As a contribution to this positive momentum, we are very happy and proud to announce that the latest version 2.2 of the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Smartphones (release notes) is now available for download. Known as the Golf release, this update enables many new features that can be used by developers to build highly functional, and business related capabilities into their BlackBerry WebWorks applications.

What’s new in this release?

• Mac OSX Support – Need we say more? This very exciting and highly demanded feature is now available. A Mac version of the WebWorks SDK installer is available for developers to use and build WebWorks applications using OSX.
• Payment API – the same API that was recently made available for the BlackBerry® WebWorks™ SDK for PlayBook OS can now be used to sell digital goods through WebWorks applications running on BlackBerry Smartphones. This feature gives developers an incredible monetization opportunity for increasing the revenue of their applications. Read more about our payment service.
• BB7 net_rim_api.jar – The underlying API library used by the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK has been updated to the BlackBerry® 7 developer APIs. This means that WebWorks developers can now create their own JavaScript Extensions and make use of APIs found in BlackBerry Device Software versions 5.0, BlackBerry 6 and BlackBerry 7.
• BBM APIs – Developers can now find the BlackBerry WebWorks APIs needed to integrate their applications with the BBM Social platform automatically included as part of the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK. Read more about the BBM Social Platform SDK.
• Side by side installs – The installer has been modified to produce a standalone install of the WebWorks SDK for Smartphone. This feature gives developers the ability to build different versions of their applications based on different versions of the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK, which is often a requirement for supporting production code.
• Memory leak fixes – many performance and stability improvements have been made to the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK to fix memory problems encountered with WebWorks applications running on BlackBerry 6 and 7 OS smartphones.

Payment API code sample

Use the payment API to monetize digital goods from within your BlackBerry smartphone application. The following example demonstrates how to sell additional levels in a puzzle game. A button linked to the payment API purchase() method enables users upgrade the application to a premium version:

function upgradeApp()
{
   var paymentObj = {
	"digitalGoodID"   : "12345",
	"digitalGoodSKU"  : "101010101",
	"digitalGoodName" : "Levels 11-20",
	"metaData"        : "pin=" + blackberry.identity.PIN,
	"purchaseAppName" : "Puzzle Mania"
   };
   blackberry.payment.purchase(paymentObj, onSuccess, onFailure);
}
...

<button onclick="upgradeApp()"> Upgrade to Premium </button>

More Info

Stay up to date with the BlackBerry WebWorks Platform by bookmarking http://developer.blackberry.com/html5 and http://blackberry.github.com/.

We also saw an increase of users with BlackBerry® smartphones running 6.0 OS downloading free applications in BlackBerry App World – 31% of free app downloads come from a 6.0 smartphone. Also, the majority of free application downloads in App World originate from smartphones running OS 5.0 and 6.0 smartphones, totaling 88%.

Looking at the numbers in terms of paid apps downloaded from App World, 94% of BlackBerry smartphone users have devices with OS 5.0 and 6.0 software. An increasing number of customers with 6.0 devices are now purchasing paid apps as compared to last quarter; with 6.0 devices making up 54% of all paid app downloads.

These stats reflect a growing opportunity for developers to target a customer base with applications that support the latest smartphone OS, 5.0 and especially, 6.0, so if you haven’t yet updated your app for 6.0 support ensure you check out the 6.0 development tools, simulators and development guides.

We’ve also recently released BlackBerry 7 simulators on Developer Zone. Don’t be late to the party – download the new simulators today!

At BlackBerry® DEVCON 2010, we were honored to have the CEO of Sencha, Abe Elias, join us on stage during the keynote to showcase their new CSS3 tool: Sencha Animator. As part of our work with the great folks at Sencha, they pledged to bring the Sencha Touch Mobile JavaScript Framework to the BlackBerry platform.

I am very pleased to announce today that Sencha has released an update to their Sencha Touch Mobile JavaScript Framework that brings support for the BlackBerry® 6 operating system. For those unfamiliar with Sencha Touch Mobile JavaScript Framework, it is an impressive web framework based entirely on HTML5, CSS and JavaScript® that is designed to bring an incredibly powerful set of components to help create web apps that look and feel like native applications. The Sencha Touch Mobile JavaScript Framework 1.1 release today not only brings support for BlackBerry 6-enabled touch devices such as the BlackBerry® Torch™ 9800 smartphone, but it also supports the upcoming BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet.

To get started, developers should download the framework, and then check out the Sencha Touch Learning Center, where they will find code samples, videos and tutorials. To get an idea of what is possible using the framework, there are a variety of demo applications showcasing the breadth and power of the platform.

To help encourage our developer community to adopt the Sencha Touch web framework, I am pleased to offer a free BlackBerry Torch 9800 smartphone to the first ten developers that submit an application to BlackBerry App World™ storefront using the new framework for either the BlackBerry Torch 9800 smartphone or the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. Restrictions apply. See the Terms and Conditions for complete offer details.

Research In Motion® (RIM®) and Telefonica have teamed up to host a webcast happening on Thursday, March 17, 2011. This webcast is for developers to learn how to take advantage of new features introduced in the BlackBerry® 6 platform and BlueVia network APIs to build Super Apps.

Date: Thursday, March 17, 2011
Event Start Time: 4:00 PM GMT
Duration: 1 hour
Presenters:
Sanyu Kiruluta, Team Lead, Developer Relations EMEA (RIM)
Andres-Leonardo Martinez-Ortiz, BlueVia Developer Programs Engineer (Telefonica)

Topics that will be covered include:

• BlackBerry 6 overview – learn about improvements to the UI and new APIs that you can take advantage of when creating your applications
• Learn about BlackBerry® platform commercialization services
• Learn how to use BlueVia SMS APIs

Register for this event and find out more information today!

If you’ve managed to get your hands on a BlackBerry® smartphone running BlackBerry® 6 (or a simulator of one), one of the first things you may have noticed is the new Home Screen interface. The new slider panes like Favorites and Frequent aren’t just fun to play with, but make it really easy for users to find their most frequently-used applications.

However, the best timesaver of all is the Unified Search framework, which is built right into the interface. Simply tap on the Search icon on the top right to bring up the Search field – or better yet, simply start typing directly on the home screen – and the search field will appear and populate automatically. With Unified Search, a user’s hunting days are over. Just start typing the name of the app on the home screen and the results will filter as they type.

Here’s an example of how I found and launched my “Hello World” app:

Now you might have noticed the additional Search Options within the last screenshot, such as “Search YouTube” and “Search BlackBerry App World™”. These are what we like to call External Search Providers, and luckily for us, the BlackBerry Unified Search API allows any application to register itself as an External Search Provider. In a lot of cases, your application might already have a remote search service accessible over the web or a built-in search engine. By simply implementing the ExternalSearchProvider interface, your application can register and place its own customized icon within the Unified Search Framework. Once the user clicks on your icon, your application gets passed to the search query from the home screen, and it can then perform the search operation in its own way seamlessly. This is what we call Click-To-Search integration, and it’s perfect for search operations that are expensive or might take a while to complete.

The most important thing to remember when implementing the ExternalSearchProvider is to decide what type of content type(s) it will be searching. It is important to specify meaningful and relevant content types as this will directly impact where your application’s search icon appear(s) on the device. In addition, this will assist other third party clients using the Unified Search framework to provide relevant search options from within their applications. If relevant, feel free to combine multiple content types using bitwise parameters.

For example, a music store application should specify its’ content type as CONTENT_TYPE_MEDIA_MUSIC to ensure that its Search icon appears within the music library. Additionally, this allows other applications on the BlackBerry smartphone (like a radio player, perhaps) to query the Unified Search framework for a list of registered music search providers, so that it can extend additional capability (like purchasing) to those applications. This will be covered in more depth in a later post.

Here’s an example of how a music store with its own remote search engine could integrate using the ExternalSearchProvider interface:

Here’s the Documentation and Code Sample for ExternalSearchProvider.

If you’ve had a chance to try developing with the ExternalSearchProvider, we’d like to hear about it. What have your experiences been like?

[ 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 ]

The new BlackBerry® Theme Studio 6 Public Beta 2 is now available for download on BlackBerry® Developer Zone, providing extensive support for new (and upgraded) BlackBerry® smartphones with BlackBerry 6 OS, as well as robust import functionality for theme projects created using previous versions of BlackBerry Theme Studio.

This beta release supports theme development for all BlackBerry smartphones running BlackBerry 6, that are currently in-market, as well as simplified theme export for BlackBerry App World™ in order to quickly submit your BlackBerry 6 themes.

In addition, the Import feature has been expanded to allow for importing previous theme projects that targeted devices running versions of BlackBerry Device Software prior to BlackBerry 6. For instance, if a theme project was created in BlackBerry Theme Studio 5.0 targetting the BlackBerry® Bold™ 9700 smartphone series, you can follow three simple steps to import your theme settings from that project (such as icons, menu/dialog background patterns, fonts, and so on) to a BlackBerry Bold 9700 smartphone series project in BlackBerry Theme Studio 6:

1. Create a new project in BlackBerry Theme Studio 6:

2. Import the old project (created using BlackBerry Theme Studio 5.0):

3. Export the project for the applicable BlackBerry smartphone:

Due to many changes to the base themes in the BlackBerry 6 OS, the Import feature can significantly reduce your effort by leveraging all previous settings that apply to the BlackBerry 6 theme. There are a notable set of theme items that are unique to BlackBerry 6, such as home screen banner, notification and application trays, and calendar icon (digits now appear in the calendar icon based on system date) that will still require configuration after the import, but the import capability gives you a big head start.

For best results during an import operation in BlackBerry Theme Studio , the most important consideration is the device screen size of the source theme project. For example, you can import a theme project targetting the BlackBerry® Tour™ 9600 smartphone series to a theme project targetting the BlackBerry Bold 9700 smartphone series, due to similar screen sizes. The easiest way to determine this by using View > Change Face Plate menu command.

Finally, the user interface for Theme Builder has been refined even more with intuitive views, tabs and icons used throughout the tool in BlackBerry Theme Studio 6.0 Public Beta 2. Also, the Background Wizard has been enhanced, making it easier than ever to create things like date-based wallpaper changes:

If you haven’t installed BlackBerry Theme Studio Public Beta 1, you can read about the many other new features on the beta page, including a redesigned user interface, easy Background Wizard, and batch import of graphics.

As we approach our final release candidate for BlackBerry Theme Studio 6, we would love to hear your feedback on your theme development experiences so far. Please provide us any bug reports or feature suggestions for BlackBerry Theme Studio 6 using the “Report Issue” option in the Help menu. Download the BlackBerry Theme Studio 6.0 Public Beta 2 now, and happy theming!

The Communication and Parsing API introduced in the BlackBerry® 6 OS probably doesn’t get as much attention as it really deserves. It has one of those names that could mean just about anything, but when I created a sample with it, I found it made many tasks simple – and I barely scratched the surface of what was possible.

You’ll find the API specification in the net.rim.device.api.io.messaging package, where you will see the significant set of interfaces and classes that provide all this functionality. The API breaks up communication into a few parts: The Destination is the target for a connection, usually a URL, and you can send and receive Message objects through it. Destinations can block the execution thread, or not, and you can send messages without handling the response with a FireAndForgetDestination. A Destination can also be connected with a MessageProcessor, which will parse the messages for you. Several processors are included in the API for common message formats like XML, JSON, RSS, and so on. Processors can be chained to support even more functionality. Finally, Messages can be retrieved as MessageFutures, and Destinations can be used to receive pushes and other incoming connections.

Behind the scenes is even more great stuff, like message queuing, prioritization, and even support for inter-process communication. Before we get too buried in the details, I should point out that the BlackBerry 6 SDK includes a full sample application that shows how to do all of this. The sample I want to share with you today is an example using this new API to streamline development of a YouTube® client. With the proliferation of APIs like YouTube’s Data API, which offer ATOM and JSON-C (for more bandwidth saving) interfaces, many opportunities become quite accessible.

Full sample code is included so you can check it out, but let’s look at some of the Communication API in action. The destination is the YouTube Data server with several basic query parameters:

BlockingSenderDestination destination = DestinationFactory.createBlockingSenderDestination(_context,
URI.create(buildQueryURL(query, index, max)), _processor);

Where my URL is built from a base, and I’m just appending the search query string and variables to return a particular section of the feed, I end up with a URL like so:

"http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/mobile/videos?v=2&fields=entry[link/@rel=%27http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007%23mobile%27]&format=6&q=blackberry.com/developers&start-index=1&max-results=10";

The query I’ve used restricts the response somewhat to a mobile-friendly version, including filtering out any videos that don’t have a mobile video link – a useful feature for mobile clients that could be expanded on in this sample. I’ve also included a MessageProcessor to handle the output; in this case, it’s an XMLHashtableMessageProcessor, which nicely converts the ATOM response into a simple Hashtable, so I can do things like pulling all the titles out into a String array:

String[] titles = contents.getStringArray("/feed/entry/title");

Once I’ve grabbed all the details I care about, I can send the results back to the screen for displaying. However, the feed response contains a URL for the thumbnails, so I need to download that as well. This is a neat opportunity to use non-blocking destinations and update the display when the thumbnails arrive:

NonBlockingSenderDestination destination = DestinationFactory.createNonBlockingSenderDestination(_context,
					URI.create(url), this);
destination.send();

Those requests are fired off through the API and I’ve got a MessageListener waiting for them, which will take the data and inform the screen it can update the image from the placeholder:

public void onMessage(Destination destination, Message message) {
if (message instanceof ByteMessage) {
		byte[] results = ((ByteMessage) message).getBytePayload();
		EncodedImage image = EncodedImage.createEncodedImage(results, 0, -1);
		... //send the image to the Screen
		destination.destroy();
	}
}

Give the sample a look and check out the API in more depth to see how you can put it to work for you. We’ll follow this up later with a more detailed sample showcasing the advanced features of both YouTube’s Data API and the BlackBerry® Communication API.

((All the places worldwide where the 32 BlackBerry® Developer Groups are located!)

In what is becoming an annual tradition, I wanted to share some end of year updates and highlight a few of the accomplishments within the BlackBerry developer community in 2010:

• Over 350,000 registered BlackBerry developers! Welcome to more than 150,000 new developers this year alone.
• Thirty-two BlackBerry Developer Groups around the world established themselves and created unique opportunities for developers to learn and network.
• A series of BlackBerry Developer Days were run around the world. (Due to the overwhelming response, we’ll soon be posting a list of 2011 dates, so check back soon!)
• Engaged with you on our social channels. We are now more than 12,000 followers strong on @BlackBerryDev! The Twitter team has enjoyed the opportunity to provide more support, tips and connect directly with you on a daily basis, and they’ll continue to do so in the new year.
• Announced the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet – a new 7” dual core tablet with full support for uncompromised browsing (Flash 10.1 and HTML5) and an exciting set of development platforms. We are also now accepting BlackBerry PlayBook tablet apps in BlackBerry App World™!
• Free BlackBerry PlayBook tablet offer – Click the link for all the details, and see the terms and conditions here.
• Now approving apps for the free BlackBerry PlayBook tablet offer – After announcing the final terms and conditions on December 7, we’ve had over 1,000 vendors register with BlackBerry App World. And now we’re happy to announce that we’ve started approving applications; as soon as the hardware is ready to ship, we’ll send free BlackBerry PlayBook tablets to the vendors with accepted apps (subject, of course, to the full terms and conditions!). Be sure to register for BlackBerry App World and submit your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet apps to qualify!
• Another amazing BlackBerry DEVCON with over 130 sessions and our largest number of attendees ever. Announced the very first BlackBerry DEVCON Asia conference in Bali, Indonesia for January 13-14, 2011.
• The third annual BlackBerry Partners Fund Super App Developer Challenge, showcasing some of the best Super Apps from around the world and distributing over $1.5 million in prizing.
• Kicked off the first official celebration of the BlackBerry Developer recognition program announced at BlackBerry DEVCON 2009, recognizing three great BlackBerry developers from around the world – Bryan Tafel, Peter Strange and Eki Baskoro.
• Announced the BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) Social Platform, which will enable applications to take advantage of the unique characteristics of BBM to communicate with friends, family and co-workers. Developers will be able to use a variety of APIs to give their apps read access to BBM contact lists, user profiles and groups.

There was also the launch of numerous developer services, tools and technologies including:

1. BlackBerry App World v2.0, enabling carrier billing and credit card billing in over 70 countries worldwide – including an industry leading webstore that allows purchases to be made directly on the desktop and sideloaded to the device.
2. BlackBerry Advertising Service, enabling new opportunities for developers to generate revenue with their applications.
3. Launched a completely revamped browser on BlackBerry® 6 based on WebKit, with strong support for advanced standards including HTML5 and CSS3.
4. BlackBerry® WebWorks™ SDK, making it easy for web developers to create compelling Super Apps on the BlackBerry platform using HTML5, CSS and JavaScript®. The BlackBerry WebWorks SDK also supports modern web frameworks such as Sencha, PhoneGap, jQuery™ or Dojo™ for both enterprise and consumer-oriented solutions needing advanced web and AJAX functionality.
5. BlackBerry 6, with its new user interface APIs, barcode APIs, and new Super App APIs including integration with Universal Search.
6. BlackBerry Locate service to compliment the BlackBerry® Maps service, allowing developers to easily add context to their applications.
7. BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe® AIR® (Windows, Mac and Linux)
8. BlackBerry® Push Service, an essential component of the real-time, always-on experience of BlackBerry smartphones.
9. BlackBerry® Java® Plug-in for Eclipse® and BlackBerry Java Plug-in for Eclipse Tech Preview for Mac OS X, both containing new features that leverage the Eclipse environment and streamline testing with device simulators.
10. BlackBerry Developer Zone Portal, where developers can register and get access to all of the BlackBerry DEVCON 2010 sessions for free!

It has been an incredibly busy and exciting year for the platform and developer relations teams here at Research In Motion® (RIM®). This was a year of making it easier to be a BlackBerry developer – from making it easier to generate revenue through commercial services to removing barriers to getting the tools and leveraging BlackBerry App World. This year also included my first trip to Asia and learning about the growing opportunities for our developer community in that market along with over 180 countries worldwide that sell BlackBerry smartphones.

I am very excited about 2011 and am looking forward to sharing that success with each of you. We will be taking a little time off on the blog until the New Year to celebrate the end of the year and prepare for a stellar 2011. We’ll be back in action the week of January 4th! If you have a chance over the holidays, please post a comment with suggestions or feedback, as we love receiving input from the community.

Date: Tuesday November 16, 2010
Event Start Time: 1:00 PM Eastern Standard Time
Duration: 1 hour
Presenter: Brian Zubert (Team Lead, Developer Relations)

Topics that will be covered include:

• BlackBerry 6 overview – learn about improvements to the UI and new APIs that you can take advantage of when creating your applications
• Master new Super App capabilities like Universal Search
• Learn about the new BlackBerry platform services
• See what you can do with the new BlackBerry Browser and BlackBerry® WebWorks Platform

To find out more information and to register for this event, click here.