The updates to the run-times have been ones that have had a lot of anticipation. Adobe AIR 3.5 brings with it Stage3D for accelerated OpenGL graphics and the Android run-time upgrade brings it up to Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) compatibility. As with any beta, this is a work in progress as we work our way towards the gold release of the BlackBerry 10.2 SDK. Known issues will be outlined in the release notes for each run-time.

There are also BlackBerry 10.2 SDK OS updates for BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha B and C testing devices as well as the BlackBerry 10.2 SDK OS updates available for those who have BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10 smartphones. All updates can be performed via the autoloader tool. Again, this is an SDK OS beta that is a trimmed down version of the BlackBerry 10.2 Operating System and is meant to provide a testing environment for you to try out the new SDK and experiment with the added capabilities that have been released. We have also released BlackBerry 10.2 SDK OS updates for the simulator. For this first release, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean testing is not yet supported in the simulator.

If you run into any issues or find bugs, please be sure to report them in the forums and the Developer Issue Tracker to make sure that we have them logged and ensure they are fixed for the BlackBerry 10.2 Gold SDK.We value your feedback as we continue to build the best mobile platform for our users.

There’s a bunch of new functionality that’s available in the beta and I encourage you to check out the roadmap pages and release notes for your favorite run-time to find out what all has been made available in this release. We have a lot more functionality scheduled to arrive in the BlackBerry 10.2 Gold SDK release as well, so I encourage you to check back often with the roadmap pages to find out more on timing and details.

So with all that said… grab the latest SDKs and development OS and have some fun coding!

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

With the help of our web design wizards at The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), we’re happy to announce that our BlackBerry® 10 Roadmap flight arrival boards are now available. Unlike the image posted above, the BlackBerry 10 Roadmap flight arrival boards have real roadmap data instead of yummy Bacon Ipsum dummy data.

These roadmap arrival boards will continue to be updated as we move through each beta phase both for the launch of BlackBerry 10 as well as for betas that go beyond the first release of the BlackBerry 10 operating system. We want to make these a standard communication tool for our development community to know what’s coming and when it will arrive.

There are also some updates to share surrounding the BlackBerry 10 SDK release schedule. In our previous post, we talked about the SDK release cadence leading up to gold. This included a release in September, October and November.

We’re happy to announce that we have been able to pull in the October release and merge it with September release in order to make sure that we can add some of the core BlackBerry applications to the simulator and BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha testing device in order for you to test your integrated apps in September. The updated SDK release schedule looks like the following:

Why isn’t BlackBerry WebWorks listed as API Freeze in Beta 3?

Since BlackBerry® WebWorks™ is an Open Source project which only has operating system dependencies, its release schedule is slightly different than those runtimes that are only released with an OS update. This is also why there have been releases of the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK in June and August when the other SDKs were not updated. The BlackBerry WebWorks SDK gold release is currently scheduled for December.

What does “API Freeze” mean anyway?

The target for the Beta 3 Native/Adobe® AIR®/Android™ runtimes is to be API feature complete. This means that the signatures are frozen in order to help with gold compatibility and provide a stable base for building your applications.

There may be a few additional APIs that sneak into the Gold SDK release, but they will be considered additions and carefully scrutinized in order to not modify existing API signatures. Be sure to follow the flight arrival boards for any updates around additional Gold SDK functionality.

Will there be an SDK release between Beta 3 and Gold?

At the moment we don’t have any concrete plans to release an SDK update between Beta 3 and the Gold SDK. We will continue to evaluate the need and will reflect any updates through the SDK roadmap arrival boards.

Where do I find these Roadmaps?

You can check out each of the roadmaps 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

The latest BlackBerry® 10 Beta SDKs are now available for download! They bring a whole lot more functionality, along with a software upgrade for the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha testing device for those who have received one at our BlackBerry Jam World Tour events or BlackBerry 10 Jam in Orlando this past May. This new device update now includes the BlackBerry App World™ storefront client application (the same version that is on the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet). Yes, this means you can start to submit your BlackBerry 10 applications to BlackBerry App World and share it with fellow BlackBerry 10 developers to get early feedback.

So what’s next?

To keep the ball rolling for our developer community, we’ve scheduled a series of tooling and SDK releases that will be rolled out over the next few months. Each runtime (Native, HTML5, Adobe® AIR®, and Android™) will have incremental updates to functionality. Each runtime’s functionality won’t necessarily be in sync, as they each have different developer audiences where APIs are prioritized based on what each of these communities are asking for.

Each release is named Rn where R stands for “Release” and n stands for “number”. So for the first BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha release, the SDK was R4 to match with 10.0.4.xyz version. We also sometimes do internal-only releases, which is why you’ll see some numbers skipped.

The BlackBerry 10 SDK Beta schedule looks like the following:

• R4: May SDK Beta Release (first beta)
• R6: July SDK Beta Release (just launched)
• R8: September SDK Beta Release (API Freeze, Binary Compatible with Gold)
• R9: October SDK Beta Release (bug fixes)
• R10: November Gold SDK Release (bug fixes)

But what’s coming in these releases?

We’re going to step out of the box and do something that we’ve never done before and quite frankly, something that I’ve rarely seen any tech company do in this industry. We’re going to share with you our feature release plan for each of the runtimes. We’ll be providing a list the top level line item deliverables — but not getting into the details of each feature, or else the list will turn into something as long as a DVD’s extended director’s-cut limited edition!

The beta roadmaps will be posted in the form of flight arrival boards so that you can see the feature, the flight/release it is on, the scheduled arrival time and the current status. These roadmaps should be available in a couple of weeks.

Now I’m going to give the usual disclaimer: These are “targets” and the usual laws of software delivery apply around priorities, dependencies and customer issue firefighting that can impact delivery schedules and scope. We’re being transparent as we can with you, our developer community, to help you better plan your app development leading up to the BlackBerry 10 launch. We want to ensure that we are releasing updates to the SDKs as frequently as possible leading up to gold. Once you have finished digesting and implementing what has been made available in one Beta update, there will be another one waiting for you with more goodies.