[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Winner – Best App
Awarded to: BB Rocks

University students: Felipe Bonezi, Vinícius Araújo, Marcos Vinícius Silva and Vinícius Dias decided to combine their wide range of mobile app development experience and participate in the BlackBerry Jam Session Hackathon in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It’s a good thing they did – the team’s submission, Beegoo, was named “Best App!”

On their winning app, Beegoo…

“Many people want the convenience of a car but don’t own one. As a way to help minimize the impact of the greenhouse effect, we developed Beegoo. Beegoo is a carpooling social network where people can either offer or solicit rides with others. The main goal of the app is to minimize the need for all members of the social network to own a car. The Beegoo app has the potential to do both social and environmental good.”

On developing with Cascades++…

The BB Rocks team has a lot of experience developing for other platforms and the Beegoo app was the team’s first time working with Research In Motion. “We studied Cascades++ a couple weeks before participating in the BlackBerry Jam Session Hackathon and it was really easy to learn. We were able to leverage our past experience with C++ and Qt. Cascades™++ really does a lot of the work for you. The interface builder is really easy to understand and we developed our user interface using C++ and the Qt Modeling Language.

On participating in the Hackathon and working with Research In Motion…

“The BlackBerry Jam Session Hackathon was a great venue to learn new solutions to meet our development needs, make friends and do some great networking. We learned a new programming language and won the challenge, so there isn’t anything better than that! RIM is a company devoted to developers. We feel that the future is very promising for the BlackBerry 10 platform.”

Winner – Best Red Bull App
Awarded to: Team Red Bull A-Z

Team Red Bull A-Z features talented students and developers with experience primarily focused on web development. Their Red Bull A-Z app is actually the first mobile application anyone on the team has ever developed!

On their winning app, “Red Bull A-Z”…

“The application is essentially a message aggregator that users can launch to follow a live event. For example, if the user is watching a mixed martial arts fight, they can follow all of the real-time messages that are coming in from a variety of social networks.”

On deciding to participate in the BlackBerry Jam Session Hackathon…

“Events like this are always great for developers. The Hackathon was particularly important for us because we had never developed a mobile application, and didn’t know very much about the BlackBerry 10 platform. If we had any questions, the Research In Motion team was more than happy to help. Their feedback was also very helpful.”

On choosing to develop with the BlackBerry 10 SDK for Adobe AIR…

“One of our team members had extensive experience in web development, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Adobe ActionScript 3, so he set the environment one day before the event. It was a real benefit to be able to choose between a broad range of work flows, editors, SDK versions and different ways to compile and deploy the project. We used FDT and the Flex SDK to edit and compile the project. Once we did all the configurations, it was very easy to configure the other computers in the same way. We loved being able to work with Adobe AIR, especially since one of our team members had so much experience with Adobe ActionScript 3. Research In Motion clearly did its homework!”

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Winner – Best Design
Awarded to: Team Voando Baixo

With limited experience in the mobile application world, Team Voando Baixo decided to participate in the BlackBerry Jam Session Hackathon in Campinas, Brazil to learn about developing for BlackBerry smartphones, meet new people, and of course, try to win an award! The team’s app, Voando Baixo, is a flight price ranker that alerts users when prices are low, based on the user’s specified price range.

On developing with HTML5/BlackBerry WebWorks SDK…

“Working with HTML5 and the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK allowed us to leverage our existing web development experience in JavaScript, CSS and HTML. This was a huge asset for us because this was our first time developing a mobile application.”

On the importance of BlackBerry 10 being an open platform…

“It’s really important that developers can draw on existing skills and experiences to develop for BlackBerry 10. This flexibility opens the door for many developers to use any number of languages to develop good mobile apps. It was surprising and stimulating for us to know that.”

On being excited about the BlackBerry 10 platform…

“Our first impression of the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device was that it looked really good. It was a very fast and beautiful device. We think that there is a very promising market for BlackBerry 10 and we believe it will be really successful in the long run. If you’re an app developer, try working with the BlackBerry 10 – it is flexible and easy.”

Winner – Best Game
Awarded to: Alpaca Team

As a group of artists, programmers and designers, Alpaca Team is made up of former colleagues who develop games in their free time. With more than three years of experience in mobile app development, the team won Best Game for ‘Luke at the Stars,’ a puzzle game that was originally developed for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

On developing with the BlackBerry 10 SDK for Adobe AIR…

“We already had experience developing games in Adobe ActionScript 3, so we were happy to be able to choose a tool we were familiar with. The benefits of the BlackBerry 10 SDK extend from the development to publishing. Using the SDK was easy and simple. We were able to test our game on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, which allowed us to make modifications to the gameplay and interface and create a better user experience in a short amount of time. The SDK also helped us on versioning and publishing.”

On the importance of BlackBerry 10 being an open platform…

“The flexibility is really important to many developers. The popularity of languages and codes changes with time and it’s crucial to keep the platforms open to accommodate that. We’re using Adobe AIR today, but tomorrow, who knows? We might use HTML5, for instance, but maintain the ability to develop for both the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet as well as BlackBerry smartphones. That’s a huge advantage for developers.”

On the benefits of participating in the Hackathon…

“The Hackathon was a fantastic experience for our team. This event demonstrated to us that we could use our experiences collaboratively to create something great. Sitting in a room with so many talented developers who were willing to share their thoughts and skills was rewarding. Our game was in a very initial stage so it was very useful to hear the general feedback from the judges. The BlackBerry crew was very supportive and willing to help. If you ever have a chance to participate in an event like this and learn about the operating systems, devices and how to implement your ideas we would strongly recommend it! Our game is set to be released in mid-January!”

For more information on this team, visit:
Website: http://alpacateam.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/alpacateam
Twitter: http://twitter.com/alpacagames

We’ve updated our flight arrival boards to provide statuses on all of the feature functionality delivered with the September BlackBerry® 10 development tools update. Along with this, we’ve updated some milestones leading up to the Gold SDK releases.

In my previous blog post, I mentioned that we were still considering whether or not to do another set of SDK updates after our September release and before the final Gold SDK build. Based on feedback from our developer community, we’ve decided to add another SDK release on the road to Gold. We’ve updated the SDK release schedule to reflect these needs while ensuring that there’s no impact to the first BlackBerry 10 smartphone being delivered on-time in Q1 2013. The updated SDK schedule is as follows:

November: SDK Gold Candidate

• Updates to all SDKs
• Mainly bug fixes

December: SDK Gold

• Updates to all SDKs
• Mainly bug fixes

December: Keyboard device SDK Beta

• Updates to necessary SDKs targeted at compatibility testing for QWERTY devices
• User Experience tweaks to Cascades/Adobe AIR controls to account for screen resolution changes

The November release will be a gold candidate release which will contain mainly bug fixes and further stabilized SDKs for you to continue testing. This will be the SDK candidate that RIM® will continue to test and be finalized in December as the Gold SDK. Be sure to check-out the updated flight arrival boards for the details associated to the SDK of your choice.

Wait a second, you show a Keyboard device SDK Beta. What the heck is that?

In December 2012, we’ll also be releasing the necessary Beta SDKs to allow you to perform compatibility testing of your application for the first BlackBerry 10 QWERTY device. Since this new device will be a different screen resolution (720×720 vs 1280×768) than the first all-touch BlackBerry 10 device, we want to make sure you have simulators and updated SDKs to test your applications.

This SDK release will also include any UI tweaks for the Cascades™ and Adobe® AIR® controls to match the new Keyboard device screen resolution. The controls mainly affected are Action Bars, which are adjusted take up less screen real estate.

Why do I see some new items appearing in the upcoming November release?

With this current September release, we do consider the Native SDK, Adobe AIR and Android™ Runtime API complete. However, there are a few small additional items that will be coming into the November release. These are mainly small additions that will not affect the main APIs, which are now considered complete. BlackBerry® WebWorks™ is one of the exceptions that will be continuing to deliver new APIs both in the Gold Candidate and Gold release.

Where do I find these Flight Arrival Boards?

You can check out each of the Flight Arrival Boards by clicking on the “Roadmap” links on each of the websites or check out the links below:

Native SDK
Cascades Application Framework Roadmap
Core lower level API Roadmap
HTML5/BlackBerry WebWorks SDK Roadmap
Adobe AIR SDK Roadmap
Android Runtime Roadmap

Over the last year, our mantra has been “you ask, we act”. We announced two new initiatives last week: Built for BlackBerry® and the $10K Developer Commitment. We’ve put a lot of thought and work into both programs – with two ultimate goals in mind; a chance for you to build a successful business on BlackBerry® 10 and a great app experience for our users. BlackBerry® WebWorks™ and our BlackBerry 10 Native SDK are designed to help achieve both these goals.

You asked (and rightly so): “What about apps built in AIR?” Well, apps built in Adobe® AIR® are awesome – we see them every day on the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet. Josh even wrote a post about amazingly fast games built in Adobe Flash.

Well – you asked, and we’re doing. Starting today – apps built using AIR tooling (BlackBerry 10 SDK for Adobe AIR, NME, Flash Builder) are eligible for both the Built for BlackBerry and the $10K Developer Commitment programs.

We’ve said it before – quality matters. Can’t wait to see what you build.

BlackBerry Jam Americas – Sept 25-27, San Jose CA

BlackBerry® Jam Americas 2012 is a showcase for the bold, new direction BlackBerry is heading with the upcoming BlackBerry® 10 platform. The event attracts developers and industry leaders who understand the power of BlackBerry and want to build their success with the platform. Whether you’re a Native, Web, or Android™ developer, don’t miss this opportunity to explore the powerful, game-changing BlackBerry 10 platform.

Join us, September 25-27 in San Jose, California. Register Now and use promo code DJAA45 to register for only $299.00

Fight the bad guys in Rune Raiders, an exciting, easy-to-learn adventure game.

Developers like Retro64 Inc, Artificial Games and Innivo have brought their titles to BlackBerry® in record time. For Ido Yehieli, this meant an increase in performance of “more than 10 times compared to using Adobe AIR” with only a few small changes to his code. How was this possible?

NME is a fast, cross-platform framework for rapid game and application development. Unlike other libraries, NME does not require that you write native code. It does not use a virtual machine or a scripting language. NME uses a language called Haxe to convert your code to C++ and OpenGL, with amazing results.

BunnyMark is a popular benchmark for Flash Player. Testing on a BlackBerry® PlayBook™, Adobe AIR rendered 500 bunnies @ 11 FPS. Using NME, the same device rendered an astonishing 5250 bunnies @ 30 FPS. NME applications are significantly faster than AIR (with or without Stage3D) and are comparable to applications built with other native frameworks.

Help Mr Nibbles solve devious puzzles and become the first hamster to enter orbit!

In addition to native, NME also supports publishing for Flash and beta support for HTML5. This offers a unique opportunity to create games that are optimized for the web, desktop and mobile, using a single codebase.

“I just tried [NME] today – super impressive. One codebase, compiled straight away … 60FPS!” - James Frost

This flexibility also enables support for BlackBerry OS 6 and 7 devices. Since they are unable to run native C/C++ applications, they can be supported using HTML5, Apache Cordova and BlackBerry® WebWorks™.

Pakkuman’s Defense is a fun and satisfying mix of Pac-Man and tower defense.

It is simple to build a game using NME. For anyone who already knows Flash, NME is an instant transition. Other developers will find that the API and language are still easy to learn.

Haxe shares roots with ECMAScript languages like Actionscript and Javascript, but supports more features such as conditional compilation, type inference, typedefs, enums, generics, iterators and compiler macros. Haxe also has a vibrant and helpful developer community.

“I think making this game in Haxe/NME is about as inspired as I’ve been as a developer for a long time. Really exciting.” - Andreas Rønning

Many popular libraries are available for NME, like Flixel, HaxePunk, awe6, Nape and Box2D. NME also supports native C/C++ extensions.

Children love to create with Make A Scene: Farmyard, Make A Scene: Under The Sea, Make A Scene: Safari, Make A Scene: Outer Space, Make A Scene: Polar Adventure, Make A Scene: Jungle and Make A Scene: Princess Fairy Tales.

NME is available free for Windows, Mac and Linux: http://www.haxenme.org/download.

If you have more questions about Haxe or NME, or would like to learn more about how to build your own native BlackBerry games using the framework, let us know with your comments!

BlackBerry Jam Americas – Sept 25-27, San Jose CA

BlackBerry® Jam Americas 2012 is a showcase for the bold, new direction BlackBerry is heading with the upcoming BlackBerry® 10 platform. The event attracts developers and industry leaders who understand the power of BlackBerry and want to build their success with the platform. Whether you’re a Native, Web, or Android™ developer, don’t miss this opportunity to explore the powerful, game-changing BlackBerry 10 platform.

Join us, September 25-27 in San Jose, California. Register Now and use promo code DJAA45 to register for only $299.00

When Javier D’Accorso learned about the Desafío BlackBerry contest last March, the longtime developer decided to participate and develop an application for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet. After partnering with graphic designer Damian Hadyi, D’Accorso leveraged Adobe AIR to develop an interactive children’s storybook application that has become popular in both his native Argentina as well as around the world.

D’Accorso talked about the benefits of receiving ongoing support from the RIM® team in Argentina, the speed and straightforward nature of developing for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, and the features he was able to easily integrate into the app.

Q: How important is the support you’ve received from the RIM team in Argentina?

Javier: BlackBerry smartphones are extremely popular in Argentina and as a result there is a great group of BlackBerry developers and forums in the country. It’s important in any community to have the opportunity to ask questions, learn from others and be recognized for what you do. RIM has done a wonderful job enabling that exchange of information.

I actually developed the Perico Pirata children’s storybook application for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet as part of the ‘Desafío BlackBerry’ challenge. A really important moment in the development process was my participation in the Buenos Aires Hackathon. I interacted with industry experts and formed ongoing relationships with a number of RIM gurus, who I continue to work with. Thanks to their experience and rapid responses, I’ve been able to incorporate lots of functionality into the application. This level of personal interaction is something you don’t find working with other platforms, where you need to look through dozens of forums to get any answers.

Q: Describe your experience developing for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet?

Javier: My partner and I combined storybook elements with the powerful technology of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and quickly saw how we could make something simple yet appealing. I analyzed the distinct programming languages and decided to develop using Adobe AIR, which was an excellent decision. It was amazing just how easy it was to implement all of our ideas. I barely had to do anything to make a compilation for the BlackBerry PlayBook and the animation ran smoothly and quickly. I was extremely impressed by the hardware on the BlackBerry PlayBook – the performance and graphics were incredible and it was very easy to incorporate the level of interaction that we wanted.

The Perico Pirata children’s storybook application took us about a month to develop. That’s including the last two weeks, which was time that we used to gather feedback from having the app tested by family and friends. I believe that anyone working with Flash on the web, or with another mobile platform, should try developing for the PlayBook because it’s so easy.

Q: What are some of the features that you’ve been able to incorporate into the application?

Javier: We heard from parents who tried the app and they agreed that it would be great to be able to interact with the microphone. I was able to tweak the functionality so the user could speak to the characters in the application and hear their voices as they responded. I checked online to learn how to make the appropriate changes in Adobe AIR and we had them done within a day or so. I was also impressed with how easy it was to integrate the camera. After referring to the available documentation, the app had full, camera functionality.

Q: Do you plan on developing games for the BlackBerry 10 platform?

Javier: Absolutely. There are a few children’s games I’ve worked on in conjunction with some big entertainment and production companies that I would love to bring onto the BlackBerry 10 platform. I’ve been researching the BlackBerry 10 SDK for Adobe AIR and I’m excited for the great functionality that the new platform will offer. My experience developing for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet has been so straightforward and the performance has been incredible. I think this next stage will be just as simple and powerful.

Beta 2 of the BlackBerry® 10 SDK for Adobe® AIR® now has support for participating in the BlackBerry 10 Invoke Framework. You can find all of the APIs in the QNXDevice.ane and they are all documented.

Invoking a Application

By leveraging the Invoke API, you can invoke virtually any other application on the BlackBerry® smartphone through some simple API call, where you’ll set a parameter for the app you want to invoke and then pass in any parameters that application is expecting. A typical example would be that your application can invoke the BlackBerry® Maps application when it comes across an address. InvokeManager.invoke() will invoke an application.

When the application has been successfully invoked, an InvokeEvent.INVOKE_TARGET event will be dispatched. If there was an error invoking the target, an ErrorEvent.ERROR event will be dispatched. Please refer to the following Knowledge Base article for details on some known issues which will be addressed in an upcoming patch.

Invoking a Viewer

InvokeManager.invokeViewer() will invoke a viewer. A Viewer class is returned and is used to communicate with the viewer.

Let’s say you have an image viewer application and you want to invoke it from the main application you’re working on. In the main application, you want to pass the image file that the imager viewer app will open when invoked.

Below is a sample of how you can invoke a viewer and wait for it to be created. This example assumes that you have created the viewerRequest object with the correct data for your viewer.

var viewer:Viewer = InvokeManager.invokeManager.invokeViewer( viewerRequest );
viewer.addEventListener( ViewerEvent.VIEWER_CREATED, viewerCreated );

private function viewerCreated( event:ViewerEvent ):void
{
   //viewer is created and ready to communicate with.
}

Making your Application an Invoke Handler

If you are developing an application that can be invoked by another application, you will want to add a listener for the invoke event at the very start of your application. These should be the first lines of your application.
Once you have received the invoke event, you can check the startup mode and get the data that you were invoked with.
Below is a sample of how you would accomplish this:

InvokeManager.invokeManager.addEventListener(InvokeEvent.INVOKE, onInvoked );
private function onInvoked( event:InvokeEvent ):void
{
    if( InvokeManager.invokeManager.startupMode == InvokeStartupMode.INVOKE )
    {
        var invokeRequest:InvokeRequest = InvokeManager.invokeManager.startupRequest;
    }
    else if( InvokeManager.invokeManager.startupMode == InvokeStartupMode.VIEWER )
    {
        var viewerRequest:InvokeViewerRequest = InvokeManager.invokeManager.startupViewerRequest;
    }
}

Query a list of targets

You can also query a list of targets or viewers on the device by calling the InvokeManager.queryTargets() method. At some point in the future, this will make a pop-up list in your application that will allow users to select items from the list. For now, it returns the results and it is up to you to use those values in your invoke() and invokeViewer() calls.

InvokeEvent

No matter how your application is started, you will receive an InvokeEvent dispatched by the InvokeManager. In order to determine how your app was started, you can check the InvokeManager.startupMode in your InvokeEvent handler. So, your application would look something like the following, assuming that your application can be launched as a target and a viewer:

package
{
    import qnx.events.InvokeEvent;
    import qnx.invoke.*;

    public class Main extends Sprite
    {

        public function Main()
        {
            //NOTE: THIS MUST BE THE FIRST THING SET IN YOUR APPLICATION CONSTRUCTOR
            InvokeManager.invokeManager.addEventListener(InvokeEvent.INVOKE, onInvoke );
        }

        private function onInvoke( event:InvokeEvent ):void
        {
            if( InvokeManager.invokeManager.startupMode == InvokeStartupMode.INVOKE )
            {
                //invoked as an application/target.
                var data:InvokeRequest = InvokeManager.invokeManager.startupRequest;
            }
            else if( InvokeManager.invokeManager.startupMode == InvokeStartupMode.VIEWER )
            {
                //invoked as a viewer
                var data:InvokeViewerRequest = InvokeManager.invokeManager.startupViewerRequest;
            }
            else
            {
                //launched by the pressing on the icon on the home screen.
            }
        }
    }
}

Closing a Viewer

There are two different ways a viewer can be closed:

1. From the application
2. From the viewer

When an application wishes to close a viewer that it has created, it can simply call the Viewer.dispose() method. This will cause the viewer to be removed immediately.

A viewer can request to be closed by the application and should never actually attempt to close itself directly. Viewers can call the InvokeManager.requestViewerClose() method. This will send a message to the application requesting that it be closed. The Viewer instance in the application will dispatch a ViewerEvent.VIEWER_CLOSE_REQUEST event. When application receives this event, it should call the dispose() method on the viewer to close it. The reason this doesn’t happen automatically is so that applications can transition viewers out before removing them. We may make this a bit more automated in the future, and we’ll let you know when this happens.

Viewer message relay

Viewers can send data to applications using the InvokeManager.viewerSendMessage() method. The Viewer instance will then dispatch ViewerEvent.VIEWER_MESSAGE events with the message and data properties set to what was passed into the viewerSendMessage(). Here is an example of how you would use this:

Viewer code

InvokeManager.invokeManager.viewerSendMessage( "select", {name:"Fred"});

App Code

__currentViewer = InvokeManager.invokeManager.invokeViewer(viewerRequest);
__currentViewer.addEventListener( ViewerEvent.VIEWER_MESSAGE, onMessage );

private function onMessage( e:ViewerEvent ):void
{
    trace( e.message, e.data ); //outputs "select Fred";
}

image from Indian Creek Web Design

I’ve spent many hours talking to members of our developer community both online and in person at our conferences and meet-ups, and I know you’re excited by these tools. Last week, I attended my first BlackBerry® 10 Jam in Toronto and I was blown away by the energy of the developers in attendance.

What to expect in this first Beta

The BlackBerry 10 SDKs don’t jump to awesomeness in their first iteration; it’s an evolution to greatness. In this first Beta we’ve provided the foundational building blocks and a great start for developers to see where we’re heading. The SDKs allow you to create the BlackBerry 10 user experience with core controls and a great application framework to build the necessities of your application around networking, storage and other foundational pieces. It’s not like we’re starting from scratch; all the functionality provided in the SDKs for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet is also available.

We’ve also made sure that the core UI controls in the Adobe® AIR® runtime have been re-skinned to provide the BlackBerry 10 look and feel along with updating bbUI.js for WebWorks developers to provide the same BlackBerry 10 experience as you find in Cascades™.

Did you just say “first Beta” – and what does it mean to evolve?

We’ll be providing a series of Beta releases on the road to the gold BlackBerry 10 SDK. I want to make sure I set expectations with the community on how we’re approaching the beta cycle. As we evolve each of the SDKs, it means that on top of adding functionality we may need to make changes to functionality released in a previous beta. We are making sure that we examine all the possible angles before we make changes that could affect your application’s code during the Beta and are trying to minimize these changes as much as possible. However, there are times when we’ll have to make changes to ensure that we have solid footings for moving forward with follow up releases. As we move closer to gold, our goal is to make sure that changes in the SDK do not affect compatibility with your code.

What about PIM, BBM, Share and Invocation Framework APIs?

RIM has a strong heritage in delivering fantastic deep integration into the core BlackBerry experience and providing a differentiating factor for your application on the platform, and this will continue with BlackBerry 10. As we evolve the BlackBerry 10 SDKs, these deep integration APIs will be made available, but they aren’t quite ready for 3rd party consumption yet.

These APIs are still seeing refactoring as we move through all the use cases of our core applications. We want to ensure that both our core apps are using the same APIs as 3rd party developers and that the APIs see minimal changes after they are made available in a Beta.

I won’t list all of the APIs that are coming, but I’ll list the hot topics where I usually get inquiries:

• BBM™
• PIM (Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes)
• Messages/Email
• NFC
• Share/Invoke Framework
  • Adding your menu item to an existing app
  • Invoking and being invoked by another app
• String pattern registry
• Geocoding & reverse geocoding
• Bluetooth®

All these and more will be coming in follow-up Beta releases, so make sure you grab the SDKs and start building the core of your application to ensure that you’re ready to integrate these features as soon as they’re available!

In addition to developing applications with Adobe® Flash® Builder®, the BlackBerry® 10 SDK beta for Adobe® AIR® also gives you the option to integrate with FDT 5. FDT 5 is a flexible development toolkit in Eclipse™ for interactive developers. In my personal experience, FDT has a great work flow. The advanced refactoring capabilities, ASDoc support, SWF Bridge, and Haxe support make this a great package.

FDT 5 comes in 2 different versions, FDT 5 Free, and FDT 5 Max. FDT 5 Max has additional features that are unavailable in the free version but requires a license.  More information on the different versions can be found on the FDT 5 website.

Before installing the BlackBerry 10 SDK beta for Adobe AIR make sure that FDT 5 is installed. While installing the SDK you will be able to select Powerflasher’s FDT during the Integration Choice step. If you’ve already installed the SDK you can simply rerun the setup wizard.

There is a guide for creating your first application in FDT for BlackBerry 10 located in the documentation. If you need any help getting started or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to drop by the Adobe AIR development forum.

Turns out I had locked the app’s orientation, but neglected to actually specify which orientation it should be locked to. On the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet it was fine, since the default was landscape and that’s what I wanted, but the Blackberry 10 Dev Alpha is a portrait device. A quick change to add <aspectRatio>landscape</aspectRatio> to my app.xml (not even the code!), and I’m done.

Since I had specified the dimensions of the SWF in my main action script file, I didn’t even need to change any of the sizes of the menus or anything (though I probably should have just made everything scale dynamically in the first place). Either way, it only took me a couple minutes to sort out, and all I did was fix a legitimate bug. I didn’t even have to use the BlackBerry 10 SDK to compile it, since I wasn’t using any new APIs. So if you already have an Adobe AIR app, you are probably good to go. Congratulations on writing your first app for BlackBerry 10!