Photo by Bob Mical http://www.flickr.com/photos/small_realm/

Do you like Candy? How about a big bowl of Jelly Beans? Well, I’m happy to satisfy your sweet tooth with the Beta release of the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps and Plug-in for Android Development Tools for BlackBerry 10.2.

If you didn’t get the hint, this release includes the first beta release of Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean). All the great features that were previously available in Gingerbread will continue to be supported, as well as some specific Jelly Bean OS features such as Fragments, embedded fragments, animation framework and hardware acceleration. Keep in mind this is the first beta release, and there will bound to be some bugs as we work our way towards the gold release later in the summer.

If you want to start testing your app on Jelly Bean, just grab the BlackBerry 10.2 Beta SDK OS.  Support for Jelly Bean in the BlackBerry 10.2 device simulator will be coming later in the summer.

Additionally, our Android Runtime tools have been updated to support Eclipse 4.2, Android Development Tools v22 and can now target Android SDK level 10 to 17.

How do you start using these new tools? Jump to the Runtime for Android Apps microsite. There is an updated 1.6 release for the BlackBerry Eclipse™ Plug-in for Android Development Tools and Command-line tools to help get you using all these Android Runtime features for BlackBerry 10. For the Eclipse users, make sure to point your update site to:

http://bdsc.webapps.blackberry.com/android/downloads/eclipseplugin/

To see the full details and known issues, check out the release notes for the BlackBerry Plug-in for Android Development Tools and BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps.

Image from
http://failblog.cheezburger.com/

On our developer website, we provide a seamless solution consisting of replacing the Google Maps library for Android with a web view integrating the web version of Google Maps. More information can be found by following this link.

That said, a fellow Italian developer (the maker of Prezzi Benzina), just sent me detailed information on how they easily replaced Google Maps with Open Street Maps, a free worldwide map providing open data under the ODBL (Open Data Commons Open Database License).

The result? Outstanding! And since it is a very common issue faced by many Android developers making use of Google Maps in their Android applications, we wanted to share in this blog how they did it.

Download

First of all, you must download the Open Street Maps library from the following link:
https://code.google.com/p/osmdroid/

You can either download the jar ready to use osmdroid-android-3.0.8.jar or download the source code and compile it (recommended).

Step 1: Layout Change

Pretty easy. You code goes from

<com.google.android.maps.MapView
        android:id="@+id/mapview"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="fill_parent"
        android:apiKey="@+string/mapviewkey"
        android:clickable="true" />

to

<org.osmdroid.views.MapView
        android:id="@+id/mapview"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="fill_parent" />

Unlike Google Maps, no key is needed for OSM.

Step 2: Modify Import

Most class names remain the same, so it’s very straight forward..

Your code goes from:

import com.google.android.maps.GeoPoint;
import com.google.android.maps.MapController;
import com.google.android.maps.MapView;

to

import org.osmdroid.util.GeoPoint;
import org.osmdroid.views.MapController;
import org.osmdroid.views.MapView;

In addition, you might want to add the following:

import org.osmdroid.views.overlay.ItemizedIconOverlay;
import org.osmdroid.views.overlay.ItemizedIconOverlay.OnItemGestureListener;
import org.osmdroid.views.overlay.OverlayItem;
import org.osmdroid.views.overlay.OverlayManager;
import org.osmdroid.views.overlay.mylocation.GpsMyLocationProvider;
import org.osmdroid.views.overlay.mylocation.MyLocationNewOverlay;

WARNING: resources

The default class for resources is: DefaultResourceProxyImpl. It handles English only, so you probably have to create your own with the proper translations.

    ResourceProxyImpl resProxyImp = new ResourceProxyImpl(this);

Step 3: Map Customization

From

mapView = (MapView) findViewById(R.id.mapview);
mapView.setBuiltInZoomControls(true);
mMyLocationOverlay = new MyLocationOverlay(this, mapView);
mapView.getOverlays().add(mMyLocationOverlay);

to

mapView = (MapView) findViewById(R.id.mapview);
mapView.setUseSafeCanvas(false);
//enable zoom controls
mapView.setBuiltInZoomControls(true);

//enable multitouch
mapView.setMultiTouchControls(true);
//GpsMyLocationProvider can be replaced by your own class. It provides the position information through GPS or Cell towers.
GpsMyLocationProvider imlp = new GpsMyLocationProvider(this.getBaseContext());
//minimum distance for update
imlp.setLocationUpdateMinDistance(1000);
//minimum time for update
imlp.setLocationUpdateMinTime(60000);       
mMyLocationOverlay = new MyLocationNewOverlay(this.getBaseContext(),imlp , mapView, resProxyImp);
mMyLocationOverlay.setUseSafeCanvas(false);
mMyLocationOverlay.setDrawAccuracyEnabled(true);

mapView.getOverlays().add(mMyLocationOverlay);

Step 4: Add Marker

In OSMDroid there are some classes ready to use. The best is ItemizedIconOverlay.

Create an overlay and add it to the map:

ItemizedIconOverlay markersOverlay = new ItemizedIconOverlay(new LinkedList(), myMarker, null, resProxyImp);
mapView.getOverlays().add(markersOverlay);
Add markers
OverlayItem ovm = new OverlayItem("titolo", "descrizione", new GeoPoint(s.LatitudeE6(), s.LongitudeE6()));
ovm.setMarker(myMarker);
markersOverlay.addItem(ovm);

Of course, this is just the basic part of the story. There is much more available on OSMDroid – feel free to explore and bring your Android app to BlackBerry 10 easily!

The past twelve months have been an absolute whirlwind for the team behind the BlackBerry Runtime for Android apps. While work on this endeavor began long before this year, 2012 marked the year that Android developers were able to bring their offerings over to the BlackBerry platform in a quick and simple fashion.

It’s hard to believe how far the Android story on BlackBerry has come over the last year, which makes me even more excited for what we’ll have to offer our developers in 2013. Below are my top-five 2012 milestones for the BlackBerry Runtime for Android apps team.

February 21^st – PlayBook 2.0 Release

The BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0 OS update not only added native PIM support, but the launch of the BlackBerry Runtime for Android apps. Android developers now had the opportunity to target a whole new platform with their pre-existing apps, by simply repackaging and signing them.

May 3^rd – BlackBerry 10 Beta SDK Launch

At our BlackBerry World conference in Orlando, we released BlackBerry 10 into its official developer beta program. This allowed us to keep rolling out updates to our tooling to include additional API support as we added them to the runtime itself. We openly shared our progress throughout the beta program via our flight-arrival board for the Android Runtime roadmap.

October 3^rd – PlayBook 2.1 OS Update

In October we were able to release an update of the BlackBerry Runtime for Android apps which coincided with the much anticipated PlayBook 2.1 OS update. This update allowed us to offer our Android developers the opportunity to utilize in-app billing, access to both the front and rear-facing cameras, and an improved end-user experience with each Android app running within its own window.

October 4^th – Developer Experience Day

Probably our most fun day this year was getting members from each spectrum of our Android team into the same room to do a complete top-to-bottom review of our developer experience. The tooling, runtime, documentation, relations and management teams were all well represented along with developers who were brand new to the offering. We were able to collaborate on how we can make the process even easier and accessible for developers to port their Android offerings to BlackBerry 10. Most of these improvements have already been made today, with certain long-term goals being planned for a 2013 release.

December 11^th – BlackBerry 10 Gold SDK

The culmination of all the hard work our team has put in this past year was evident when the BlackBerry 10 SDKs reached their Gold release. As nice as it was to have reached this particular milestone, work is well underway for our next update to the BlackBerry Runtime for Android apps.

Thanks for swinging by our blog this last year and giving us the feedback we value. Your success as a developer is our own success as a platform, so we certainly value your input. Be sure to keep referencing the blog in 2013 for all of your Android-related information for BlackBerry 10, and of course, have a great holiday season!

Photo credit:

Well my Android Runtime friends, it is finally here! Not the massive plate of gingerbread cookies or candy-decorated houses, but the Gold release of the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps and Plug-in for Android Development Tools for BlackBerry 10.

Before we get into some of the new functionality in this release, I wanted to take a moment and review what we have added to the Android Runtime for BlackBerry 10. Our goal has been to provide an integrated experience to the BlackBerry 10 platform, without requiring code changes to ported Android applications. These features, including all the teams’ performance and quality improvements, help to increase this platform experience. New API support and major features for BlackBerry 10 include:

• Calendar Event Creation – Intent support to create a calendar event using the native BlackBerry 10 app.
• Camera and Camera Flash API – Take pictures and make flashlight apps!
• Compose Support – Intent support to create an email or SMS message. (BlackBerry Hub is required)
• Contact Support – Email and phone numbers can be added to a new or existing contact using the native BlackBerry 10 contacts application.
• Dial Support – Phone numbers that are selected within an Android app will launch the phone dialer. The Phone application is required.
• File Picker Support – Support for the native BlackBerry 10 File Picker when selecting files within an Android app.
• In-App Payment API – Sell your virtual goods!
• Multimedia Sync – Multimedia created using Android applications are visible to native BlackBerry 10 multimedia applications. This includes pictures, videos, etc.
• Multi-Window – Each Android app will now run in its own application shell.
• Notifications – Provide notifications for your application. These can be made visible in the integrated BlackBerry 10 Hub, or as a splat on your application icon.
• Push API
• Sensor API – Support for the Ambient light and Proximity sensors.
• Telephony APIs – This includes support for cell locations and access to information about the network services on the device.

In this release, we were able to add support for the Camera Flash API and the native BlackBerry 10 File Picker. If you want to use these new features, no code changes are required — just grab the latest BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha update or BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha Simulator and get testing.

Additionally, our plug-in tools for Eclipse have added support for Windows 8 and Mac OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion, xhdpi Icons, and Android Development Tools v 21.

How do you start using these new features and tools? Jump to the Runtime for Android Apps microsite. There is an updated 1.5 release for the BlackBerry Eclipse Plug-in for Android Development Tools and Command-line tools to help get you using all these Android Runtime features for BlackBerry 10. For the Eclipse users, make sure to point your update site to:

https://bdsc.webapps.blackberry.com/android/downloads/eclipseplugin/

To see the full details, check out the release notes for the BlackBerry Plug-in for Android Development Tools and BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps.

Photo credit:

Howdy, it’s Matt here again with some new features to share with you regarding the BlackBerry® Runtime for Android™ Apps in BlackBerry® 10.

In this release, I’m very excited to announce the arrival of Push support for the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps (more details on this in a second). Additionally, we have added support for the ambient light and proximity sensors for BlackBerry 10. If your application uses either of these sensors, no code changes are required, just grab the latest BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha update or BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha Simulator and get testing.

Let’s get back to Push support. If your Android app uses Cloud to Device Messaging (C2DM), when you repackage your app, you can use the Push technology on the BlackBerry 10 platform to provide a similar functionality. To create a push-enabled Android app, you will need to do the following:

1. Register with the BlackBerry Push Service.
2. Create a configuration file for your Android app.
3. Specify Push as a required permission in BAR file’s manifest file.
4. On the push-initiator server side, format the data to be sent to BlackBerry application servers.

For all the details, check out the Android Runtime API Support Page for extended Push API Support.

How do you start using these great new features? Jump to the Runtime for Android Apps microsite. There is an updated 1.4 Beta release for the BlackBerry Eclipse™ Plug-in for Android Development Tools and Command-line tools to help get you using all these new Android Runtime features for the BlackBerry 10 Beta. For the Eclipse users, make sure to point your update site to:

https://bdsc.webapps.blackberry.com/android/downloads/eclipseplugin/beta/

To see what’s coming next, remember to check out the flight arrival board for the all the Runtime for Android App features and tooling releases.

It’s Matt here again with some new features to share with you regarding the BlackBerry® Runtime for Android™ Apps in BlackBerry® 10.

Before we talk about what’s new in BlackBerry 10, let us recap what was available for the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps in Beta 2. There were four major enhancements added to the Android Runtime: Multi-Window, Camera support, In-App Payments, and Telephony APIs.

Building on all these great features, there is now even more support for Android Runtime in the BlackBerry 10 Beta 3. This includes support for:

• Compose message – Intent support to compose and send an email message.
• Contacts support – Contact information can be added to a new or existing contact via the BlackBerry 10 contacts app.
• Calendar Events – Intent support to create a calendar event via the native BlackBerry 10 calendar app.
• IMF Support – Android text input controls are now integrated with the BlackBerry 10 virtual keyboard. This makes it possible to utilize keyboard features such as text prediction and dedicated numerical input.
• Notifications – Provide support for notifications for your app.

All these features are now available for the Android Runtime on the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha testing device and simulator. How do you start using these great new features? Jump to the Runtime for Android Apps microsite. There is also an updated 1.3 Beta release for the BlackBerry Eclipse™ Plug-in for Android Development Tools and Command-line tools to help get you using all these new Android Runtime features for the BlackBerry 10 Beta. For the Eclipse users, make sure to point your update site to: https://bdsc.webapps.blackberry.com/android/downloads/eclipseplugin/beta/

To see what’s coming in the next beta, remember to check out the flight arrival board for the all the Runtime for Android App features and tooling releases.

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

One of the problems with implementing hardware acceleration on the Android runtime is that the graphics driver assumes it’s running closer to the hardware than it actually is; the player must know of a method of uploading its compositor’s data directly to the hardware. Normally this can be done via a method like glTexImage2D, which is actually implemented as a fallback method in Android. For optimal performance however, the compositing architecture would have to make use of direct buffer access through its gralloc module. The trick is in giving Android the right hooks into the Mesa3D driver that allows it to go around the regular conventions. With a bit of finesse and a lot of work, the BlackBerry 10 simulator now has a fully hardware accelerated Android runtime.

How To: Enabling hardware graphics acceleration

Current simulators have 3D acceleration enabled by default. To check whether acceleration is enabled, open your Virtual Machine Settings in VMWare Player and in the Display tab check “Accelerate 3D graphics” as seen here:

Demonstration

In the following video, you’ll see the difference hardware acceleration can make in the Android runtime:

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!