[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Winner – Best Design
Awarded to: Team Voando Baixo

With limited experience in the mobile application world, Team Voando Baixo decided to participate in the BlackBerry Jam Session Hackathon in Campinas, Brazil to learn about developing for BlackBerry smartphones, meet new people, and of course, try to win an award! The team’s app, Voando Baixo, is a flight price ranker that alerts users when prices are low, based on the user’s specified price range.

On developing with HTML5/BlackBerry WebWorks SDK…

“Working with HTML5 and the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK allowed us to leverage our existing web development experience in JavaScript, CSS and HTML. This was a huge asset for us because this was our first time developing a mobile application.”

On the importance of BlackBerry 10 being an open platform…

“It’s really important that developers can draw on existing skills and experiences to develop for BlackBerry 10. This flexibility opens the door for many developers to use any number of languages to develop good mobile apps. It was surprising and stimulating for us to know that.”

On being excited about the BlackBerry 10 platform…

“Our first impression of the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device was that it looked really good. It was a very fast and beautiful device. We think that there is a very promising market for BlackBerry 10 and we believe it will be really successful in the long run. If you’re an app developer, try working with the BlackBerry 10 – it is flexible and easy.”

Winner – Best Game
Awarded to: Alpaca Team

As a group of artists, programmers and designers, Alpaca Team is made up of former colleagues who develop games in their free time. With more than three years of experience in mobile app development, the team won Best Game for ‘Luke at the Stars,’ a puzzle game that was originally developed for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

On developing with the BlackBerry 10 SDK for Adobe AIR…

“We already had experience developing games in Adobe ActionScript 3, so we were happy to be able to choose a tool we were familiar with. The benefits of the BlackBerry 10 SDK extend from the development to publishing. Using the SDK was easy and simple. We were able to test our game on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, which allowed us to make modifications to the gameplay and interface and create a better user experience in a short amount of time. The SDK also helped us on versioning and publishing.”

On the importance of BlackBerry 10 being an open platform…

“The flexibility is really important to many developers. The popularity of languages and codes changes with time and it’s crucial to keep the platforms open to accommodate that. We’re using Adobe AIR today, but tomorrow, who knows? We might use HTML5, for instance, but maintain the ability to develop for both the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet as well as BlackBerry smartphones. That’s a huge advantage for developers.”

On the benefits of participating in the Hackathon…

“The Hackathon was a fantastic experience for our team. This event demonstrated to us that we could use our experiences collaboratively to create something great. Sitting in a room with so many talented developers who were willing to share their thoughts and skills was rewarding. Our game was in a very initial stage so it was very useful to hear the general feedback from the judges. The BlackBerry crew was very supportive and willing to help. If you ever have a chance to participate in an event like this and learn about the operating systems, devices and how to implement your ideas we would strongly recommend it! Our game is set to be released in mid-January!”

For more information on this team, visit:
Website: http://alpacateam.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/alpacateam
Twitter: http://twitter.com/alpacagames

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!

Speaking of porting, don’t forget our 36 hour The BlackBerry Got Game Port-a-Thon  starts tomorrow! Check out this post for details and how you can get some awesome rewards for porting apps to BlackBerry® 10. – Ed.

The BlackBerry® 10 SDK for Adobe® AIR® has been created to make it easier for you to create Adobe AIR applications on multiple screen sizes while keeping mobile performance in mind. If you’re a developer that has one or more of the 6000+ Adobe AIR applications on the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet, this article will help point you in the right direction for getting your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet application updated for BlackBerry 10. This blog post will cover:

• Getting started
• User interface guidelines
• Support for multiple screen sizes
• Fuse UI
• Layouts
• Application icon size
• Samples
• Help

Getting Started

The first thing you’re going to want to do is download and install the latest versions of the BlackBerry 10 Beta SDK for Adobe AIR 3.0 from this location. This link also provides steps on how to download and install the latest version of the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha Simulator, which you’ll also need if you haven’t attended a BlackBerry Jam event and got yourself a Dev Alpha unit. To get your development environment set up, you can follow one of the many guides located here. If you are porting content that was originally created using Adobe® Flash® Professional, there is a guide you can follow here.

User interface guidelines

The user experience for BlackBerry 10 has changed significantly from the experience on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. Creating a cinematic experience, having fluid workflows, and emphasizing high performance are just some of the key principles that BlackBerry 10 applications should follow. The BlackBerry 10 UI Guidelines cover these principles and specify design, interaction, and style guidelines for your app.

Support for multiple screen sizes

Your BlackBerry 10 application should support the different screen sizes so that it looks consistent across devices. You specify the splash screen in the BAR application descriptor file and you can add them for each supported screen resolution. The BlackBerry 10 OS chooses the correct icon and splash screen to use based on the device that the application is running on.

Currently, the BlackBerry 10 OS supports the following screen sizes:

To support multiple screens in your BlackBerry 10 application, modify the bar-descriptor file.

<splashScreens>
   <image>splash-1024x600.jpg</image>
   <image>splash-600x1024.jpg</image>
   <image>splash-1280x768.jpg</image>
   <image>splash-768x1280.jpg</image>  
</splashScreens>

Fuse UI

In BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR 2.0, the qnx.fuse.ui API was introduced as a replacement for the qnx.ui API used in version 1.0. While the qnx.ui was deprecated, it remained available to applications for the BlackBerry PlayBook OS.

In the BlackBerry 10 SDK for Adobe AIR, the qnx.ui API has been removed, and you must update up your application to use the qnx.fuse.ui API.

In order to use the qnx.fuse.ui API in your application, you must add the QNXSkins AIR Native Extension to your application. For more information, see Adobe AIR native extensions.

Layouts

In BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR 2.0, the container methodology (highlighted in qnx.ui.core) was deprecated in favor of using layouts to organize your UI components.

In the BlackBerry 10 SDK for Adobe AIR, the container concept has been removed, and you must update your application to use the layout method.

You can use the Container class to organize your application’s UI controls. By using a layout, a Container manages the positioning and size of any UI component that it contains. Any controls that are added to a container are known as children. A container can also contain other containers, called sub-containers.

Below a container is created and a rowLayout is assigned to it:

//Create container
container = new Container();
container.scrollDirection = ScrollDirection.VERTICAL;
container.height = stage.stageHeight;
container.width = stage.stageWidth;
//Create layout
var row:RowLayout = new RowLayout();
container.layout = row;
row.spacing = 5;
row.padding = 5;

Application icon size

When creating new application icons, make sure that your application icon is the appropriate size for the application platform.

Samples

There are some BlackBerry 10 Adobe AIR samples that you can download the source for that will help you get started. You can find a description and the download location here. If you’re new, I recommend starting with the “Starship Settings” application and then moving on to the “Weather guesser” application for some more advanced layout techniques.

Help

If you need help, here is a list of resources that you can reference:

The Adobe AIR Development BlackBerry Support Community Forum
BlackBerry 10 SDK for Adobe AIR API Reference (beta)
The BlackBerry SDK for Adobe AIR Documentation
The Adobe AIR Development BlackBerry Resource Center

If all else fails, you can tweet me @dustinmalik or tweet @BlackBerryDev.

The BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet is quickly gaining a reputation as a serious gaming platform. During BlackBerry Jam Americas 2012 in San Jose, I had a chance to talk with Stephane Jacoby of Square 1 Games – who has brought the classic title “The Bard’s Tale” to the BlackBerry PlayBook.

I’m happy to announce a new offer that reinforces our commitment to gaming.  We are partnering with Marmalade to make it easy for developers to build new games for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet and the upcoming BlackBerry 10 smartphones.

Qualified developers that register here will receive a free, time-limited Marmalade SDK license for the BlackBerry PlayBook platform and a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. Once the developer has published their app to BlackBerry App World™, they will be able to unlock the cross-platform power of the Marmalade SDK and receive a free 6 month Marmalade Indie license.

Over the past few months we’ve shown the BlackBerry PlayBook to game developers at conferences and trade shows around the world.  Developers are excited and inspired after they see the power of the platform.  That’s reflected by the growth of the app catalogue on the BlackBerry PlayBook, with over 20,000 apps available and many new games like “Cut the Rope” which are made using the Marmalade SDK.

Game developers can leverage this offer to take advantage of the powerful gaming capabilities of the BlackBerry PlayBook and BlackBerry 10 and the first-to-market opportunity that the BlackBerry 10 platform provides.

Let’s play!

The BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet simulator v2.1 beta includes a new tool to help you work with the simulator: the Simulator Controller. You can run the Controller by executing the controller file located in the controllers sub directory, which can be found within the simulator installation directory. Once you have it up and running alongside the simulator, click on the Connection menu, choose Connect and enter the IP address of the simulator.

The Simulator Controller allows you to simulate rotating and tilting the simulator as well as simulate GPS locations. You can configure a single GPS coordinate or a route using a GPS NMEA data file. We’ve also included some sample NMEA sample data files located in the controllers\nmea directory.

The Simulator Controller coming in the upcoming update for the BlackBerry® 10 Dev Alpha simulator adds some additional features, including the much-requested ability to control the zoom level of the simulator to allow its entire window to fit on your screen. Here is a rundown of all the elements you can control:

• Control Device Orientation – Set Roll, Pitch and Yaw, Tilt on Z Axis and rotate about the X, Y or Z axis
• Control Illuminance and Proximity Sensors
• Set battery charge level, health, temperature and toggle charging on or off
• Set the device PIN
• Simulate GPS Location – Simulate either a fixed location or movement using NMEA data files
• Simulate NFC Tags
• Control Device Zoom level

For more information, refer to the BlackBerry Simulator documentation.

Being an event organizer myself with events such as Adobe Camp Brasil and Hackathon San Diego, and also seeing in so many events the big need to:

1) keep track of talks duration

2) show big enough messages from a distance to the speaker (like “Go Faster, 5 minutes left”)

3) do very FUN raffles

In March of 2012 I set the last project for Action Creations under my administration, called “Talk Clock”, to have a very polished design, focused on being very functional. After tons of prototypes and usability tests, it’s finally ready! And I’m proud to show it to you now:

As event organizer, you can have someone holding the tablet (showing it to the speaker) so he/she can see the time left and see your messages. During the raffle, you can plug the tablet to the projector via HDMI and show its screen to the whole audience.

The Talk Clock App is available only for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ (and soon BlackBerry 10 smartphones) and it can be found here. Hope you enjoy it!

Last week was a whirlwind for BlackBerry® developers. BlackBerry 10 Jam was the official launch of the BlackBerry 10 platform to the developer community – SDK’s, tools, and of course the BlackBerry 10 Alpha device.

This was a moment we’d been working toward since before DevCon Americas in the fall. I know there was a lot of pressure to show a phone last fall, but until the SDK’s were ready, and developers could actually use them, there would have been little point. Instead we steadily built first the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ OS 1.0 SDK, the PlayBook OS 2.0 SDK, and the PlayBook OS 2.0 software release, knowing full well that these releases, accompanied by the over 20,000 BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablets we had seeded into the market, would be a good foundation for the next phase – the actual BlackBerry 10 devices.

The excitement in the air was palpable. Folks started lining up at 7 AM on Wednesday morning to get the first Dev Alpha devices. And by noon, I couldn’t walk the hallways of the show without someone stopping to show me the code they had been working on.

Since then we’ve been bombarded by requests for BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha devices from developers who didn’t make the show. The good news? We’re going to take the show on the road – so come jam with us in a city near you. Check out the BlackBerry Jam Road Show page for more info.

A couple of thank you’s are in order. Thank you to the developers who came to the BlackBerry 10 Jam last week – you’re investing your energy, time, and money in making not just your own products successful, but ours as well. Also a very public thank you to all the teams at RIM who have worked for months to pull the BlackBerry 10 Jam off – the developers, product managers, marketing, and of course our very own developer relations group. Thank you!

Now go code something! We’ve got a monster of a product to ship together!

Originally published on www.saunderslog.com

Olá!, I’m Fernando, originally from Brazil and now based in Canada as part of RIM’s Developer Relations team. My mission is helping to make this planet a better, connected, fun place to live. I am also a writer, photographer and avid bass player, I’m passionate about aviation and it seems I have been spending too much time with robotics. (Editor’s note: You know how I feel about robots.)

We at RIM are extremely proud to announce that the BlackBerry® Native SDK for BlackBerry Tablet OS 2.0 is out of beta and now available for download! Based on requests from our developer community, we have been focusing on improving the user experience and providing a consistent environment with comprehensive APIs, resources and documentation.

Let’s take a look at some of the IDE enhancements:

• The EGit plugin allows developers to check out source code directly from GitHub via the IDE.
• A new easy-to-use wizard, Add Library Dependency, simplifies the process of adding library dependencies to a project.
• With per-project SDK support, you can now configure your SDK/toolchain on a per-project basis. This allows you to have projects in your workspace build against different versions of the device.
• A streamlined deployment setup wizard makes it easier for you to set up your development environment and troubleshoot issues. The wizard also leverages automatic device detection to help you set up your targets.
• You can now report bugs directly from the IDE. Select ‘Report a Bug’ from the Help menu in the IDE to report a bug and include screenshots, directly from the IDE.
• You can now filter files out of the BAR package to exclude unnecessary assets.
• BAR files in the Project Explorer can now be expanded to show contents. Files in the BAR can be opened (read-only) in the appropriate editor.
• The Import wizard has a new option, ‘BlackBerry Tablet OS Existing Code as BlackBerry Tablet OS C/C++ Makefile Project,’ to import existing code.
• The BAR file editor now allows viewing of localized manifests for each locale.
• Two new profiles, QNX Developer and C/C++ Developer (CDT), allow you to control access to functionality depending on developer type.
• AIR Native Extension Support, which includes new workflows has been added to the IDE to help you build and debug native extensions. This includes an ANE project type that works with the Adobe command line tools to generate ANEs. In addition, the new ANE launch configurations help you debug your ANE on the device.
• Access to more example projects using the New Example wizard.

The BPS (BlackBerry Platform Services) APIs have evolved too, now including more features and several enhancements:

• Sensor: many sensors are available, for example: accelerometer, magnetometer, temperature, luminance, etc.
• Device Information: functions for reading information like OS version, PIN, serial number etc.
• Soundplayer: several functions to play system sounds (like camera shutter, device lock etc).
• LED service: control of the LEDs and colors to notify users even if the device isn’t being used.
• Audio Mixer API: enables your application to react to events (headphone connected/disconnected, mute, etc) and also control audio properties. Also new input and output channels are available.

And also, highlights on Scoreloop! The addition of the Scoreloop SDK offers game developers next-generation technology for mobile social gaming features: achievements, challenges, user profiles, leaderboards, awards and more. The social features are modular so you can integrate only the ones you want, while maintaining your app’s look and feel.

You can get start at the Native SDK webpage, in the download section. Also take a look at:

• Documentation – in the documentation section, you will find a great source of information about tutorials, recipes, guides and a great directory of open source libraries ported and available on github.
• Forums – in the Native SDK forums, you can discuss support topics, learn from the community and interact directly with us.

So, are you ready? Let us know what you think in the comments!

We’re well into the holiday season, and Santa and his elves are busy in their workshop making sure all the good boys and girls have fun and exciting presents to open. What about the elves here at RIM? Well, I’m happy to tell you that the hardworking teams have version of the BlackBerry® Native SDK 2.0 for Tablet OS ready for you now! I know, I know…the title’s a mouthful but, like a festive holiday meal, the mouthful is worth it!

Continuing on the success we saw with our launch of the BlackBerry Native SDK for Tablet OS at BlackBerry® DevCon Americas this fall and the release of an initial beta for the BlackBerry Native SDK 2.0, the second beta release contains:

• The inclusion of the Scoreloop SDK 1.0 beta 1
• Updated documentation to help developers solve tricky problems
• Tooling/IDE changes:
• A streamlined deployment setup wizard designed to help with the setup of your development environment and to provide better feedback when there are issues in the process. It also leverages the automatic device detection feature to help you set up your targets.
• Adobe® AIR Native Extension (ANE) support – New workflows have been added to the IDE to help you build and debug native extensions. This includes an ANE project type that works with the Adobe command line tools to generate ANEs. In addition, the new ANE launch configurations helps you debug your ANE on the device.
• Per project SDK support – You may now configure your BlackBerry Native SDK on a per-project basis. This allows you to have projects in your workspace build against different versions of the device. For example, you could have one project in your space build against the latest release BlackBerry Native SDK (1.0.8) and another build against the latest developer SDK (2.0 DR2). Previously, all projects in your workspace built against the same BlackBerry Native SDK.

We continue to evolve and improve the developer experience on the BlackBerry platform. In that same vein, we have produced a BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet OS 2.0 beta 2 (DR2) for our native BlackBerry Native SDK users. Be sure to white list your device’s PIN so that you can download the DR2 release (Developer Release beta 2) of the BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet OS.

As mentioned in the list above, the BlackBerry Native SDK 2.0 for Tablet OS 2.0 beta includes the Scoreloop SDK 1.0 beta 2 release – the next-generation technology that enables mobile social gaming. It lets you integrate the Scoreloop SDK’s set of social gaming features into your games.

The Scoreloop SDK is a fully customizable SDK that is designed to allow you to seamlessly integrate the Scoreloop SDK’s features into your games while maintaining the look and feel of your applications throughout. The social features are modular, so you can integrate as many or as few social features as you want.

Some of the features currently available include:

• User profiles
• Leaderboards
• Challenges
• Awards and achievement

It’s a great time to be developing for the BlackBerry platform!

On that note, happy holidays to everyone. Thank you for your continued efforts, and I look forward to sharing more exciting news with you in the new year. I’ll be showing up at as many meetups, Mobile Mondays, events, conferences, and developer gatherings as possible. If you see me, come say hi, and let me know how I can help you succeed in your mobile development challenges.