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

Fluxible is a new conference this September that brings user experience and design experts from around the world together for two days of workshops and talks. The team at Research In Motion® (RIM®) is especially excited that our own Dan Gärdenfors (Senior Concept Designer of The Astonishing Tribe) has just been announced as closing keynote speaker.

While I was making my way back from the BlackBerry® 10 Jam World Tour and @StartupFest in Montreal, I had the chance to speak with Mark Connolly, one of the organizers of Fluxible, about the origin of the conference, who should attend, and what the event means to the region of Waterloo.

Thanks for taking time to talk with us. Who should register for the conference?

Fluxible was conceived for UX practitioners and researchers – but it’s also a great opportunity for developers, product managers, and others who want to learn about designing front end interfaces and experiences.

I took a look at the agenda and you’re definitely taking advantage of the event spaces here in town.

Yes, we’ve had great support from Communitech. We’re starting at the Conrad Centre for the Performing Arts, which is where the main talks will be. We then move to Kitchener City Hall for a Saturday evening party, and then finish at the Communitech Hub on Sunday with the workshops. It’s very exciting.

What does Fluxible mean to the Waterloo region?

As you likely know, design has become crucial to the success of products and companies in the last several years, and the Waterloo Region has developed the same focus on design that has been visible globally. Bob (Bob Barlow-Busch) and I, as long time champions of uxWaterloo Communtech Peer 2 Peer (P2P), have seen this increased interest and awareness firsthand. To us, the awareness is another sign of the maturation of the region’s transformation into a digital economy. Fluxible is not only an opportunity to show what’s happening in Waterloo Region to the larger UX world, but also to bring the larger UX world to Waterloo Region. In addition to Dan as a keynote speaker, we have an amazing lineup of speakers who will be delivering terrific talks and workshops. Do check them out.

Definitely sounds like it’s going to be a great event.

We think so too! This is the first event of its kind in the area, and we’re really looking forward to attendees coming in from the region, the province, and around the world. It’s an opportunity to network and have a great time.

Early bird registration is open now and available until July 31. For information, check out the Fluxible site. The Fluxible conference takes place on September 22nd and 23rd, 2012.

image from Indian Creek Web Design

I’ve spent many hours talking to members of our developer community both online and in person at our conferences and meet-ups, and I know you’re excited by these tools. Last week, I attended my first BlackBerry® 10 Jam in Toronto and I was blown away by the energy of the developers in attendance.

What to expect in this first Beta

The BlackBerry 10 SDKs don’t jump to awesomeness in their first iteration; it’s an evolution to greatness. In this first Beta we’ve provided the foundational building blocks and a great start for developers to see where we’re heading. The SDKs allow you to create the BlackBerry 10 user experience with core controls and a great application framework to build the necessities of your application around networking, storage and other foundational pieces. It’s not like we’re starting from scratch; all the functionality provided in the SDKs for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet is also available.

We’ve also made sure that the core UI controls in the Adobe® AIR® runtime have been re-skinned to provide the BlackBerry 10 look and feel along with updating bbUI.js for WebWorks developers to provide the same BlackBerry 10 experience as you find in Cascades™.

Did you just say “first Beta” – and what does it mean to evolve?

We’ll be providing a series of Beta releases on the road to the gold BlackBerry 10 SDK. I want to make sure I set expectations with the community on how we’re approaching the beta cycle. As we evolve each of the SDKs, it means that on top of adding functionality we may need to make changes to functionality released in a previous beta. We are making sure that we examine all the possible angles before we make changes that could affect your application’s code during the Beta and are trying to minimize these changes as much as possible. However, there are times when we’ll have to make changes to ensure that we have solid footings for moving forward with follow up releases. As we move closer to gold, our goal is to make sure that changes in the SDK do not affect compatibility with your code.

What about PIM, BBM, Share and Invocation Framework APIs?

RIM has a strong heritage in delivering fantastic deep integration into the core BlackBerry experience and providing a differentiating factor for your application on the platform, and this will continue with BlackBerry 10. As we evolve the BlackBerry 10 SDKs, these deep integration APIs will be made available, but they aren’t quite ready for 3rd party consumption yet.

These APIs are still seeing refactoring as we move through all the use cases of our core applications. We want to ensure that both our core apps are using the same APIs as 3rd party developers and that the APIs see minimal changes after they are made available in a Beta.

I won’t list all of the APIs that are coming, but I’ll list the hot topics where I usually get inquiries:

• BBM™
• PIM (Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes)
• Messages/Email
• NFC
• Share/Invoke Framework
  • Adding your menu item to an existing app
  • Invoking and being invoked by another app
• String pattern registry
• Geocoding & reverse geocoding
• Bluetooth®

All these and more will be coming in follow-up Beta releases, so make sure you grab the SDKs and start building the core of your application to ensure that you’re ready to integrate these features as soon as they’re available!

If you weren’t able to attend the BlackBerry® 10 Jam event at the start of May in Orlando to get some see some of the great Cascades™ presentations then here’s your second chance! On June 19^th I will be hosting a webinar which will help give you an understanding of Cascades and provide the information needed to get started developing using the new SDK: Astonishing UIs using the new BlackBerry 10 framework 

Consider this your invitation to all things Cascades! Come see what all the hype is about and learn how to get started with the next evolution of application framework for the BlackBerry 10 platform. The session will include an overview of what Cascades is and cover the basics of developing in Cascades; after which we should have some time for a live coding example and a brief Q&A period.

Registration is open now so get signed up to reserve and I will see you on June 19^th!

Register Now!

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Here’s a guest post from our friend Anders at RIM TAT! – Ed.

Cascades is the user interface (“UI”) framework that TAT has been using for many years to create numerous advanced UIs and applications, such as Scrapbook for BlackBerry PlayBook. I’m happy to announce that it will soon be part of the BlackBerry Native SDK.

Here’s a short list of Cascades features:

• Great performance, including amazing transitions and animations
• Flexible UI layouts including free form lists.
• 3D support
• Support for mixing pre-packaged UI components with custom components
• Core UI feature support

Cascades was originally developed to enable development of really innovative and unique applications. This put hard requirements on the flexibility and extendibility of the UI framework. The need for designer/developer collaboration was also one of stronger driving factors when developing the framework. Let’s dig deeper into how Cascades will aid the development of rich and compelling UI.

The flexibility of Cascades enables UI innovation

Cascades has a unique level of UI building blocks. In other UI frameworks, when stepping beyond the set of standard UI components, developers must often resort to low level OpenGLES-commands. Cascades provides higher level building blocks for many of the tricky but application-defining UI scenarios. Features like Flexible List layouts, 2D/3D transformations, mixing of 2D UI and 3D objects are all made accessible to developers.

The Cascades workflow helps designers and developers collaborate

In Cascades, UI elements are exposed both programmatically and through mark-up. The mark-up also provides scripting support making it a suitable environment for more design-oriented developers to work with, allowing for quick turnaround times and prototyping to find best possible UI design.

The markup also enables strong tool support including a Photoshop plugin making it easy to take and .psd sketch to a working layout in an application.

Cascades has beautiful pre-packaged components

Not every developer is a designer, full of ideas around 3D layouts and crazy infographics. For developers who prefer pre-designed and pre-packaged components, Cascades provides a strong set of Core UI components with great look and feel. They come with a number of built in effects and interaction design that will risk making your app look prettier than you can take credit for.

Availability of Cascades

Cascades will be released as a Beta during the Fall of 2011, with more and more advance features coming in future releases.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Following the BlackBerry Developer Day App Circus at Mobile World Congress 2011, Director of Developer Relations, Mike Kirkup, was able to give me a brief look at a BlackBerry PlayBook application developed by The Astonishing Tribe that demonstrates the power and flexibility of BlackBerry WebWorks platform.

The “aura” application shown in the video above demonstrates rich graphics and physics engine similar to TAT’s “scrapbook” demo, but was built entirely with web technologies like HTML5 and CSS. Built in a week, “aura” demonstrates how web developers can leverage the professional grade performance of the BlackBerry PlayBook platform just like Adobe AIR and native application developers.

This is a perfect example of why developers packed the BlackBerry Developer Day WebWorks bootcamp sessions yesterday. Click the link below to download the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK and start building your own BlackBerry PlayBook Application!

BlackBerry WebWorks SDK For BlackBerry Tablet OS