It’s a busy and exciting time for all of us here on the BlackBerry® Developer Relations team. With all the announcements and developments coming out of WES 2010 and the BlackBerry Partners Fund Super Apps Challenge that’s now underway, there’s been a ton of discussion within the developer community.

That said, we thought we’d switch up our webcast format slightly and offer you an interactive video session, where we’ll talk further about Super Apps, the Partners Fund Challenge, and the key takeaways from WES that are most important to you. We’ll answer your questions throughout the hour-long session.

So please join myself and Tyler Lessard, VP Global Alliances & Developer Relations, Research In Motion (RIM) on May 25th. We look forward to speaking with you then.

An Interactive Hour with BlackBerry Developer Executives

Date:
Tuesday May 25th, 2010

Time:
2:00 PM to 3:00 PM EDT

Presenters:
Tyler Lessard, VP Global Alliances & Developer Relations, RIM
Mike Kirkup, Director, Developer Relations, RIM

Registration is required to attend this event. Register now!

As mentioned in my previous post asking for topics for the upcoming 2010 BlackBerry Developer Conference, I am very please to announced that we have opened up our Call for Papers for DevCon 2010 this week!

The sessions delivered by our community form a big part of the success of the Developer Conference and we are committed more than ever to find the most relevant and insightful sessions for our attendees. I strongly encourage everyone in the community who is considering speaking at the conference to check out my previous post or this forums thread in the BlackBerry Developer Forums calling for topics to get great ideas of what the community is looking for along with your own great suggestions.

The Call for Papers will be open until Monday May 24 but we will start reviewing your submissions as they come in so please don’t feel you need to wait until the end. You can submit your session proposal here: www.blackberrydevcon.com/call-for-papers.

I am really looking forward to reading all of the great submissions from the community!

There’s been a lot of buzz at WES this year coming out of the Solutions Showcase, as sponsors are highlighting amazing apps and showcasing their innovation in integrating those apps into the BlackBerry platform. One thing we’re hearing a lot of our sponsors tell people is “…and our app is available on BlackBerry App World.”

At WES 2010, RIM shared some significant numbers about BlackBerry® App World™ and I wanted to share them with you:

BlackBerry App World has been downloaded by over 20 million subscribers and is now available in 52 countries and six languages. There are over 6,500 quality applications in the storefront today, and those apps are generating an average of nearly one million application downloads per day – now that’s an impressive ratio. We have seen tremendous growth recently, and to me, this speaks to the overall popularity of BlackBerry App World and the opportunities ahead for developers. Of course we continue to push further ahead on multiple fronts. We are expanding into new regions and introducing new payment methods such as carrier billing and credit cards.  Stay tuned to the blog for future updates on these developments.

Also, in case you missed it earlier today, the Super Apps Developer Challenge was announced by the BlackBerry Partners Fund. This year’s challenge will be focused on “Super Apps” – which will showcase applications that feature intuitive integration and engage the user. The challenge is open to new and existing apps that are submitted to BlackBerry App World. More details on the challenge can be found here.

Thank you for your help in achieving these results! Have you had a BlackBerry App World success you’d like to share? Please comment!

Our good friends at the BlackBerry Partners Fund have just launched their third annual Developer Challenge, focused on finding the best applications that showcase “Super Apps” characteristics on the BlackBerry® Application Platform today.

I am particularly excited about the changes the team has made to the Challenge this year in three areas:

1. Regional Challenge – This is the first year that the challenge will be broken down into finding winners on a regional basis. It provides an opportunity for developers to differentiate themselves regionally and provide locally-focused applications with a compelling user experience.
2. Prizes and Prize Structure – The prizes for the Challenge this year have never been higher, with over US$1.5 million in prizes available to participants. The structure of the prizes has been modified to provide incentives and awards for applications throughout the entire Challenge, rather than prizes focused at the few winners. On an even more compelling scale, the prizes have been set up to help developers achieve commercial success with their applications through application promotion services, testing services, translation services, go to market services, and many others. Many of these services are being provided by partners in our Developer Services program at RIM®, which I find particularly exciting.
3. Available to new and existing applications in BlackBerry® App World™ – The Challenge has been opened up to all developers – both existing or new applications – to allow everyone to showcase how their application has the characteristics of a “Super App.” This should make for a great showcase of the power of the BlackBerry Application Platform and the sophistication of the applications built upon it.

You can find more information about the challenge on the BlackBerry Partners Fund website, and use the following link for more general information about “Super Apps” on BlackBerry.

I am highly anticipating seeing all of the submissions, and to have developers in our community recognized for making applications users cannot live without!

WES 2010 is now less than one day away, bringing with it a bunch of exciting sessions covering a wide range of tracks for both first time attendee and the WES veteran. While we highly recommend you check out the Session Catalog yourself, we also thought it would be a good idea to get the experts’ opinions on sessions you can’t possibly miss. We asked Mike Kirkup, Director of Developer Relations about his three most exciting sessions for the Developing Mobile Applications for the Enterprise track.

Mobilizing Web Services Using BlackBerry Widgets and the BlackBerry Browser

Prepare to dive into an engaging discussion about best practices, tips & tricks and examples of web services that can be used within your BlackBerry® Web or Widget applications. Web Services can conveniently provide access to services and data from web-enabled Enterprise systems and can greatly enhance the level of functionality and richness of application features and capabilities.

Deliver the Complete BlackBerry Smartphone Experience: Integrating your Applications with Native Applications

Don’t just built apps that people like, build apps that people love! Discover great ways to integrate your application seamlessly with native BlackBerry applications such as the inbox, calendar or address book.

As one of the key features in what can make an ordinary application a Super App, tight integration with other native BlackBerry applications can help to deliver an intuitive, contextualized and highly relevant user experience which will keep users coming back for more!

Enterprise Proofing your Applications

Learn more about some of the common IT security and manageability considerations that exist within an organization and their potential impact on BlackBerry applications. This session will empower you with the information you need to meet enterprise standards for releasing applications in an Enterprise environment. ”Enterprise proofing” your applications will allow your users to use and enjoy applications more successfully.

Post a comment and let us know which sessions you’re excited for. We hope to see you there!

Today, the BlackBerry Developer Relations team is happy to announce the beta launch of the new Developer Resource Center, and I wanted to share the details with you here on the blog. The resource center is your new central destination for BlackBerry® development support resources. We know how important it is to have the right support resources, and to have them always within reach. That said, we’ve been working hard to provide the right solution for the community.

There are two major things we are looking to accomplish with the Developer Resource Center:

First, we want to make it easier for you to find the right resources. The resource center enables you to search by topic – regardless of the available resource format. For example, you can now search for “networking” and find the relevant video, tutorial, knowledge base article, sample code and community support forum discussion. All of these format types will now be available in a consistent article template. Within the resource center, we have organized all of the content into specific topics which are consistent with the support forum boards (i.e. Java®, Web, Themes, etc). When we release the full version of the resource center, the integrated search will also include product documentation resources.

Second, with the community’s help, we want to build the best set of resources for BlackBerry development. One of the great things about the resource center is that it’s social. Not only can you comment on helpful resources, but you will also be able to create and submit your own content for publishing! This can be done by leveraging existing support forum posts to create an article, embedding a video, or writing a new article from scratch. The RIM® Developer Relations team will then review for technical accuracy before publishing to the community. Community-generated content will also soon be another way to earn recognition points as part of the Developer Recognition Program.

We welcome you to start exploring the BlackBerry Developer Resource Center – and please provide your feedback! We’ll look to incorporate it as we move closer to the full release of this tool and future improvements.

We look forward to collaborating with you in the Developer Resource Center!

With the announcement of the BlackBerry® Bold™ 9650 and BlackBerry® Pearl™ 3G smartphones today, I wanted to provide you with an overview of the handsets from a developer perspective to help you understand what opportunities these new smartphones open up for you.

The BlackBerry Bold 9650 smartphone is the latest handset to join the Bold series of smartphones, known for their high-end styling and performance.  The BlackBerry Bold 9650 smartphone will ship with BlackBerry OS 5.0 software, which includes a variety of new enhancements for end users.  For developers, there are substantial improvements across the board which we have been covering on this blog for some time now.

For Java, check out this page outlining all of the new APIs and features in BlackBerry OS 5.0.

For Widgets, check out this great post introducing BlackBerry Widget technology – and stay tuned for additional posts that will dive deeper into the power of Widgets on the BlackBerry® Application Platform.

Here is what you need to know about the new BlackBerry Bold 9650 smartphone:

• Supports CDMA/EVDO Rev A networks in North America and UMTS/HSPA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks abroad, providing 3G cellular connectivity around the world
• 480×360 screen resolution
• 3.2 MP Camera with Auto Focus
• Location Support with Assisted and Autonomous GPS
• WiFi Support – 802.11b/g
• 512MB Flash Memory (Application Space) and MicroSD Support (up to 32GB)
• Support for OpenGL

The BlackBerry Pearl 3G smartphone is the latest handset to join the Pearl family of smartphones, known for their sleek style and slim size.  The BlackBerry Pearl 3G smartphone will also ship with BlackBerry OS 5.0 software.

Here is what you need to know about the new BlackBerry Pearl 3G smartphone:

• Supports tri-band UMTS/HSDPA and quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks for worldwide connectivity
• 360 x 400 screen resolution
• 3.2 MP Camera with Auto Focus
• Location Support with Assisted and Autonomous GPS
• WiFi Support – 802.11b/g/n
• 256MB Flash Memory (Application Space) and MicroSD Support (up to 32GB)

In addition, there are two keyboard layouts for the BlackBerry Pearl 3G smartphone.  The BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9100 smartphone features a 20-key condensed QWERTY keyboard. The BlackBerry® Pearl™ 3G 9105 smartphone features a traditional phone keyboard with 14 keys.   Both models include SureType® software that completes words as the user types, making texting fast and accurate.

If you’re extending standard RIM text fields, the keyboard variants  should be of no impact to your application, as you’ll get all of the same predictive text and spell-check functionality that you would normally get when using these fields.  However, if you have physically mapped out which characters are associated with which keys, you may have a little more work ahead of you.

We are really excited about the launch of BlackBerry Bold 9650 and BlackBerry 3G Pearl smartphones!  Get started now by checking out the web development tools and Java® application development tools on our website, and the smartphone simulators. Let us know what you think in the comments!

WES 2010 is just around the corner and I wanted to give a preview of one of the sessions I’m going to be presenting this year:

WE15 – Creating Hybrid Applications: Building Web Applications using Java Components
April 27, 2010 03:15 PM (Crystal J room)

In this session, I’m going to be talking about the various types of hybrid application development that can be performed on the BlackBerry® platform today. To clarify what I mean by hybrid applications – which are often referred to as BrowserField or embedded browser applications – I’m referring to combining the use of both Web and Java® technologies in your application.

Traditionally, developers choose to use one or the other, but there is value in using both. Web and Java technologies each have strengths that can be leveraged in your hybrid applications. For example, web technologies such as HTML and CSS can be used to easily produce visually appealing and lush user interfaces, while various Java APIs found in the BlackBerry development environment can be used to provide functionally-rich integration with other applications and features on a BlackBerry® smartphone. Another major benefit of using the hybrid application design is that you can easily leverage content from the Internet, such as RSS feeds, web services or other existing web content that you wish to integrate into your application. The recent improvements to the platform through the BrowserField2 API and BlackBerry Widget SDK represent the next evolution of hybrid BlackBerry application development, as well as providing developers with a way of easily creating their own Super Apps.

I’m really excited about this session and it should be very interesting to see how this topic is received, and what comments, questions or issues developers may raise. I expect it to be an engaging and interactive session, as I’m sure many developers will be eager to share their own experiences.

If you haven’t done so already, I’d encourage you to register to attend WES 2010. WES is an exciting show to be at, with a robust list of sessions that are sure to entertain and enlighten you. If you end up attending my session, please feel free to introduce yourself and let me know that you read this blog post!

As part of our ongoing commitment to help developers all over the world create best-in-class applications on the BlackBerry® platform, I am pleased to announce that I will be hosting a BlackBerry Developer Day in Sydney, Australia on the 24th of March. This free event is a fantastic opportunity for both new and experienced BlackBerry developers alike to learn how to build deeply integrated, always-on apps that are highly engaging and relevant – apps that people will love. And of course, the event is a fantastic place to network with other BlackBerry developers!

Please register for the event here . With limited space, please register today to save your spot. The full agenda for the event can be found by clicking the link below:

BlackBerry Developer Day Australia Agenda

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Want to know more about BlackBerry Groups in your area, or how to start your own? Click here for more info.