Blackberry Development Talk

RIM expands app ecosystem, to provide more commercial opportunities to BlackBerry developers.

Mar 25, 2011 Blackberry Developer, Blackberry Development, News

BlackBerry app developers for the BlackBerry PlayBook will soon get additional tools and opportunities to expand their business. RIM has announced new plans to widen the app ecosystem for its upcoming Tablet.

RIM is planning to launch two optional “app players” that will provide an application run-time environment for Android v2.3 apps and BlackBerry Java apps. The app players will help PlayBook users to download Android apps and BlackBerry Java apps from BlackBerry App World.

“The BlackBerry PlayBook is an amazing tablet. The power that we have embedded creates one of the most compelling app experiences available in a mobile computing device today,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion.

“The upcoming addition of BlackBerry Java and Android apps for the BlackBerry PlayBook on BlackBerry App World will provide our users with an even greater choice of apps and will also showcase the versatility of the platform,” he added.

Higher degree of AP compatibility in the PlayBook OS will allow BlackBerry Developers to swiftly and effortlessly port their apps.  The app players can be downloaded from BlackBerry App World and will be placed in a secure “sandbox” on the device.

BlackBerry app developers interested in seeing the new app players can see demos at BlackBerry World in Orlando, Florida (May 3 to 5, 2011) (www.blackberryworld.com).

Additionally, RIM will soon release the native SDK for the BlackBerry PlayBook which will enable C/C++ application development on the Tablet OS. For game developers, RIM has gained support from two leading game development tooling companies which will allow developers to use the cross-platform game engines from Unity Technologies and Ideaworks Labs to bring their games to the PlayBook.

RIM also announced the BlackBerry Tablet OS NDK, which is at present in limited alpha release, will be converted into open Beta by this summer. The NDK will allow app developers to build high-performance, applications with industry standard GNU toolchains create advanced 2D and 3D applications with special effects by making use og programmable shaders available in the OpenGL ES 2.0.

Other features of the upcoming NDK includes:

• QNX POSIX library support and C/C++ compliance for quick and easy application porting and for creating native extensions.
• Easy integration of device events like gesture swipes and touch screen inputs.
• Eclipse CDT (C/C++ Development Tools)
• Debug and analysis tools

“The response to the BlackBerry PlayBook from the developer community has been exceptional. Our commitment to supporting HTML5 and Adobe AIR development has resonated and spurred developers to create fun and innovative applications for BlackBerry PlayBook users,” said David Yach, Chief Technology Officer, Software at Research In Motion.

“The upcoming BlackBerry Tablet OS NDK beta will add C/C++ tools to our repertoire and gives developers one of the broadest and deepest platforms to develop on,” he added.

Source- RIM press release

Tags: Android apps, BlackBerry APP Developers, BlackBerry Java apps, BlackBerry PlayBook apps, BlackBerry Tablet OS NDK