM in concert with the rolling out of the new BlackBerry Torch, a phone that features both a touch-screen model and a side-out keyboard. Now the question is, whether BlackBerry developers would welcome the new OS ? Mobile developers today have a number of options in terms of platforms, including Apple’s iOS 4 and Google’s Android. Besides these two frontrunners there are Microsoft Windows Phone 7, and Nokia Symbian3. In such a competitive market, it is important for any platform to gain the faith and acceptance of the developer community, which the newly launched OS 6.0 may lack.

It is to note that Smartphone users want access to a versatile range of apps across all categories. It is definitely a big challenge for RIM to match the variety now available with the Apple and Android platforms. So for the success of a platform, it has to be apps friendly.

Now it has also been reported that the applications written for BlackBerry OS 5, the most used one, will run on version 6. But the reverse is not always true. RIM has commented today, “BlackBerry 6 is designed to run on some, but not all, BlackBerry phones now in the market, including the BlackBerry Bold 9700 and 9650 and the Pearl 3G.” As of now, you can’t upgrade too; however RIM says, “upgrades await carrier certifications”.

It’s a kind of a ‘chicken-or-egg’ problem now; users want to have applications, and BlackBerry app developers want an assurance about the availability of users. In a nutshell, to convince the BlackBerry developers to launch apps on a platform which is yet to be accepted well by the users is going to be difficult and that might actually be a key factor in determining the success of BlackBerry OS 6.0. On the other hand, there’s no announcement of OS 6 devices from Sprint, Verizon or T-Mobile till now.

It would be interesting to see how fast RIM can address these issues to increase the reach of their OS 6.0 and if it gains acceptability of the BlackBerry developer community.

Tags: blackberry developers, blackberry OS 6.0, BlackBerry Torch

Super Apps Developer Challenge for Blackberry developers

May 3, 2010 News

Perfecto mobile comes up with Super Apps Developer Challenge. The Blackberry developers who submit their apps for the developer challenge will receive 5 hours to use the Perfecto Mobile Handset Cloud service , and additional testing hours will be offered on discounted price . In addition to that the winners of Super Apps Developer Challenge will receive upto 100 free hours of service usage as prize .

For more information and to know how to apply, go to to the Blackberry partners fund website , To sign-up and receive the special Super Apps Developer Challenge Offer and for further information visit Perfecto Mobile’s site.

Tags: app dev, blackberry developers, developer challenge, Super Apps Developer Challenge

Blackberry development shows interest in Cross platform Application development

May 3, 2010 News

Appcelerator is a cross- platform Application development company , as the name suggests it would be an acceleration in application development . Appcelerator have announced beta support for Blackberry. The cross-platform application is already used by iPhone developers and Android developers to create rich native apps , as well as PC , Mac and Linux using familiar HTML and CSS .
Appcelerator has seen a growth in interest towards Blackberry development . Blackberry developers indicated interest in Business and productivity Application development .
Appcelerator is open for beta registrations until May 21st , and would provide the software on JUNE 1st
Blackberry developers can visit the Appcelerator website and register for the program .

Tags: Appcelerator, Application development, blackberry developers, blackberry news, cross- platform, developers news

Blackberry Developers Need To Think Over The Low CTR’s in Mobile Advertising

Apr 15, 2010 Blackberry Developer

Smaato is a mobile advertising and ad optimization company which has recently announced their March 2010 figures on mobile ad click through rates (CTR), which shows that Blackberry has least click through rates in mobile advertising, where Windows and other Featured phones have seen a significant growth in CTR.

It’s a main concern for Blackberry developers and advertisers ,there are many advertisers which sponsor developers to meet their development cost and bring their apps in market for a low price or even for free , but low CTR’s would eventually affect Blackberry apps in the market , the advertisers would step back from Blackberry’s market and place their ads somewhere else , why would advertisers think of investing their money on an application which doesn’t bring them back a good revenue .

I think the way these ads are served is not appealing to Blackberry users or maybe Blackberry users simply don’t care about the ads. I personally dont click such ads unless they are really useful on my part of interests, maybe Blackberry developers should work over it and design attractive ads which are targeted to the Blackberry users requirements and give the advertisers a better chance to reach the audience. Ads can be a source of healthy information as long as they don’t muck up the user experience .

Tags: advertisers, blackberry ads, blackberry advertising, blackberry app devlopers, Blackberry CTR, blackberry developers, blackberry news