Yesterday at BlackBerry® 10 Jam, we held an AppCircus event. Developers registered their apps for the contest last week and three finalists were chosen for each category – BlackBerry® WebWorks™, Adobe® AIR®, and Native – earlier this week. The nine finalists had three minutes each to pitch their apps to a panel of judges that included our own Alec Saunders, Bob Taniguchi and Peter Valin. Also joining the judging panel was Kevin Michaluk of Crackberry.com fame, as well as Peter Hansen, Michael Brooks and Jeremy Adams, some of our most recognized community members. All of the finalists have their apps working on (or being finalized for) the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet, and several had a running version on their BlackBerry Dev Alpha device.

The BlackBerry WebWorks finalists:

B’Giftee is a real world social sharing app that lets people gift real-world items to others. If you go to a restaurant and like the burger there, you share that knowledge and offer friends a gift of the burger – a reward that could be for the first to take advantage or for all involved.

2Scoops allows people to find the best gelato in Rome, Paris, New York and London, and also gives pronunciation for ordering in Italian. It includes map integration, business hours and ratings and reviews.

Pesktop creates a desktop feel on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet with video playback, audio playback, note-taking and picture viewing all in one place.

The Adobe AIR finalists:

Cooklet is a guide to cooking that includes recipes with shopping list integration, gesture interation through the camera, photo and recipe libraries and more.

Nobex Radio allows people to listen to radio stations from their BlackBerry® smartphones or BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. They have a selection of over 16,000 stations and have worked to integrate social features for sharing stations and songs.

Nexus is a direct BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to BlackBerry PlayBook tablet file-sharing app that allows people to share content over their local network without using any mid-server.

The Native Finalists:

Training with Messi is a soccer game that uses device motion and hand gesture controls to take Messi down the field. This app has Scoreloop integration with leaderboards and achievements.

DOO-DOo-Doo allows people to play piano on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and goes beyond a normal keyboard with pre-recorded sounds. People can even adjust the tones and harmonics.

Kami Retro is a new game with an old-school feel that takes the fun of 80’s and 90’s side-scroller games and brings it to the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

The winners were B’Giftee, Cooklet, and Training with Messi. All three had their apps working and running on the BlackBerry Dev Alpha device. They also had the apps working during their initial pitches, which took place the day that they got the device.

Winners received $25,000 to go see their favorite bands in concert! More details are available at http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/04/blackberry-10-jam-appcircus/

Congratulations to everyone!

If you’ve developed – or are currently developing – a BlackBerry® WebWorks™, Adobe® AIR®, or Native Gaming app for the BlackBerry® platform, bring your app to AppCircus at BlackBerry® 10 Jam and work with RIM experts on-site to port it to the BlackBerry 10 platform. You could win $25,000 to see your favorite bands! (Winners will have up to a year to use the prize.) In order to participate in the contest, ensure you register your application with AppCircus by April 29th and attend BlackBerry 10 Jam in Orlando! If you enter now, you can get some tips for building and pitching to help you prepare for the event at BlackBerry 10 Jam.

After you’ve had a chance to tweak your apps for BlackBerry 10, you’ll pitch your app to a panel of RIM and AppCircus judges where the top three applications from each category – BlackBerry WebWorks, Adobe AIR and Native Gaming – will move on to the finals. AppCircus and RIM experts will be on hand to help these finalists perfect their presentation and apps in preparation for the finals. Finalists have a three-minute pitch and two-minute question and answer on stage, and winners are chosen by a jury. One winner in each of the three categories will receive the grand prize. Each grand prize is worth up to $25,000 USD for you and your friends to see your favorite bands throughout the year!

The prize package includes:

• $10,000 USD cash award to purchase concert tickets and to be used as spending money for you and your friends
• $15,000 USD Travel Voucher (booked through RIM’s agent) to purchase airline tickets, hotel reservations and ground transportation for you and your friends to attend the concerts in cities where you’ve purchased concert tickets

To find out more details on the AppCircus at BlackBerry 10 Jam contest and to view full terms and conditions please visit http://blackberry10jam.appcircus.com.

We’re looking forward to seeing you and your apps at BlackBerry 10 Jam – good luck!

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Update: AppCircus Spotlight on BlackBerry video recap is now available! Check it out via the link below.

BlackBerry Developer Day at Mobile World Congress 2011 was a jam packed development party. Each bootcamp and speaker session was filled with eager developers looking to learn more about BlackBerry development. I was able to meet up with Mike Kirkup, Director of Developer relations, at the end of the day and get his thoughts on how things went, as well as the rundown of his BlackBerry Development Roadmap session (highlights: Near Field Communications, OpenGL 2.0, Magnetometer and Digital Compass support are all coming in BlackBerry 6.1).

We also were able to talk briefly about the AppCircus Spotlight on BlackBerry event. The event was streamed live on our BlackBerry Mobile World Congress 2011 page, but if you missed it, don’t worry! We have a full video recap of the event available by clicking the link below. Make sure to also check out these BlackBerry App World download links for the event winner, Gbanga and honorable mention, UrbanStep.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

I am excited to announce that we will again be holding a BlackBerry® Developer Day at Mobile World Congress 2011 in Barcelona, Spain. This one-day event will take place on Tuesday February 15th as part of the MWC App Planet Application Developer Conferences.

We will be holding general sessions in our main auditorium to get you up to speed on the latest and greatest information on the BlackBerry development platform with special focus on how to best monetize your apps on BlackBerry App World™ and integrate with the BBM Social Platform. We will also be hosting a number of hands-on-labs covering BlackBerry® WebWorks™ and Adobe® AIR® development on the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet. You can attend sessions either in the morning or afternoon – and don’t forget to bring your laptops to get the most out of the bootcamp sessions!

Also, don’t miss our special AppCircus Spotlight on BlackBerry between 13.30 and 14.30. This event is a unique chance to showcase your BlackBerry app and win a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet! If you’re a developer with a BlackBerry app, you can submit it here to do a 3-minute pitch at this AppCircus Spotlight. Deadline to apply is February 4th 2011, midnight CET!

During the rest of the week, you can come by and meet with BlackBerry development experts in the BlackBerry® Developer Zone area of our booth in Hall 7. If you already have a ticket to MWC, please drop by BlackBerry Developer Zone on Monday February 14th between 9am and 6pm to register your place. We also have a number of tickets available – register here.

Looking forward to seeing everyone in sunny Barcelona!

I am excited to announce that we will again be holding a BlackBerry® Developer Day at Mobile World Congress 2011 in Barcelona, Spain. This one-day event will take place on Tuesday February 15th as part of the MWC App Planet Application Developer Conferences.

We will be holding general sessions in our main auditorium to get you up to speed on the latest and greatest information on the BlackBerry development platform with special focus on how to best monetize your apps on BlackBerry App World™ and integrate with the BBM Social Platform. We will also be hosting a number of hands-on-labs covering BlackBerry® WebWorks™ and Adobe® AIR® development on the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet. You can attend sessions either in the morning or afternoon – and don’t forget to bring your laptops to get the most out of the bootcamp sessions!

Also, don’t miss our special AppCircus Spotlight on BlackBerry between 13.30 and 14.30. This event is a unique chance to showcase your BlackBerry app and win a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet! If you’re a developer with a BlackBerry app, you can submit it here to do a 3-minute pitch at this AppCircus Spotlight. Deadline to apply is February 4th 2011, midnight CET!

During the rest of the week, you can come by and meet with BlackBerry development experts in the BlackBerry® Developer Zone area of our booth in Hall 7. If you already have a ticket to MWC, please drop by BlackBerry Developer Zone on Monday February 14th between 9am and 6pm to register your place. We also have a number of tickets available – register here.

If you’d like to get BlackBerry at Mobile World Congress info from your desktop or directly from your smartphone while at the event, please visit BlackBerry MWC 2011 here:

• BlackBerry at Mobile World Congress 2011 – Desktop
• BlackBerry at Mobile World Congress 2011 – Mobile

Looking forward to seeing everyone in sunny Barcelona!