On August 3rd, 2011 Research In Motion® (RIM®) announced the arrival of three new BlackBerry® Torch™ smartphones. A few months ago, we explained the impact of the BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 and BlackBerry® Bold™ 9930 smartphones to developers; today we’re doing the same for the next three smartphones that will be running BlackBerry® 7 OS: the BlackBerry® Torch™ 9810 smartphone and the all-touch BlackBerry® Torch™ 9850 and 9860 smartphones.

Common features to the newly announced smartphones running BlackBerry 7 OS are:

• 32-bit color (24 bits of color and 8 bits of transparency)
• 1.2 GHz Processor
• Magnetometer / Digital Compass, enabling augmented reality and advanced mapping solutions
• Dedicated 3D OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 and dedicated 2D OpenVG 1.1 graphics hardware (41 million triangles/sec, 245 million 3D pixels/sec)
• 5 MP camera with support for 720p HD video recording
• JIT (Just-In-Time) JavaScript® compiler, yielding faster page download time than BlackBerry® 6
• Support for additional HTML5 elements, such as HTML5 Video

Key features for developers (BlackBerry Torch 9810 smartphone):

• VGA (640 x 480) screen resolution
• 8 GB of onboard memory, with microSD support for up to 32GB
• User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0.0 Mobile Safari/534.11+

Key features for developers (BlackBerry Torch 9850 and 9860 smartphones):

• WVGA (800 x 480) screen resolution
• 4 GB of onboard memory, with microSD support for up to 32GB
• User agent (9850): Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9850; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0.0 Mobile Safari/534.11+
• User agent (9860): Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9860; en-US)AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0.0 Mobile Safari/534.11+

Whether you’re a BlackBerry® Java® developer or a BlackBerry® WebWorks™ developer, the tools are available, the simulators are available, and the BlackBerry App World™ vendor portal is accepting submissions for all BlackBerry 7 OS smartphones. If you haven’t submitted your apps yet, now is the time!

If you have any questions about developing for BlackBerry 7 OS smartphones, let us know in the comments!

Date: Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Time: 2:00 pm ET
Duration: 1 hour
Presenter: Paul Bernhardt, Application Development Consultant, Research In Motion® (RIM®)

The webcast will cover:

• How to quickly port your current BlackBerry® platform application to BlackBerry 7 and key considerations when designing your app for the new BlackBerry 7 smartphones
• BlackBerry 7 API Overview: Includes new hardware enabled features on BlackBerry 7 devices such as Magnetomer, Near Field Communications, Augmented Reality, OpenGL ES 2.0 as well as APIs that enhance the Super Apps experience
• Q&A with RIM application development expert

Don’t miss out on this event! You must be registered in order to attend, so register today!

UPDATE: We have added more convenient times to our BlackBerry 7 webinar schedule for developers who are based out of Europe or Asia. The details and registration links are below, so sign up today! You must be registered to attend these events:

EMEA
Date: Thursday, July 7, 2011
Time: 2:00 pm BST
Duration: 1 hour
Registration: Sign up here for this webcast
Presenter: Paul Bernhardt, Application Development Consultant, Research In Motion (RIM)

AP
Date: Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Time: 12:00 pm HKT
Duration: 1 hour
Registration: Sign up here for this webcast
Presenter: Paul Bernhardt, Application Development Consultant, Research In Motion (RIM)

Back at our BlackBerry World™ conference in May, we introduced the world to the new BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 and BlackBerry® Bold™ 9930 smartphones and the new BlackBerry 7. We recently followed that up by launching a BETA of the BlackBerry 7 SDK with the BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 simulator on our BlackBerry® Developer Zone website to enable developers to start testing and optimizing their BlackBerry® applications for BlackBerry 7. In addition to that, we have opened up the BlackBerry App World™ storefront to enable vendors to start posting their applications for sale in time for launch of the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930. We’ve seen great adoption of the new tools already and have heard from many developers that their existing BlackBerry® 6 applications are running as-expected on BlackBerry 7 without change. However, it is important to note the following two key items as a BlackBerry developer regarding BlackBerry 7 and how you can prepare for launch:

1. Re-Posting Your Apps in BlackBerry App World for BlackBerry 7: Applications that are currently posted for download or sale in BlackBerry App World will not be automatically posted for sale for BlackBerry 7 smartphone customers. BlackBerry App World vendors are encouraged to test their applications as soon as possible using the new BlackBerry 7 SDK, and then return to the BlackBerry App World vendor portal to post their applications for sale for the new BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 running BlackBerry 7.

2. Preparing Now for New Screen Sizes and Resolutions Supported by BlackBerry 7: Though BlackBerry 7 retains binary compatibility with our BlackBerry 6 platform, it will support a variety of new screen resolutions and screen sizes that will require some developers to update and re-compile their existing applications. We’ve heard loud and clear from our developers that they want to know this type of information well in advance so that they can build and test their applications ahead of time and have them ready for future devices as they launch. To address this, we have now posted new information on what screen characteristics will be supported by BlackBerry 7 along with new BlackBerry 7 smartphone simulators to emulate each of these different configurations. Read on for more information!

New Screen Characteristics Supported by BlackBerry 7 and New Simulators for Testing

The new BlackBerry 7 smartphone operating system will support the following new screen characteristics on BlackBerry smartphones:

To assist our developer community in preparing their applications for BlackBerry 7, we have now posted new BlackBerry 7 smartphone simulators to emulate each of these form factors and screen resolutions. Each simulator has an associated simulator model number as referenced in the above table. With these new simulators, you can now start to test and develop your applications for BlackBerry 7 while working to ensure compatibility with various form factors and screen characteristics that it will support.

Posting Your BlackBerry 7 Apps to BlackBerryApp World

BlackBerry App World is now open for new app submissions and re-posting of existing applications that are compatible with the BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 running BlackBerry 7. As additional new BlackBerry 7 smartphone models, that correspond to the additional screen characteristics and form factors outlined here, are introduced, we will open up BlackBerry App World for posting of applications to these new smartphones as well. In the interim, we encourage all developers to test your apps across these various new simulators to ensure you’re ready for upcoming launches.

Additionally, you can attend our webcast “What You Need to Know To Develop for BlackBerry 7” on June 29 at 2:00 pm EST to learn more about developing for BlackBerry 7 and the new BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones, as well as other BlackBerry 7 form factors. And as always, we will have an interactive Q&A session to directly answer your questions.

We thank you for your ongoing support and hope that this new information will help you get your apps fully tested and posted to BlackBerry App World in time for our new BlackBerry 7 smartphone launches!

- Tyler Lessard, VP Developer Relations and Alliances

Following the announcement of BlackBerry® 7 at the BlackBerry® World™ conference, I’m pleased to announce that the BlackBerry® Java® SDK v7.0 is now available in beta!

This new version of the SDK also comes with simulators for the new BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 series of smartphones, allowing you to test your applications against the latest and greatest. With the new BlackBerry Bold 9900 smartphone and BlackBerry® Bold™ 9930 smartphone on their way, you will have the tools you need to make sure your apps are running on these smartphones at launch. What’s more, the BlackBerry App World™ storefront is also accepting app submissions for these new devices! You now have the chance to be among the first to have your application submitted and ready for these exciting new products.

The BlackBerry Java Plug-in for Eclipse™ and the BlackBerry Java Development Environment have also both been updated to support the new OS version, featuring an abundance of new APIs. They’re all listed out in great detail in the “New in this Release” section of the Release Notes.

For more information on what developers need to know about BlackBerry 7 and to download the BlackBerry Java SDK v7.0 beta, check out the BlackBerry 7 landing page on BlackBerry Developer Zone.

With the announcement of the new BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 smartphone and BlackBerry® Bold™ 9930 smartphone at the BlackBerry® World™ conference, I wanted to provide an overview of the devices from the perspective of the developer, in order to help developers understand what opportunities these new smartphones provide.

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 smartphone and the BlackBerry Bold 9930 smartphone are the first BlackBerry® smartphones to support BlackBerry® 7, and also the first BlackBerry smartphones to feature a touch interface on a traditional BlackBerry form factor.

Key features for developers:

• VGA (640 x 480) screen resolution
• 32-bit color (24 bits of color and 8 bits of transparency)
• 1.2 GHz Processor
• 8 GB of onboard memory, with microSD support for up to 32GB
• 4G networks; the 9900 supports HSPA+ connectivity, and the 9930 supports CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and HSPA+ global roaming on GSM/UMTS networks.
• Dedicated 3D OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0 and dedicated 2D OpenVG 1.1 graphics hardware (41 million triangles/sec, 245 million 3D pixels/sec)
• NFC (Near Field Communications), enabling reading and emulating of virtual tags for data transfer and creation of rich solutions for payment and m-commerce.
• Magnetometer / Digital Compass, enabling augmented reality and advanced mapping solutions
• 5 MP camera with support for 720p HD video recording and playback
• JIT (just in time) JavaScript compiler, yielding faster load time and speed of web pages
• Support for additional HTML5 elements, such as HTML5 Video

User agent for the BlackBerry Bold 9900 smartphone:

• Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9900; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0.0 Mobile Safari/534.11+

User agent for the BlackBerry Bold 9930 smartphone:

• Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9930; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0.0 Mobile Safari/534.11+

Java developers can check out the BlackBerry 7 developer page for more information on the new APIs and to download the new tools needed to get started.

Additionally, BlackBerry® WebWorks™ developers can continue to run their existing BlackBerry WebWorks apps in BlackBerry 7, reaping the benefits of the improved JavaScript compiler as well as having the ability to take advantage of the additional HTML5 elements supported in BlackBerry 7. To get started, BlackBerry WebWorks developers will want to visit the BlackBerry 7 developer page in order to test out the new browser functionality via the simulators for the new BlackBerry Bold 9900 series smartphones.

With the announcement of new BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 series of smartphones – which include the new BlackBerry 7 OS – comes the announcement of new API features. Now that you know that the new BlackBerry Bold 9900 smartphone and the new BlackBerry Bold 9930 smartphone are on their way, it’s time to start thinking about how your apps will run on these new smartphones running BlackBerry smartphone software version 7.0.

The BlackBerry® Java® Plug-in for Eclipse® and the BlackBerry® Java® Development Environment will both be updated to support the new OS version, and they bring with them an abundance of new APIs taking advantage of new device hardware features:

• OpenGL ES 2.0, taking advantage of the new graphics chip, allows you to create games rich in compelling graphics.
• Window Manager API, also taking advantage of the new graphics chip and increased device horsepower, allows you to overlay OpenGL or any other UI component on top of anything you want, including camera and video.
• Compass APIs, taking advantage of the new magnetometer sensor, allows you to determine the device’s orientation and direction. When combined with Window Manager API, enables the creation of augmented reality applications.
• Near Field Communication (NFC) APIs, taking advantage of the new NFC radio, allows you to read and emulate virtual tags and create rich solutions for payment and m-commerce.
• Video capture APIs updated with support for HD video recording, taking advantage of the improved camera, allows your application to provide the user with the same high end media experience they get from the core apps.

Beyond supporting new hardware features, there are also new APIs to further enable the Super Apps experience:

• Send Menu API, allowing apps to share content with contacts the same way that core apps do, by adding a “Send…” menu to their apps.
• Unified Search API has been updated, making integration with this device feature easier than ever before and allowing more control of indexed keywords.
• BlackBerry® Maps API has also been updated, simplifying how data is overlaid on top of BlackBerry Maps. Couple that with support for geofencing and the ability to overlay complex shapes and polygons, and you’ve got the richest integration with BlackBerry Maps to date.
• Options API has evolved to match the new look and feel of the BlackBerry 6 options screens, allowing third party apps to add their own entries into the options screen including an icon and descriptive text.
• Multimedia API has added support for buffer control for playback and bitrate definition for video recording.
• Barcode API has been updated to support ZXing 1.6 and allow for the definition of custom decorders.

With the upcoming beta release, scheduled for late May, application vendors will have the opportunity to not only begin porting their apps to support the new device launches, but also the opportunity to take advantage of new platform features, offering an application experience optimized for BlackBerry smartphones.

Stay tuned to the BlackBerry Developer’s Blog for the official start of the beta for BlackBerry Java SDK v7.0, including beta simulators for the new BlackBerry Bold 9900 smartphone and BlackBerry Bold 9930 smartphone.