Up to this release, the BlackBerry 10 SDK was supported using a pre-release version of the Titanium SDK which added a both few extra steps and downloads in order to start testing/building your application for BlackBerry. Now the BlackBerry 10 SDK is officially supported in the public version of the Titanium SDK 3.1.1 and can be installed just like any of the other supported platform SDKs.

For those of you familiar with Appcelerator and the Titanium platform, this release brings the BlackBerry 10 SDK to about 90% coverage of the core Titanium APIs, including supporting the Alloy framework. This is a great time to start taking your existing applications and testing to see how great they look, feel and run on the BlackBerry 10 platform. The way Titanium builds for BlackBerry is using the Cascades framework, meaning you will receive native, intuitive applications with solid and fluent user experience out of the box. With just a few keystrokes you can have your existing application compiled and tested on a BlackBerry 10 device or simulator, then just a few more steps to get it signed and uploaded to BlackBerry World.

On the other hand, if you have heard of Appcelerator but are not really sure what they offer, allow me to break it down very simply: Appcelerator’s Titanium IDE allows you to create full featured cross-platform applications using JavaScript. Titanium also recently added support for a new UI framework dubbed “Alloy” which allows developers to define all application UI using a mixture of XML and CSS. “JavaScript” and “XML” may make Titanium sound like it creates web applications, however the applications are actually bundled with a JavaScript engine that interprets the code and displays it in the native UI of the platform for which the application was compiled. The result is an application that can be created very quickly to support multiple platforms (ex BlackBerry 10, iOS, Android) but with the performance, look and feel of a native application.

Existing Titanium developers can get the 3.1.1 SDK update which includes the BlackBerry 10 SDK using the Titanium SDK’s built-in update mechanism. Anyone that needs to download the full IDE can grab it from here.

For more details on all that 3.1.1 has to offer please check out this Appcelerator blog post.

Want to find a blog post from the video? Look no further:

BlackBerry 10 and Appcelerator Titanium Webcast

http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/12/appcelerator-titanium-blackberry-10/

All Aboard the BlackBerry 10 Port-A-Thon

http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/12/all-aboard-blackberry-10-port-a-thon/

BlackBerry 10 WebWorks and Maps

http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/12/blackberry-webworks-maps/

BlackBerry 10 Gold SDK Tweetup – Sunnyvale, CA

http://www.eventbrite.ca/event/4985148714

BlackBerry 10 Gold SDK Tweetup – NYC

http://www.eventbrite.ca/event/4975640274

That’s what you missed last week. Got questions? Comments? Let us know!

We’re excited to announce the availability of the Appcelerator Titanium for BlackBerry 10 in a pre-release version. Through the power of Titanium’s cross platform capabilities, developers and enterprises will be able to build and port their applications to BlackBerry 10.

Leverage Titanium’s cross platform native experience to create a Built for BlackBerry app and qualify for many benefits!

• Qualifying Built for BlackBerry Applications are eligible the 10k Developer Commitment with a guaranteed one year revenue of $10,000 USD
• The first 1,000 participating developers to submit an app to BlackBerry App World which is created with the Titanium for BlackBerry 10 will receive a free BlackBerry Dev Alpha for testing*
• Up to 10,000 developers will get  free Appcelerator Cloud Services and Analytics (Terms and conditions apply)

Register for the offer at
http://www.appcelerator.com/blackberry10
.

Learn more during the webcast entitled “Developing on Blackberry 10 with Titanium” on Thursday December 13, 2012 at 1:00 pm EST. Register Now!