The latest iteration of the BlackBerry® Java® Application Development tools has arrived and it brings numerous enhancements. As outlined in our BlackBerry Java Application Development Beta 3 announcement there are already significant enhancements to the BlackBerry Java platform in v5.0 and the Beta 4 release builds upon that with the following new additions:
| Enhanced BrowserField
(net.rim.device.api.browser.field2.BrowserField) |
A substantially improved and enhanced version of the existing BrowserField functionality. |
|
Widgets API (net.rim.device.api.web.WidgetExtensions) |
Allows you to register your own JavascriptTM extensions for a widget. |
|
Widget Extension APIs (net.rim.device.api.script.*) |
Develop your own custom BlackBerry Widget extensions into Java. |
|
MEID Retrieve API (net.rim.device.api.system.CDMAInfo) |
For developers on CDMA devices, you can now retrieve the MEID (ESN replacement). |
|
Multi-Line API (net.rim.blackberry.api.phone.*) |
Provides developers with access to multiple phone lines on the device (e.g. mobile vs. work). |
|
PhoneScreenField replacement (net.rim.blackberry.api.phone.phonegui.*) |
Replaces the PhoneScreenField with a more flexible screen to allow full customization. |
|
MIDP 2.1 Support |
Fully supported in this release. |
|
Content-Folder Support |
Specify the device folder for your application (e.g. not just the Downloads folder). |
|
WBXMLWriter and WBXMLParser (net.rim.device.api.xml.jaxp.*) |
Updates to ease provisioning of specific tables and allows for support of multiple codepages. |
|
Biometric API (net.rim.device.api.biometric.*) |
Provides ability to extract fingerprint info from a smartcard to match against a scanned fingerprint. |
|
Network API (net.rim.device.api.io.transport.*) |
Simplifies the code necessary to connect to the network across a variety of scenarios. |
|
User Authentication API (net.rim.device.api.userauthenticator.*) |
Allows for alternative two factor authentication mechanisms to unlock the device. |
We are really excited about these new APIs and look forward to seeing what you can do with them! For more detailed information on these new APIs, check out the Beta 4 Release Notes. I would love to hear what you think of the new BlackBerry Java Application Development v5.0 Beta 4 and to get your feedback on the APIs.
Download BlackBerry Java Application Development v5.0 Beta 4
BlackBerry Java Application Development v5.0 Beta 4 Release Notes
