Today we are releasing a beta of BlackBerry® Tablet OS 2.1.0 for developers to test their applications with. Developers can test using devices or a simulator, and there are some items that I think will be of particular interest.

The WebKit implementation on BlackBerry Tablet OS continues to keep pace with the latest updates to the WebKit project. There are numerous updates included which keep the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet at the forefront for Tablet Browsers in the market, as seen by our HTML5 Test Score (391 and 10 bonus points).

This latest score at html5test.com is a bit out of date, but I’m sure that won’t last long once you’ve got your hands on the beta. The beta is an improvement of 18 points and 1 bonus point over 2.0.1, most due to the inclusion of the FileSystem API.

There are three major enhancements to the Android™ Runtime in 2.1.0:

• Each Android app will now run in its own window. This greatly improves the user experience and consistency among the other application runtimes.
• Access to the Camera hardware is now supported for Android apps, allowing many more application types to work on the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet.
• In-App Payment is now supported through the BlackBerry Payment SDK, so Android applications can include virtual items for sale in their applications.

But wait, there’s more!

There are a couple other items I noticed that I think will appeal to some developers. Full device encryption is now supported, so that the whole device and personal partition can be secure. If you develop an application that deals with sensitive personal information, you may want to include a suggestion to your users that they turn this feature on. Finally, there is a minor update I noticed which developers asked for and will be well received: screenshots are now saved in lossless PNG format. That should help quite a bit when you want to promote your application and add screenshots to the BlackBerry App World™ storefront.

For those of you wandering around the rest of the BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 beta, you’ll notice a few extra enhancements geared towards end users such as:

• Portrait support for Email, Calendar and Contacts
• Improved folder support including IMAP folder support

The other 2.1 features will come full steam when the new OS is commercially released. The 2.1 Android SDK will be released in beta coinciding with the OS release, and the 2.1 Native SDK will be posted next week, with an update to the Adobe® AIR® SDK to come shortly after.

As with any OS update, use this beta period to test your apps now, so that they will be in full working order when the official release comes out.

Head to the website to download the new simulator (for Mac or Windows) and whitelist your device to receive the beta.

By Rob Pongsajapan (Flickr® photostream) CC-BY-2.0

As Alec mentioned in his previous blog post, we’ve added features to BlackBerry® Tablet OS 2.0.1 to help curb the piracy of BlackBerry Tablet OS applications. I’m going to explain what we’ve done and what you can do to take this protection one step further.

Backup Files Tied to a BlackBerry ID

Backup files created using BlackBerry® Desktop Manager are now tied to a BlackBerry® ID account. This prevents users from sharing backup files between devices, but still allows them to switch devices. If a user needs to move to a different BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet, they can restore their backup files to the new device after configuring their new device with their BlackBerry ID.

Backup Files are Encrypted

Starting in BlackBerry Tablet OS 2.0.1, backup files are now encrypted. This not only helps to protect a user’s data, but also your applications. The key for the backup file is also tied to a user’s BlackBerry ID account, meaning each user has a different encryption key for their backup file.

How Developers Can Protect Their Applications

You might be thinking that this is all well and good for the future, but won’t the people who pirate applications just leave their BlackBerry PlayBook tablet at version 2.0.0, which doesn’t encrypt backup files? This is a possibility, but one you can help to mitigate. History has shown us that approximately 90% of BlackBerry PlayBook tablet users upgrade their device within a month of an upgrade being released. This means that in a month from now, most of your target audience will be running version 2.0.1.

And so, the BlackBerry App World™ Vendor Portal comes to the rescue! In a month from now (or when you release the next update to your application), you can set the minimum OS version required by your product to version 2.0.1, preventing it from being downloaded on a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet running a lower version. This will help thwart those individuals who may want to try to extract your application files from a backup made using a lower version, because they won’t see it listed in the BlackBerry App World storefront catalogue on their device, therefore they won’t be able to install it.

How to Use Backup & Restore

If you are looking for instructions on how to backup or restore your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, have a look at How to Back Up and Restore a BlackBerry PlayBook on the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog.

The BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK allows web developers to create first class BlackBerry applications using familiar web technologies such as HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript®, and extend their application with deep integration into the full device platform. It is the evolution of the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK, built on the foundations of the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for smartphones and the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS.

First introduced on the BlackBerry® 5 OS and supported on all OS versions and devices since, BlackBerry WebWorks allows a developer to package their web content into the native application format, leveraging all the benefits of the BlackBerry platform including security and distribution through the BlackBerry App World™ storefront. With the WebKit-based HTML5 browser environment provided by the platform, BlackBerry WebWorks developers have full access to many powerful HTML5 APIs and CSS3. Further, BlackBerry WebWorks provides a set of JavaScript APIs that allow the developer to extend their web content out of the browser with platform functionality such as BlackBerry® Messenger SDK, Payment Service, PIM (email, contacts, and calendars), file access, and so on.

For the BlackBerry smartphone, the BlackBerry WebWorks APIs were built on the native Java platform, and for Tablet OS, on top of the Adobe® AIR® SDK. With BlackBerry 10, it was obvious that BlackBerry WebWorks needed to leverage the full power of the new BlackBerry 10 Native platform built on C/C++ and Cascades™. This gave us an opportunity to look at BlackBerry WebWorks with fresh eyes and determine the best route forward. Let’s take a look at the different pieces that make up BlackBerry WebWorks and how we have been able to improve on the platform with the power of BlackBerry 10.

The Packager

This is the piece of the SDK that takes you application content and packages it up into a .BAR file for distribution in BlackBerry App World™, and is the file that is installed onto the device. For BlackBerry OS and Tablet OS, the packager was implemented in Java, which required the developer to have the JDK installed on their machine. For BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK, we have re-implemented the packager in pure JavaScript, which runs in an instance of Node.js included with the SDK. BlackBerry WebWorks developers have minimal external dependencies required to get their development environment setup.

One thing to note is that the packager now creates two binary outputs, one for the device and one to be used in the BlackBerry 10 simulator. This is because the BlackBerry WebWorks runtime is now backed by the native platform, and there are different instruction sets for the OS on desktop environments versus the device platform.

The Framework

The framework is the code that wraps around your web content, and is run on the device in order to orchestrate the platform and provide your runtime environment. For BlackBerry OS, the framework was in Java, and for Tablet OS it was Adobe AIR. Similar to the packager, and enabled by the underlying platform providing in essence a JavaScript runtime environment, we have re-written the framework in JavaScript.

Since the framework is in JavaScript, developers will need to include this JavaScript code into their web content for their application. Just add a very simple script tag to all your pages:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”webworks.js”></script>

Webworks.js is the framework code that handles all of the BlackBerry WebWorks whitelisting logic and injection of allowed APIs for the current domain into the current page. The webworks.js file is included in the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK in the framework\clientfiles directory and should be copied into your application content.

Since script loading can occur asynchronously, we have provided an event that you must listen to before accessing any BlackBerry WebWorks APIs. The framework will trigger this event once it is done initializing the BlackBerry WebWorks framework and APIs. Here is an example of the webworks script file definition and webworksready event in action:

<html>
<head>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”webworks.js”></script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>

window.addEventListener(“load”,
function() {
document.addEventListener(“webworksready”, start);
}, false);

function start() {…}

While the webworks.js file did not exist and is not required for BlackBerry OS or Tablet OS WebWorks SDKs, you can leave the script inclusion line in your application even on these platforms. If your application is not running on the BlackBerry 10 platform, the webworksready event will fire almost right away, and none of the rest of the BlackBerry 10 framework logic will execute; your app will run in the context of the standard BlackBerry OS and Tablet OS WebWorks frameworks.

Config.xml

For this first Beta of the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK, we have implemented most of the existing elements of the configuration document. There are a few elements that will come in the future along with some new additions required to support some new BlackBerry 10 features. Not to worry if you use new elements or have elements that are not yet supported in BlackBerry 10 WebWorks, as the packagers for all platforms will ignore elements they don’t recognize. Please check the documentation for details on the config document.

APIs

APIs for BlackBerry WebWorks have two components to them: JavaScript that runs in the browser environment, and a “native” component that interfaces with the rest of the platform, allowing for the deep integration that provides the full power of BlackBerry WebWorks. Again: Java for smartphones, Adobe AIR for BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablets. For BlackBerry 10, of course, native is C/C++. So we have to re-implement all the APIs, and will be delivering them incrementally with Beta refreshes over the summer.

In this initial Beta release, we have been able to provide a core sub-set of the full WebWorks API, which is documented on the BlackBerry HTML 5 site, including Identity, Application and App events, System and system events. On a monthly cadence, we will be releasing new Beta bundles of BlackBerry WebWorks with net new APIs, such as Push, File and File Transfer, Audio/Video Capture, etc.

Apache Cordova

The nature of HTML5 is that it is prevalent on most platforms and devices. Apache Cordova (which is the basis of the well-known PhoneGap) is an industry-leading cross-platform framework very similar to BlackBerry WebWorks. We are striving to bring BlackBerry WebWorks and Cordova closer together, and are actively part of the Cordova open source project providing contributions. To begin down this road, we are aligning some of our BlackBerry 10 WebWorks API signatures with Cordova API signatures. Existing WebWorks applications may require some refactoring to target BlackBerry 10, but Cordova/PhoneGap is supported on BlackBerry OS and Tablet OS, so you can take advantage of these APIs on older operating systems.

For example, event APIs have changed. For BlackBerry smartphones or Tablet OS, if you wanted to listen for battery level changes, you would do something like this:

function onBatteryLevelChange(level) {
alert("Battery Level: " + level);
}
blackberry.system.event.deviceBatteryLevelChange(
onBatteryLevelChange);

For BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK, we have introduced an Event API with a signature like your typical add/removeEventListener:

function onBatteryStatus(status) {
alert("Battery Level: " + status.level +
“ isPlugged: “ + status.isPlugged);
}
blackberry.event.addEventListener(“batterystatus”, onBatteryStatus);

The “blackberry.event” feature id would be used in your config.xml file for whitelisting purposes. You will notice that, if you replaced “blackberry.event” with “document” or “window”, you have the Cordova/PhoneGap API signature.

Please check out the BlackBerry WebWorks development site to learn more about how you can be part of the first wave of applications for the BlackBerry 10 OS by leveraging your web technology skills, while continuing to target our over 75 million smartphone subscribers and BlackBerry PlayBook tablet users.

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!

Looking at the games in the BlackBerry App World™ storefront over the last few weeks, we’ve seen some amazing native game titles launching. Last month we had three Angry Birds titles from Rovio Entertainment Ltd., and ZeptoLab UK Ltd. just brought “Cut The Rope HD” to the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet last week during the 2012 International CES conference in Las Vegas (check out the Inside BlackBerry Blog post!). Native game development for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet brings the best of cross-platform native standards support and the power of the QNX® Neutrino® RTOS coupled with the most important ingredient of all…awesome game developers pushing it to its limits!

We’ve been working closely with many different companies and individual developers porting their existing titles to the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, and we’ve been evolving our tooling, APIs and online presence to help meet your needs.

Tooling enhancements:

• A new easy-to-use Add Library Wizard, which is designed to simplify the process of adding library dependencies to a project
• Improved navigation and workflow in the Deployment Setup Wizard
• Enhancements to the BAR file editor to view localized manifests for each locale

API improvements:

• BPS services can now use channels as chosen by the application for multi-threaded messaging
• Scoreloop social gaming APIs

Documentation updates:

• A new “Hello Native SDK” tutorial provides a walkthrough of the OpenGL ES 1.1 Application Project template that comes with the QNX® Momentics® IDE
• A new “Displaying a dialog” recipe instructs users how to display dialogs on the screen and handle dialog events

As we make our way towards BlackBerry DevCon Europe, we’ll be continuing to evolve our online content to help those using our Native SDK port their existing cross platform C/C++ applications to the BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0 OS as well as ensure that all developers using each of our development options can be successful on the totally awesome update coming to the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

Ideas and feedback make BlackBerry® products better, especially when they come from the developer community that uses the BlackBerry platform and technologies every day. If you have something to say, or an idea for a way to improve the BlackBerry platform, there’s a way to contribute at BlackBerry® DevCon Americas 2011.

BlackBerry DevCon Americas 2011 is featuring a new series of “Collaboration Roundtables”. Simply put, these Roundtable sessions are interactive discussions with fellow BlackBerry developers and the technology experts who make BlackBerry products. You’ll be able to help shape the direction of the platform by providing feature requests and feedback on these subjects:

• Making Highly Addictive BlackBerry® 7 OS Apps
• Building Better Web Apps
• Porting Android Apps to BlackBerry Tablet OS
• Where Can You Take Adobe® Flash® and Adobe® AIR® Apps?
• Native App Development for BlackBerry® Tablet OS
• Platform Services for BlackBerry® smartphone OS and BlackBerry Tablet OS

All you need to do is register for BlackBerry DevCon Americas – which takes place in San Francisco from October 18–20, 2011 – and sign up for any (or all) of the GRP 01-06 sessions. Plus, when you register you will also receive a BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet to help you get a jump start on development.

Additionally, Research In Motion® (RIM®) and its partners would like to help you do more with your apps through two interactive Birds of a Feather sessions on Consumer Apps and Business Apps, where you will learn more about the BlackBerry user and mobile marketplace. Members of RIM’s Business Development team will be on hand to discuss your apps and partnership opportunities with RIM.

Check out all sessions planned at BlackBerry DevCon Americas in the public catalog!

Lots of developers work day (and night) to try out a new technology until they understand it completely – but BlackBerry® DEVCON Americas 2011 has a shortcut. Research In Motion® (RIM®) and training partner New Toronto Group (NTG) are pleased to announce the launch of two new application development courses at this year’s conference. Choose between two one-day training opportunities that are intended to improve your skills for developing for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet OS!

Develop for the BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Using Adobe® Flex® or Adobe® AIR® is a great course if you’re an experienced developer working with Adobe Flex or Adobe AIR and need hands-on experience with the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet OS. You’ll create your own code and work through various features of a sample application, focusing on fundamentals such as designing the user interface, geolocation, consuming XML data and JSON data and deploying the app.

Develop for the BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Using BlackBerry® WebWorks™ is a course designed for experienced HTML5, JavaScript® and CSS developers. This course will teach you how to create, compile, package and deploy a BlackBerry WebWorks -based application for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. As well, you’ll focus on details like debugging an application using the BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Simulator and using an offline database within an application.

Both courses are offered at BlackBerry DevCon Americas 2011 on Monday, October 17, from 9 am to 5 pm at the rate of $499 USD per person (lunch and refreshment breaks included). The course fee is in addition to the registration fees for access to BlackBerry DevCon Americas 2011.

In one day, you can come away with skills that can make your apps better or your development process faster. And you can do it all while taking advantage of the resources offered at the biggest BlackBerry developer conference in the world. Register now and receive a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet when you arrive at the conference!

I am very pleased to announce today that we are moving to the next stage in our launch plans for the Native SDK for BlackBerry® Tablet OS (‘Native SDK’) tools targeted at game developers. As of today, developers from around the world can apply to participate in our closed beta program to get access to these new and exciting tools.

The Native SDK provides you with the ability to create rich and compelling games for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet using C/C++, the Standard Template Library (STL) and Open GL ES 1.1/2.0. The Native SDK includes a number of POSIX compliant libraries, as well as support for accelerometer, device orientation, and a variety of other functions to make porting your existing games as easy as possible. When you check out games like Need for Speed: Undercover or the new Dead Space from EA, what you are seeing is the Native SDK in action, providing the framework for EA to build incredible gaming experiences on our platform. We are incredibly excited to see what the broader developer community can do when provided with access to these tools.

The Native SDK includes the industry leading QNX® Momentics® Tool Suite, which is an Eclipse-based integrated development environment. QNX Momentics provides unparalleled memory profiling, application debugging, and memory usage statistics, giving you the tools you need to debug sophisticated programs, including hardware accelerated OpenGL applications. QNX Momentics is designed to provide you with a safe, secure, and powerful environment to quickly and efficiently build applications for the BlackBerry Tablet OS.

During the beta we will be providing periodic updates to QNX Momentics to include additional APIs to further enhance your games on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet platform.

To apply to participate in the closed beta, please fill out the form, and we will contact you with more information. Space is limited in this preview and space will be granted on a first come first served basis. We will work to expand the program in the coming weeks for anyone interested in C/C++ development for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet platform.

UPDATE 9/8/11: Thank you for all the applications to participate in the NDK closed beta. As discussed above, the focus for the beta is game developers who would be leveraging OpenGL ES to create or port games to the platform. We’ve received an overwhelming number of applications and appreciate your patience as we review them.

Have you already written a BlackBerry® WebWorks™ application for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet or BlackBerry® smartphone platform, and now you’re wondering how to port it from one to the other? We’ve got some tips for you right here!

There is a great opportunity for vendors to provide versions of their applications that run on both the BlackBerry® 6 smartphones and the BlackBerry Tablet OS. In fact, due to the nature of Web technologies such as HTML and CSS – as well as how the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK is designed – vendors can easily port their applications from one platform to the other. There’s never been a better time to port with big prizes up for grabs in the Most Innovative BlackBerry WebWorks app on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and BlackBerry 6 challenge*!

Additionally, the latest in-market and BlackBerry App World™ storefront device breakdown stats show that an increasing number of users who download applications (both free and paid) have a smartphone running BlackBerry® 6. The upcoming BlackBerry® 7 devices will also expand the market opportunity for developers who ensure BlackBerry 7 compatibility. To get a head start on testing your application on these new devices, learn about the new screen resolutions and download the latest simulators. Also, if your app supports BlackBerry 5.0 and BlackBerry 6 smartphones, you will be able to address the largest market of potential users as possible. Vendors can easily port their applications to BlackBerry 5.0 by checking out which APIs are supported in this version in the BlackBerry WebWorks API guide discussed below, as well as testing with the simulators on BlackBerry Developer Zone.

Here are a few tips and tricks to consider before starting your porting efforts:

BlackBerry WebWorks APIs: There are differences between the BlackBerry WebWorks API sets for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and the BlackBerry smartphone, which are documented in the BlackBerry WebWorks API Reference Guide. Some APIs are available only in the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS, while others are only available in the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for smartphones. This gap in functional parity is due to the availability of the given feature in the underlying OS. We’ve also recently updated the BlackBerry WebWorks API reference guide to make it more developer-friendly by bringing together both sets of APIs into a single view that makes it easy to see which APIs are supported on each platform. Note that custom JavaScript® extensions are only available on the smartphone version, so if you’ve implemented any of these extensions, they will not be supported on the BlackBerry Tablet OS. Check out the latest BlackBerry WebWorks API Reference Guide.

Optimization: Your BlackBerry WebWorks application may render faster or perform better while running on the tablet, since its hardware specifications are more advanced as compared to the smartphone. However, the BlackBerry 7 OS introduces a “Just In Time” loader for JavaScript which, coupled with the new smartphone hardware, should vastly improve performance. If you are using JavaScript to perform animations, transitions or to conduct intensive computations in your BlackBerry smartphone application, you should look at ways to optimize your code to improve performance. Download the device and BlackBerry PlayBook tablet simulators to validate performance.

Adobe® Flash® Content: If your application contains Adobe Flash content, note that it will be supported on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet only.

Icon Sizes: Icon sizes are different on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet as compared to the BlackBerry smartphone. Take a look at the UI Guidelines document for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and UI guidelines for smartphones to understand best practices for creating application icons.

Ripple Development Tools: Our friends at tinyHippos have created a tool called Ripple that allows you to easily develop, test, and debug your application for both the BlackBerry smartphone and tablet platforms. Check out the blog post on the Ripple Emulator beta program here. We highly recommend using this tool to develop your BlackBerry WebWorks applications as it provides an easy way to develop for both platforms.

Code Signing: There are separate code signing processes for signing BlackBerry PlayBook tablet versus BlackBerry smartphone apps. Take a look at the guide here on how to sign tablet applications and this knowledge base article on signing your BlackBerry WebWorks application for a smartphone.

We hope these tips help you with your porting efforts and we look forward to seeing your apps in the challenge!

* No purchase necessary. Entry deadline 11:59PM ET on August 26, 2011. Available to be won: four (4) Grand Prizes (ARV: $32,497USD), four (4) First runner-up prizes (ARV: $17,497USD), four (4) Second runner-up prizes (ARV: $9,097USD), one (1) of each per Region; and one hundred Incentive Prizes; ARV: $550USD. The odds of winning a Grand, First Runner-Up or Second Runner-Up Prize depends on the total number of applications received and how the application satisfies the selection criteria as outlined in the Official Contest Rules. The odds of winning an Incentive Prize depend on the time at which an application is submitted and the number of applications received. See Official Contest Rules for complete challenge details at http://www.blackberrypartnersfund.com/webworksrules.

With the release of v2.1 of the BlackBerry® WebWorks™ SDK for Tablet OS, new APIs and application functionality are now available for download! For those following the project on github, this release has also been known as the “Delta” release outlined on the BlackBerry WebWorks roadmap.

The goals for this release are focused on narrowing the gap between the BlackBerry WebWorks API functionality available on the BlackBerry® Smartphone OS and the APIs available on the Tablet OS, as well as exposing more BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet development functionality to web developers.

New capabilities available to BlackBerry WebWorks developers for the BlackBerry® Tablet OS are:

• In App Payment API
• Camera API (take a picture or a video)
• Microphone API (record audio)
• PIN API
• File and Directory APIs
• Configuring security permissions for your application on BlackBerry Tablet OS for features such as GPS and file access
• Configuring the home screen category for your application

The API reference guide has also been updated with some additional getting-started information on how to configure your app to use the different BlackBerry WebWorks APIs, and improvements around scrollable content.

In addition to the reference guide updates, we have also introduced an additional mechanism to call some of the BlackBerry WebWorks APIs. For those who are more comfortable using a URI or RESTful approach, you can now execute a subset of the BlackBerry WebWorks APIs by simply making AJAX calls!

As we continue our frequent releases of the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for BlackBerry Tablet OS and BlackBerry Smartphone OS, we’ll be expanding the coverage of the URI/RESTful implementation to allow you to choose your preferred approach for interacting with the operating system.

Download the latest BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS to get started today!