The excitement of last week’s launch of BlackBerry 10 still hasn’t worn off around these parts. We feel it in the air. We are at the brink of something new in the world of mobile computing. As you know, we here at BlackBerry have been working tirelessly to get to this point, the global launch of BlackBerry 10.  But the launch of BlackBerry 10 is just the beginning.  There is still so much more to do, and the team here is already starting on the next steps.  The first of these is adding support for the BlackBerry Q10 and its physical keyboard into our BlackBerry WebWorks SDK and the Ripple Emulator.

Luckily, from a WebWorks perspective, everything you need is already on the BlackBerry 10 operating system.  The two major areas where the BlackBerry Q10 and the BlackBerry Z10 are the physical keyboard and the screen size.

For the physical keyboard, the system takes care of handling the input for you and piping it into your app just as if it came from the virtual keyboard on a BlackBerry Z10.  However, the traditional BlackBerry user is also very used to having actions be triggerable from the keyboard when not actually performing text input.  Think of clicking ‘r’ in the Inbox on a BlackBerry OS device in order to trigger a Reply action.  If you wish to provide your user keyboard shortcuts within your application, you can use the standard HTML5 onkeypress event.  Set a listener on the appropriate HTML elements, process the key stroke and trigger the action.

In terms of the screen size, HTML5 standard approaches in responsive design are more than adequate to allow you to layout the UI of your application appropriately in different screen resolutions.  The major difference we have from a system perspective is related to some key User experience decisions made for the smaller screen size, and that the WebWorks platform handles for you.  For example, the context menu on the BlackBerry Z10 automatically triggers an overflow UI if there are more than seven items in the menu.  For the BlackBerry Q10 it will do this for four or more items.  The BlackBerry Q10, due to its OLED display, also uses true black in some UI elements to be more efficient.  These are just some examples, but I want to reiterate that all of this is supported out of the box by the web platform that is part of the latest BlackBerry 10 OS builds, so you will not actually see a BlackBerry WebWorks SDK refresh for BlackBerry Q10 support. There is a BlackBerry WebWorks refresh in the works to add a few new APIs, but we’ll talk about that soon in a different post.

What you will find is a refresh to Ripple to allow you to select the BlackBerry Z10 or the BlackBerry Q10 for emulation when targeting the BlackBerry 10 platform.  This will allow you to emulate and test your layout against the different screen sizes of the devices and ensure your design will work for both devices.  If you already have Ripple installed, you should see an update come in automatically.  If you don’t already have Ripple you can get it here.  Enjoy!

Everyone loves a good webinar. OK, perhaps that’s an overstatement. Nevertheless, we hear loud and clear that our developer community loves them. The series of webinars we have run throughout the summer in conjunction with each successive SDK release have been extremely successful. So why stop now? Tomorrow – Tuesday, December 18th – we are bringing you two webinars that will cover all the latest information related to gold release Native and HTML5 SDKs for BlackBerry 10. The launch event date is coming up fast, so head on over to the registration pages and mark your calendars.

BlackBerry 10 Native SDK

We will take a quick look at what we have achieved so far with our native SDK. We will then look at the latest and greatest API and tooling features that have arrived in this most recent beta as well as the beta that preceded it. This includes things like advertising, SMS and invocation framework enhancements. Also, for the first time you will get a quick preview of the cards that are available to invoke and how you can invoke them. We will also cover some of the important IDE enhancements that have arrived, including the update manager, a brand new spanking project wizard, and the latest and greatest features that have been added to the Microsoft Visual Studio Plugin.

REGISTRATION:
http://www.blackberrydeveloperevents.com/events/webcast/registration/register.html?scoid=1079239157

BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK

We’ll take a look at the latest gold release as well as the most recent beta that preceded it. Starting with a quick overview of BlackBerry WebWorks, we will move to a summary of all of the latest features. We will then dive deeper into some of the more interesting features with a live look at code and functioning samples.

REGISTRATION:
http://www.blackberrydeveloperevents.com/events/webcast/registration/register.html?scoid=1079318388

I’m stoked to spread the word to all of our developers that as of version 2.2, you can now build apps with PhoneGap that target BlackBerry® 10!

Our very own official Apache Cordova contributor Gord Tanner (@gordtanner) has been hard at work making sure you can build PhoneGap apps for BlackBerry 10 today. What’s got me really excited about this news is that even though BlackBerry 10 is still in beta, a quick test revealed more than half of the APIs are already supported. With monthly updates to PhoneGap being released, this means that developers can start working on their BlackBerry 10 apps right away, and have peace of mind knowing that more and more support will be available in each release.

What is PhoneGap, you say?

PhoneGap is an open source framework that allows developers to quickly build cross-platform apps using HTML5, JavaScript®, and CSS. PhoneGap is powered by Cordova and is compatible with BlackBerry® OS 5+, BlackBerry® PlayBook™ OS, and now BlackBerry 10!

Have a PhoneGap app created for another platform? We’ve got 10,000 reasons for you to port it over!

If you already have a PhoneGap app available on other platforms, why not take advantage of the recent BlackBerry 10 support? By porting your app over to BlackBerry 10, and registering for the 10k Developer Commitment, we’re guaranteeing you will make at least $10,000 in 12 months or we’ll pay the difference!

Note: Conditions apply. For complete details, visit the 10k Developer Commitment webpage.

So, are you ready? Get started in 3 steps:

1. Visit the new PhoneGap Getting Started Guide for BlackBerry.
2. Head over to the PhoneGap website and download the SDK.
3. Win!

If you’ve got a success story, have a question, or just want to chat about apps, hit me up on Twitter @chadtatro.

Now I’m here to talk about how you can integrate your BlackBerry® WebWorks™ application with the BBM SP. Most of what will be covered is available to both BlackBerry® OS 5-7 and BlackBerry® 10 applications. However, at the time of writing some of the BBM SP APIs discussed here are available only for BlackBerry OS 5-7 applications — I’ve noted where this is the case. We are planning on adding these to the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK as well.

Testing a BBM SP application for BlackBerry 10 currently requires a real device. We’re working on adding BBM SP support in the BlackBerry 10 simulator and this should be available before the end of 2012. Support for testing BlackBerry OS 5-7 applications that use BBM SP is supported in many BlackBerry smartphone simulators we have available today, so ensure you download one that lists support for BBM.

Configure Your Project

The BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK includes everything you need to get started. If you have a BlackBerry OS 5-7 application, you’ll need to download the BBM SDK v1.1 for BlackBerry WebWorks in addition to the regular BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Smartphones. Instructions for connecting these two SDK for targeting BlackBerry OS 5-7 can be found in Getting Started: BlackBerry WebWorks Development for Smartphones and the BBM Social Platform.

In order for your application to access to the BBM SP APIs, you’ll need to request the appropriate permissions in your application’s config.xml file. There are two elements you’ll need to add: bbm_connect for rim:permissions and blackberry.bbm.platform for feature. Here is what it looks like:

<rim:permissions>
	<rim:permit>bbm_connect</rim:permit>
</rim:permissions>
<feature id="blackberry.bbm.platform" />

Register with the BBM Social Platform

Registration is the first step in connecting to the BBM Social Platform, which involves an application registering itself with the RIM-hosted BBM infrastructure. A BBM sample is available on the BlackBerry github site that demonstrates BBM SP registration along with the invite to download feature. Have a look at it once you’ve finished reading this section for the complete version of the code snippets used here.

When using BlackBerry WebWorks, the first thing to do is to register for the onaccesschanged event. If you try to register before registering for this, an IllegalStateException is thrown. Here is how you can register for this event:

blackberry.event.addEventListener("onaccesschanged", function (accessible, status) {
	if (status === 'allowed') {
		/* Access allowed. */
	} 
});

This code sample only catches the allowed status. Your application would need to handle disallowed status that could be caused by the user being out of coverage or if the user disallowed access to BBM. The BBM sample demonstrates how to catch the other statuses.

Each application must define its own Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) so that it can uniquely identify itself. This UUID is used to register with the BBM SP servers during testing and development. Applications in the BlackBerry App World™ storefront are assigned their own UUID automatically. You can generate a UUID using various web sites, such as the one here. In BlackBerry WebWorks, the UUID is stored in the options parameter used in registration.

options = {
	uuid: "33490f91-ad95-4ba9-82c4-33f6ad69fbbc"
};

Now we’re ready for the final step in the registration process, which is to call the register method using the options parameter we defined above. This will trigger the onaccesschanged event.

blackberry.bbm.platform.register(options);

Invite to Download

The invite to download feature allows users of your application to invite their BBM contacts to download your application from BlackBerry App World. The recipient receives the invitation through a BBM Chat session, which includes a message provided by the application and user sending the invitation. This is one of the easiest features to implement. After you’ve registered, you can do this with just one method call.

blackberry.bbm.platform.users.inviteToDownload();

Note that for this to work between BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry OS 5-7 users, the SKU in BlackBerry App World for the two releases of the application (BAR and COD) must be the same.

Profile Integration

BBM SP allows for both read and write access to the user’s BBM profile. This allows your application access to their profile message, status text, availability and avatar image. Here are a few examples of how to use these APIs:

This first code sample shows how to access the image the user has set for their BBM profile.

blackberry.bbm.platform.self.getDisplayPicture(function (image) {
    // do something with the image here
});
Now let’s look at how your application could update the user’s BBM profile picture.
blackberry.bbm.platform.self.setDisplayPicture("local:///smiley.jpg", function (accepted) {
    if(accepted) {
        // User allowed the change
    } else {
        // User denied the change
    }
});

If an update to a personal message was made from an application other than the BBM Client, a tag is shown under the update stating the name of the application that performed the update. Users can click on that tag to download the application from BlackBerry App World. This requires the sender to have installed the application from BlackBerry App World, so that tag won’t take you to BlackBerry App World if you side loaded your application for testing. Let’s take a look at how to update the personal message and status.

blackberry.bbm.platform.self.setStatus("busy", "Getting a new high score", function (accepted) {
    if(accepted) {
        // User allowed the change
    } else {
        // User denied the change
    }
});
blackberry.bbm.platform.self. setPersonalMessage ("I’m loving this app!", function (accepted) {
    if(accepted) {
        // User allowed the change
    } else {
        // User denied the change
    }
});

Profile Boxes

Profile Boxes provide yet another way for an application to promote itself to a user’s BBM contacts. They appear within the Apps area of a user’s profile and are ideal for sharing what a user is doing within an application. Every application that is connected to BBM SP appears in the list. Applications can create profile box items that appear under their application header. You can supply a custom image and string, which is used to create the profile box item.

The ability to add a profile box item using BlackBerry WebWorks is not yet supported on BlackBerry 10, but you can do it on BlackBerry OS 5-7. There are C and C++ APIs for populating the profile box on BlackBerry 10, so you could accomplish this by building a custom BlackBerry WebWorks extension.

When creating a profile box item, use of the image is optional. If you don’t wish to include an image, you can omit it from the options variable.

var options = {text:"No one’s ever beat me at solitare!", icon:"local:///cardshark.jpg", cookie:"unbeatable"};
blackberry.bbm.platform.self.profilebox.addItem(options);

Contacts

An application can retrieve a list of BBM Contacts who have the same application installed. This list can be used as selection criteria for connecting for a multi-user experience. Events are also fired for changes to this contact list, allowing your application to keep track of both the addition and deletion of contacts in the contact list itself and/or changes to individual contacts.

Currently, working with BBM contacts is not supported using BlackBerry WebWorks for BlackBerry 10, but there are APIs for WebWorks for BlackBerry OS 5-7 as well as C and C++ APIs for BlackBerry 10. Further support for this in BlackBerry WebWorks for BlackBerry 10 is planned for a December release. Watch the BlackBerry WebWorks roadmap for updates.

Wrapping It Up

That wraps up my intro post for getting started with the BlackBerry Messenger Social Platform using BlackBerry WebWorks. Now it’s up to you to make use of these APIs in your next hit application, which could be featured on the Connected App Showcase.

As more and more smartphones and tablets enter the enterprise, there is increasing desire to extend enterprise data beyond the desktop and into mobile. There are also more complexities when developing and deploying an app in an enterprise environment, such as data and device management, security, cross-platform and cross-device development, and connectivity for your application. With its core DNA rooted in the enterprise, the BlackBerry® platform addresses these issues with app development and deployment solutions – and as a developer, these can be leveraged to deliver a richer and more secure application.

The guide posted below will help developers make the right development decisions, leveraging the right tools and resources. This can save valuable time and money, and ultimately help build better applications. Key topics covered are:

• Overview of BlackBerry® WebWorks™
• Building HTML5 Applications with Native-Like Functionality
• Using Existing Web Development Frameworks
• BlackBerry WebWorks Resources
• Tools and Code to Help You Get Started Today
• Deploying and Managing Client Applications
• Securing Enterprise Content

Check out the guide below and share your thoughts and feedback in the comments.

We found many examples of things we’re doing right (e.g. automatic updates in Ripple). However, as we hoped to find, we also discovered examples of sub-optimal experiences where new developers could possibly be road blocked in their ability to complete their BlackBerry application. It is these latter examples that proved why we ran this exercise, and we are committed to continuing this review and will re-evaluate the platform again on a regular schedule.

Our group first started by identifying who our development community was. How did they think? What was important to them? How would their potential backgrounds influence how they flow through the “getting started with BlackBerry” experience? Our focus was on the following 5 personalities:

• “The coder” – Lives in a text editor and can modify their own path variable. Comfortable troubleshooting advanced issues without assistance. Likely have built a mobile app already.
• “The beginner” – Just getting started with mobile development or are evaluating BlackBerry Web dev. May have strong development skills in another language or none at all.
• “The desktop web developer” – Have a very strong understanding of client-server web development. Have successfully built web sites and may have used frameworks like jQuery, Sencha or Dojo.
• “The enterprise developer” – Cross platform is a primary goal. Prefers to use IDEs and typically works under an IT enforced environment.
• “The PhoneGap developer” – Someone who has come to the BlackBerry developer site to learn how to port their PhoneGap application

So what did we find? Lots! In fact, I’m still going through all the feedback. Everything from “would be nice” changes to “this is a gating bug and must be fixed” is being documented, and our intent is to file issues so the public can track them in the developer issue tracker . Here are just some of the results from the group:

• Discovery process: Search engine optimization should be improved. Keywords that each developer persona would expect to search for did not always generate correct search results.
  [Michelle] Search term: “enterprise development for BlackBerry 10” on Google. First result is to register for an outdated/unrelated course; next search results are for BlackBerry® Enterprise Server development.
• Sample applications: A number of BlackBerry WebWorks sample applications are published in Github. We need to refine the flow of navigating a user between blackberry.com and github.com. Also, for new developers, Github is unfamiliar. Some preparation of what to expect and how to use it will be helpful:
  [Kevin]: Sample apps… I am not super familiar with Github. Didn’t like getting dumped into git for samples. I’d prefer to get a zip to download. Managed to figure it out then.
  [Brent] – Click the link for samples on Getting Started – Taken to Github – what is Github? And what are these samples for – what do they do?
• HelloWorld sample: More developers will successfully complete the “Creating HelloWorld for BlackBerry 10” tutorial if we provide a direct link to a ZIP file that contains the sample application assets.
  [Brent] HelloWorld sample – copying and Pasting seems like a waste. Possible to download the helloworld package? – Creating config.xml in notepad and pasting the copied xml text puts it all on one lovely line. #NotImpressed
• Ripple: The Ripple Mobile emulator is currently designed to build and sign a BlackBerry WebWorks application. It also provides an option to deploy to a target device, but only when the app is unsigned. For simulators this is ideal; however, not for live devices where a debug token would be required. Not all developers want / know how to use a debug token.
  [Ed] The build choices are confusing and missing the one option I want. I want “package and sign, or package sign and deploy” to a real device. Package and launch is confusing because I don’t want to package and launch to a simulator, but when I do want to for a real device, I want it to do so signed, not with debug tokens I don’t use. I suggest: “Package”, “Package & Sign”, “Package & Sign & deploy” (to a real device” and “Package and launch” to simulator. the last one, the least likely to use.

Here’s how you can send us feedback -

1. Join the discussion in the BlackBerry Web and BlackBerry WebWorks community forum.
2. Log into the developer issue tracker and file a bug report. Remember to provide as much detail as possible about how to reproduce the problem and what are the expected / actual results.
3. Let’s have a chat via @BlackBerryDev on Twitter® or the BlackBerryDevCommunity on Facebook®.

Questions like these are very important and the reasons why I and nine others from our team have gathered today to analyze and explore further.  In the room today we have:

• Developer Relations: Adam Stanley, Michelle Mendoza
• R&D: Chris Del Col, Dan Silivestru, Matt Lantz
• Documentation: Ryan Lehman, Kevin Bater, Kate Wilhelm
• Product Management: Tim Neil
• Wireless Application Architects: Brent Thornton, Ed Bourne

The goal of today’s exercise is to take a step back, and put ourselves in the shoes of our development community.  We are putting the BlackBerry HTML5/WebWorks platform under a microscope to get a deeper understanding of its DNA.

Everyone in the room is uninstalling their SDKs and clearing their minds in order to live through the experience of getting started with BlackBerry Web development for the very first time.  We’re putting on the hats of different developer personalities and discovering how those mindsets affect how they discover the platform, read use our documentation, access samples and use our SDKs.

We want to ensure a developer never has to get stuck at “Now what do I do?”  The next step, whether it is downloading Ripple, installing a code signing key or testing via remote web inspector should be clear.

How did you get started with BlackBerry dev for the first time?

@n_adam_stanley#bbdevxp Sample Apps always be the best way, off course later its necessary read the documentation =)

— PabloC (@twipoc) October 3, 2012

@n_adam_stanley The first apps were all copy&paste from samples.#bbdevxp Now doing the same on #bb10

— Simon Hain (@SimonHain) October 3, 2012

As the folks who are behind the scenes actually building the tools, websites and learning resources that developers use, it’s important we are clearly providing a positive experience that enables our developers to be successful.  Right now we are ½ way through the day and we’ve discovered finding proactive ways to make the existing experience even better for our web community.  Some examples include:

• More focus on putting samples at the forefront of the getting started process.
• Providing offline documentation.
• Better linking between API reference guides, samples and developer documentation.

I want to hear your feedback.  Tell me what was important to you as a developer when you first started and I’ll make sure your voice is heard.

Post a comment below or send us a tweet using hashtag #bbdevxp or post in the BlackBerry Web community forums and let us know what’s on your mind!

We have to start with a huge shout-out to the BlackBerry WebWorks dev team for some truly remarkable work preparing for this blockbuster. I have been with RIM® for just over 10 years — been there, done that, thought I had seen it all. But I can honestly say that the energy, passion, and dedication to make BlackBerry 10 truly astonishing is unmatched by anything that has come before.

And the passion is company-wide. Don’t take my word for it — this from one of the devs on the BlackBerry WebWorks team:

But back to what you came here for: the low-down on what this release of BlackBerry WebWorks has to offer. Hope you already have your coffee ready (or perhaps adult beverage of choice).

It would be remiss not to lead with the news that the first portion of PIM integration is now supported! With this release, you can create, find, modify, and delete Contacts in your address book. Just like the native application, you can get information on news related to your contact, as well as what instant messaging and social networks you are connected with them on. It’s everything you need to interact with the user’s social graph. Of course, be sure to add the new permissions to your config.xml so the user can opt in, and ensure you elegantly handle it if the user does not allow you access to their PIM data.

var name = new blackberry.pim.contacts.ContactName(); 

name.familyName = “Wallis”;
name.givenName = “Ken”;

var contact = blackberry.pim.contacts.create({
 	“displayName”: “Ken Wallis”,
 	“name”: name });

contact.save(onSaveSuccess, onSaveError);

Drafted a close second (certainly a case could be made for this being selected number 1) is the first stage of support for the BBM Social Platform. In this release, you can register your application with BBM, interact with the user’s profile, be notified of changes to user or friend’s profiles (that also have your app installed), and allow the user to invite friends to download your application. Again, there is a new permission that you will need to include to allow your app to connect:

blackberry.bbm.platform.self.setStatus("busy",
"Building BlackBerry 10, DND!", 
function (accepted) {
    		if(accepted) {
        			// User allowed the change
    		} else {
// User denied the change
    		}
});

BlackBerry Flow is all about leveraging existing functionality – both system and third-party provided – to accomplish tasks in a consistent way, but without having to jump between applications. You can embed what you need from others inside your own application experience, and cards are what drive this experience. Think of a card as a screen that gets layered on top of your application that provides some common functionality to the user. When the user is finished interacting with the card, it animates off the stack of screens and returns any relevant data back to you. The Invocation Framework (which we introduced in a previous release of BlackBerry WebWorks) orchestrates all of this underneath the covers, so you can launch cards using invoke. With this release of BlackBerry WebWorks, you can leverage system and third-party developed cards inside your BlackBerry WebWorks application. You can also implement a card inside your BlackBerry WebWorks application and provide it for use by others! Check out the Invoked namespace in the API Reference for more details on creating your own card.

As indicated, raw invoke functionality can be used to launch cards. However, cards can be accessed in a number of other ways as well:

• A couple of cards provided by the system are the File picker and Camera cards. File picker allows you to provide the user with UI to select a file from the filesystem, and you will get the path back. The Camera Card allows the user to capture pictures or video, and again you get the path back. We felt that these cards might get a lot of use, and are a little more complex to interact with directly using invoke, so we have wrapped an API around them. Check out the blackberry.invoke.card namespace.
• You can also leverage the File picker and Camera cards using the new support for Media Capture in the browser – just include the capture attribute on an field. If you specify “camera” or “camcorder”, you will get the Camera card; otherwise specifying anything else will invoke the File picker. Note that an input field with capture type “microphone” is currently not supported.

<input type=”file” accept=”image/*” capture=”camera”>

In the last major release, we provided the built-in Context Menu with standard system options. This context menu is displayed when the user long presses on an item in your application. In this release, you now have the ability to customize the menu for different contexts in your application. You can remove items from the list, and even provide your own menu items for a given context (such as Image, link, and so on). In future releases, we are looking at ways to allow you to define your own custom context in your application content.

Context Menu

User experience is a prime focus for BlackBerry 10. The user should feel at home no matter where they are, and be able to customize their device for accessibility reasons as well. For example, the user can set a language, as well as a region used for formatting of dates, and so on. Font size can also be adjusted for preference or for accessibility reasons. Applications should strive to adhere to these preferences as well, so with this release, we have provided APIs and events that will allow you to know what the language, region, font, and font size are as defined in the global settings. You can adjust your applications accordingly to have a seamless experience.

An oft-requested feature is to be able to lock your application in a specific orientation. Good news — you can do it now. Check out our documentation on the config.xml file to find out how.

In order to improve memory overhead and load times, the underlying web rendering engine no longer loads the Adobe® Flash® plug-in be default. If you need to support Flash rendering in your application, you can enable it by adding the following feature element to your config.xml (note that this will be application wide, and will be ignored if found inside an <access> element):

<feature id=”enable-flash”>

If you are building a multi-page application, and even on application initial load, you may notice flickers on page transitions if your pages have any background color other than white. We have introduced the ability to specify in config.xml what your page color is, and we will use this to display between page loads to hide the flicker. Give it a try.

<feature id="blackberry.app">
    <param name="backgroundColor" value="0xffffff" />
</feature>

Be sure to check out the API Reference to get the low down on everything our Web Platform can offer to build not just web applications, but integrated web apps showcasing everything that makes BlackBerry 10 unique and powerful. And if you haven’t already, download the tools and get started — there is no better time!

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

Recently we posted a new version of the BlackBerry® 10 WebWorks™ SDK that delivered to you the power to create your own custom API extensions; this allows you to expose Native platform functionality into your application that we have not yet exposed in the standard WebWorks API set.  Hopefully you are well on your way already to creating your custom extension.

Since the release we had some reports of issues with respect to code signing on Apple Mac systems, as well as issues with config.xml files with more than one <feature> elements that references an unsupported feature (these should just be gracefully ignored.  Thanks to some hard work by the dev team we have resolved these issues, and version 1.0.1.17 of the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK is now available for download.

Head over to the download page to grab it and resume coding your BlackBerry 10 WebWorks apps!