I use Web Inspector all the time to work on BerryReview and other projects on my desktop and I was really glad to see it included on the BlackBerry PlayBook. I knew that RIM managed to stick it into BlackBerry 7 and I finally got a chance to use it this weekend. In case you have never heard of Web Inspector before then here is a brief explanation. Web Inspector is a feature in WebKit (usually only desktop clients) which allows you to view and edit the page source, CSS, live DOM hierarchy, script debugging, profiling and much much more. For example, you can see what it would look like if you changed the text color or you can navigate what your script has done to the DOM.
Back to the topic at hand. I needed to debug a JavaScript error on the mobile version of BerryReview along with an issue with our CDN that did not show images or styling sometimes on BlackBerrys. I had tried debugging this issue on my Bold 9930 when it launched but the Web Inspector did not work that well in the early builds.
Now on my BlackBerry Curve 9350 I have to say Web Inspector is the easiest way to debug and test any mobile web apps or websites for BlackBerry. It is essentially like having the Chrome or Safari WebKit based Web Inspector tool for BlackBerry. From what I understand it even works with the BlackBerry 7 simulator so you don’t need a BlackBerry 7 device. There are a few tricks to get it running so read below:
To setup Web Inspector on your BlackBerry 7 device:
Let us know if it works for you! I am amazed how responsive it is and how fast it is. Even when you hover over elements on the DOM it hovers them on the BlackBerry browser. Changes are instant. Great work from the Torch Mobile team on this one!
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Back in September we told you about a bunch of the upcoming BBM Hackathons for developers. Then we did not have the dates and details on the international events and it turns out there are three this month starting tomorrow! Planning very far in advance, Luke just posted the dates on RIM’s developers blog:
My guess is it might be a bit too late to sign up for tomorrow in Bangkok but you may want to try out Amsterdam and London if they are local. Check out the details at bbmappshackathon.com.
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Last week Adobe did a (self admitted) terrible job of communicating their future strategy for Flash, HTML5, AIR, and FLEX for mobile and desktop. To be fair RIM didn’t do much better. They made three main announcements but everybody focused on the last one where they are “no longer going to be actively developing the Flash Player for Mobile Browsers.” Their clearly still focused on Flash for desktop browsers while they realize the Flash will not be as big of a ubiquitous plugin for mobile browsers. They still fully intend to use Adobe AIR on mobile platforms.
If you are a Flash, AIR, or FLEX developer you really should read these two articles from Adobe on the future of the technologies:
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I have really been hoping that MobiHand would get in front of this issue and its nice to see them finally have a voice. Adriano just posted on their official Blog that they are “Committed to Developer Success.” Here are the highlights of what they had to say in what is turning into a he said she said type of drama:
MobiHand goes on to ask developers to:
…disregard sensational, derogatory, and destructive comments made by a few developers who are inventing or exaggerating information about our company. Without the developer community MobiHand could not exist. We are grateful for the opportunity to serve and we ask that you continue with us to provide great products and responsive customer service through the next few months and in the years ahead.
I really want to give MobiHand the benefit of the doubt on this one. They have offered a much better system than App World for a very long time and have had a pretty solid track record. So much so that over the years we rebranded their store on BerryReview as an additional value to readers giving us the ability to do contests and giveaways.
On the other hand quite a few devs have contacted me over the last week or two expressing concerns that they are not getting paid. This includes quite a few high profile long time BlackBerry developers who tend to not be the sensationalist types. I really hope this all gets resolved very soon. We have tried reaching out to MobiHand multiple times without a response so for now we just have to wait and see.
Let us know if you have any updates!
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I was lured into PlayBook app development last winter by the offer of a free PlayBook. My motivations weren’t at all to make any money. To the contrary, I was firm in my belief that the app landscape consisted of big winners like Angry Birds who made back their investment 10,000 fold, and hundreds of thousands of apps that made < $200, making them not worth a developer’s time. (and not even close) I have a full time job which pays well, so my mobile app development is more about learning something new, and being a creative outlet that allows me to use a variety of skills, not just coding.
My first app, Baby Names for PlayBook, fits the trend of apps that make little or nothing, bringing in about 30 cents per day on average, for a total of $62 over six months. So far that equates to compensation of $4.50/hour.
But this is where it gets interesting: Purely as a learning exercise, I decided to implement Baby Names for BlackBerry phones, again not expecting much ROI. To my amazement, it has earned $1150 at a rate of $8/day, which translates to a compensation of $88/hour. And that is only the first five months of sales. If the sales rate continues at even half that rate for the next two years, the compensation rate might rise to > $300/hour. Clearly worth a developer’s time in that case.
Another financially positive experience was collaborating with my friend Graham Huber on a PlayBook app named Solicit. The idea was to make a polished looking app whereby you’d hand your PlayBook to someone you met so they could type in their contact information. That app has brought in $2/day for compensation of around $26/hour, and could rise to > $80/hour if sales continue at half the current rate for the next couple of years. (We are about to submit an update that allows you to upload contacts to Google Contacts)
For the sake of learning opportunity since then, I have implemented Baby Names on Android, which has compensated me $6/hour, on iPhone, which has compensated me $1/hour, Windows Phone, at $3.50/hour, and Chrome Web Store, at $0.25/hour. So there has been quite the disparity between my experiences developing for BlackBerry phones and these other platforms. (Which should be emphasized in this day and age of people claiming that developing for BlackBerry doesn’t make sense)
In terms of pure enjoyment, developing for PlayBook is where it’s at for me. It’s a beautiful piece of hardware (I do own an iPad as well), there is a need for apps, and the development experience for me with Flash has been far more enjoyable than Objective C. (I am fond of learning new programming languages, but yuck, I haven’t enjoyed my Objective C experiences so far) Because of this, most of my creative efforts since my first apps have been on the PlayBook, even though compensation hasn’t been anywhere close to my lone BB phone app.
I created Baby Paint, an app that allows a little person to swipe their finger around a cartoon drawing and have the correct color be placed under their finger’s path, kind of like those painting books I had as a kid that came pre-inked with the right colors. It has brought in $92 for compensation of $18/hour, not too bad if sales continue, but not great. A sports edition of that app, even a featured PlayBook app a few weeks ago, has earned $41, for compensation of $20/hour.
I collaborated with a friend Matt Langeman to create Learn Africa which has earned $25 for compensation of about $1/hour. (We can at least pump out apps for the other continents with little additional work, but it is not clear whether that would be worth it from a financial perspective)
A bit of a time sink was creating an app called Slideshow that would run alongside Voice Chat and allow you to start a slideshow, having the pictures display on both your screen and on the other person’s screen, in top quality, and be able to flip through your photos so that you can narrate your latest adventures with friends and family. It took a lot of hours to work out the kinks, 50 hours, and has so far compensated me a pretty rough $0.50/hour. I think it’s a compelling use case for the PlayBook, but one must realize that even ideas that we are fond of don’t necessarily generate a lot of interest. Perhaps if it was marketed well, it would have some legs.
More recently I have created Picasa Sync, which was the first app to be covered by a blog. That was a real treat. One of the most rewarding things for me as a developer is feeling like my creative efforts are appreciated, and blog coverage definitely has this affect. That app was only released last week, so it’s too early to tell what the compensation rate will look like. So far is has brought in $78, which is a good start for an app that took 7 hours to create. I have since created “Smug Sync”, an identical app for users of SmugMug, which is in the process of being approved.
So what conclusions do I make from my experiences? The most notable observation is that my first BlackBerry phone app has compensated me extremely well, much to my surprise, and so it would be interesting to make a few more phone apps to see whether that trend continues at all. On the PlayBook side, compensation rates have been much lower, but in a couple of cases they have been high enough that if sales continue it could be argued that my efforts will have compensated me well. All that said, I must conclude that the reason I develop for PlayBook is that I enjoy it. It’s fun to see a need and to try and fill it, to use both creative skills and technical programming skills, and to interact with and get feedback from users.
Future apps that I am considering: (feel free to sound off in the comments as to which of these if any you would find compelling)
Can I just say that, if I could go back in time, back to December 2010, I would have created a beautiful native email app for the PlayBook. That likely would have compensated very well, you might agree.
An interesting idea I’ve had is to create a site or even a forum post that proposes a number of useful PlayBook app ideas, and then users could vote which one they’d like the best. I would then implement the winning app. Encouraging this dialog between users and developers seems like a constructive thing, beneficial to both. At the end of the day, interacting with real people and having the satisfaction of meeting their needs is where it’s at for many of us developers. So in that spirit, let me know which of the above app ideas would be most useful to you, and I will implement the winning app and put it up for sale for 99 cents.
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Many of you may be familiar with MobiHand or some of their affiliates including our own BerryReview store. They have been facing some stiff competition from App World but it seems like they are really feeling the pain. We noticed that something has been off for the last few months especially with them moving their pay schedule to developers. Then Kyle over @BlackBerryCool heard from a large MobiHand dev, Mobile Stream, that they are owed over $150,000 by MobiHand. The dev was told by MobiHand to keep quiet because publicizing that info would mean that MobiHand would have less of a chance of paying them back. Here is exactly what Mobile Stream posted on their website:
MobiHand Inc., a Californian company, does not pay royalties for EasyTether. They owe me a huge sum of money – $163,976
Here is a detailed debt breakdown: July royalties: $50,645.70 August royalties: $69,759.51 September royalties: $43,570.81
The guys at MobiHand admitted the debt and said they were in financial difficulties. But they refused to work out a payment schedule. They still run their business, so they obviously have some money. But that money is stolen from my EasyTether royalties.
Now MobiHand has posted on their own blog about their “Financial Strain” that they claim is caused by having to compete with large companies like RIM and App World. You can tell from their post that they are looking to be acquired so that they can get a large cash infusion. Here is what they had to say:
MobiHand was founded seven years ago by software industry veterans committed to providing responsive and cost-efficient services to developers of mobile applications.
Through that entire period of time MobiHand has maintained a nearly perfect record of supporting and paying developers on a timely basis. With increased competition from very large, well-capitalized companies such as RIM and Google, in 2011 MobiHand has seen the need to invest heavily in developing new, differentiated services.
These new services combined with several new partnerships with large companies will result in revenue growth in the coming year. But developing and launching these new initiatives has created significant financial strain.
As a result, MobiHand is in the process of evaluating strategic alternatives which may result in the sale of the company to a larger, more well-capitalized partner. We expect this process to be completed before the end of this year allowing us to fulfill our obligations to all of our partners.
I am hoping that MobiHand manages to turn things around since they were pretty solid until the beginning of this year. Now they are falling behind even though they definitely have money coming in the door. I know that many of you have purchased apps through MobiHand and the BerryReview store along with many other branded stores. You might want to download and backup that information in case MobiHand is not acquired and goes under. We will keep you up to date as this develops.
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Developers that are using RIM’s free BlackBerry Analytics service powered by Webtrends are getting a nice facelift this weekend. RIM sent out an email that the portal is getting redesigned starting Saturday November 12th from 7:30AM Pacific Time and lasting for “several hours.” The BlackBerry Analytics service will continue collecting data at that time but the portal will not be available. They are also not changing the available reports or SDK.
Back in August I got a chance to sit down with Mike Kirkup who was then the Senior Director of Global Developer Relations at RIM. Since then Mike has left and Alec Saunders has made a big splash as the new Vice President of Developer Relations and Ecosystem Development at RIM even posting his email address publicly. This week we got a chance to sit down with him and pick his brain on a few of the issues developers want to know about the current BlackBerry Platforms, initiatives, and future goals. Read on for the details!
What is the main message that you are trying to convey to current and potential BlackBerry developers?
Alec clarified his message to developers as a three pronged approach that he sort of hit upon at DevCon.
What is your main goal or measure for success? Or simply what is your departments mission statement for developer relations?
Alec summed it all up into two words: “More Apps.” Though he did say the whole mission statement was to “Educate, support, and inspire developers to create new, better, and more apps for BlackBerry.”
So what are some of your goals to improve the experience of current and new BlackBerry developers?
There are three main areas that we are focusing on to improve the development experience for developers both new and experienced:
We also measure success based on many metrics but you can boil it down to the number of apps available and the satisfaction of developers. We then base our strategy on beta feedback, developer surveys, and other information points like the support forums. If they see an issue escalated in the forums by multiple devs they will escalate it further as a priority.
Tell us a little bit about some of the new initiatives for the developer relations team?
I am a firm believer of having “boots on the ground” and reaching directly to developer communities. For example, a few companies came to us saying that they were confused about what RIM’s future BBX plans were for peripherals (think stuff like card swipers, printers, etc). We ended up organizing a whole Meetup in Waterloo where these companies interfaced directly with the teams developing the peripherals, BBX strategy and groundwork.
On top of that the Developer Relations team is a growing team around the world. We have people in many growing markets which is an area of large growth for RIM. They are also reaching out to developers in the support forums and Twitter @BlackBerryDev where developers can reach out directly to RIM’s team. You can even simply email Alec directly and he will try to delegate it.
What is your team doing in terms of recruiting new developers for BBX (HTML5, WebWorks, Flash, Native, Android) and the current BlackBerry ecosystem (Java, WebWorks)?
With BBX and even WebWorks we are reaching out to communities of developers to help them bring their expertise and catalog of apps to the BBX platform or WebWorks on both platforms. For example, we did this with game engines on the PlayBook along with web developer communities like Sencha and jQuery. We are also working on different opensource tools for the BBX platform which we have posted on our GitHub repositories to help native BBX developers. This goal is to help attract communities to the platform by making it enticing.
What about differentiating factors of the BBX and PlayBook platform? For example, currently it is not possible to create what RIM calls a “Super App” for the BlackBerry PlayBook. When is that functionality coming?
This is something that is definitely in the works. We have these “Super App” APIs in the works now for everything from notifications to deep system integration. Definitely more on this in the future as we keep on improving the PlayBook 2.0 OS with some of the features possibly being exposed to developers to test in beta.
What about more powerful integration into the core OS such as developers building their own Bluetooth, Bridge, NFC, USB, or other integrations into the hardware?
This is also coming. As long as it does not compromise the security and reliability of the OS then we are working on it. It might include some sort of extra certifications for Bluetooth stacks or drivers.
Does BBX allow RIM to be more agile in dealing with the development environment and updates? Until now RIM has worked in a 2 year cycle where they release a product and then they get feedback during the lifecycle throughout the release and then a year later provide the improvement. Is BBX going to finally change this?
BBX definitely allows us to be more agile. For example, with BBX the carrier only certifies the radio stack allowing RIM to update the rest of the OS without needing carrier certification every time. I (Alec) personally love working with developers and I plan on making it a much more effective feedback loop. Talking directly to developers and then taking that feedback back to the appropriate teams at RIM to take action. This will allow us to do continuous improvements to developer API’s and functionality instead of simply trying to ship the whole kitchen sink.
What about App World? How does that fit into the developer relations sphere?
App World is an integral story of the BlackBerry experience. Downloads are growing like crazy with 90 million in August to 140 million in October. They also noticed that 200 BBM connected apps account for 10% of downloads which just shows how much of a differentiator the BBM Social Platform SDK is.
What about for BBX? Will App World remain the only place to find apps for BBX just like the PlayBook? Is there a reason RIM is deviating from the current BlackBerry model to a more Apple-like walled garden of app markets?
The PlayBook and BBX app store experience is an “unapologetically curated experience. “ RIM is maintaining this control for a few reasons including the fact that we have found customers prefer to go to one place for apps. This also gives RIM the ability to exclude malicious apps and have editorial control so we don’t have an abundance of irrelevant or unnecessary apps.
This is important for devs too because it increases discoverability. I used to work at a startup and the hardest part was dealing with payments and transactions especially with carriers wanting a large portion of deals. App World handles all of that and offers 16 countries with carrier billing. This is critical in developing markets and places where users do not have credit cards, a key growth market for RIM.
What about the current limitations of App World such as a lack of discount codes, coupons, beta testing ability, slow approval times and release times, small pictures, no video trailers, and gift cards?
Stay tuned! Many of those are coming! I cannot speak directly to that but the App World team is working hard on adding those features after a successful App World 3.0 release.
What about HTML5 and WebWorks? Now that Adobe has killed their mobile Flash development to focus on HTML5 does that play well into RIM’s strategy.
HTML5 and WebWorks allows us to recruit new devs that weren’t previously mobile to easily make their applications mobile. It is also a key piece for devs to create enterprise apps that use HTML5 for easier deployment. RIM is following the standards and continues to expand on them. Our Torch team is blazing the trail by adhering to the latest standards and implementing things like WebGL.
What about PlayBook functions and BBX functions and API’s beyond the standards? Say for example the desktop notification API in HTML5?
The Torch team is planning on staying pretty close to the standards but exposing capabilities of the BBX platform. I cannot speak directly to the notifications API but we plan on exposing the BBX APIs to WebWorks developers and changing them to HTML5 standards if it expands to cover it. This is a way for developers to move away from proprietary and the current push by other ecosystems to native development.
Well it was a pleasure to speak to you Alec. We wish you, your team, and RIM the best of luck!
If you have any more questions you want us to ask Alec let us know in the comments!
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We are getting one step closer to being able to easily install PlayBook applications OTA just like current BlackBerry smartphone apps. Until now RIM has forced us to load apps only through App World or by using a convoluted sideloading method which requires a PC and quite a few steps. Now Yohan aka TinyHack has managed to bypass quite a few of those steps. He has released a small program called LocalBar that lets you sideload any BAR file for an application onto your PlayBook directly from your PlayBook. The only downside is that you need to first sideload the LocalBar application but after that you can use LocalBar to simply install any app from the device storage. That means you can download or transfer BAR files over Wi-Fi and then install them using LocalBar. In other words you get a sort of OTA download in two steps.
You need to sideload LocalBar using your PC/Mac. There are many guides on the Internet like this one or this one.
Next time when the upgrade of this app is available, you can install the upgrade directly from PlayBook using this app.
You MUST enable development mode before installing the apps (you should have done this step when you sideload LocalBar.
You will need to grant some privileges to this app after first install.
Here is the main screen after you grant the privileges.
Swipe down from the top bezel to show the menu.
Choose “Install”. It will show the list of bar files that you have. It will automatically scan all your documents folder (including downloads folder from the browser).
Select a bar file, a confirmation dialog will appear.
Click OK to confirm. A password dialog will appear. Just ignore the user field. This is the PlayBook standard login dialog, and I haven’t explored yet how to disable the username field. And you need to press the OK button (the “Return” key doesn’t work yet).
After you fill in the password, it will start the installation. If everything is fine, then this dialog should appear.
RIM started an interesting new video series on YouTube highlighting some developers that have attended their recent BBM Hackathons. The videos are done nicely and are interesting to watch if you want to gain some insight into why devs are attending the events. Check out the videos below or more in the BlackBerry YouTube channel.
My buddy Josep pointed out to me that RIM has posted up a nice microsite that shows all of their upcoming developer events. These are events hosted by RIM or ones where RIM will have a presence which is nice. All in all a good resource to find where you can meet up with RIM and pick their brains including Hackathons and other events.
RIM’s new VP of Developer Relations, Alec Saunders, sat down with Al Sacco @CIO for a quick interview on the future of BlackBerry. Most of it seems to cover the same topics we heard at DevCon but there were a few tidbits that are worth pointing out. Alec continues to stress that BlackBerry OS 7 and current devices will “be in market for some time” but we will “see a natural evolution away from the BlackBerry OS Platform” to BBX. The thing is that Alec told Al that:
Unfortunately, because current BlackBerry OS devices do not have dual-core chips they won’t be able to run the new BBX OS, which is designed to run on devices with dual-core CPUs.
We have heard this line a few times all the way up to Mike Lazaridis but then the Colt demo BBX device that is floating around behind the scenes as a developer unit only has a single core. That makes it sound like current BlackBerry 7 devices are never going to see BBX. On the other hand that sort of makes sense since things like bezel gestures don’t exist on current hardware. Alec also confirmed that BBX phones at launch will support BES and native PIM along with BlackBerry bridge for tablets in case companies want to use that for security reasons.
Alec also covered development and said that it was a really tough decision for RIM to not support the BlackBerry JDE on BBX. According to him RIM “worked really hard to get the JDE environment on BBX” but it didn’t work out. Alec also confirmed that the BlackBerry 7 liquid graphics (read OpenGL) engine stopped RIM from being able to release a Theme Studio dev environment for developers. Supposedly those tools will come in mid-2012 which is a far way off. Al smartly asked how RIM developed the Porsche theme used in the new BlackBerry P’9981 and it turns out that RIM has an internal theme development building tool but it is not shared.
This has been floating around for at least a week now in the official RIM forums but now RIM has spelled out. Some users have wanted to downgrade from the PlayBook OS 2.0 beta back to the official v1.0.7. RIM has been kind enough to detail the steps in a blog post on the BlackBerry Help blog. The main thing you need to know is that it can take 24 hours waiting to get back to the previous version.
Check out the full instructions here or below. Personally I am very curious to know why users are downgrading. Is it because of BlackBerry Bridge?
Provided 24 hours have passed since signing up and installing the Developer Beta OS, complete the following steps using BlackBerry® Desktop Software to return to the current non-beta release (v1.0.7) of the BlackBerry PlayBook OS.
Tip: BlackBerry Desktop Software is available for PC and Mac users, and the latest version can be downloaded from the BlackBerry Desktop Software website.
Restoring the BlackBerry PlayBook OS to v1.0.7 will erase everything on the tablet, so make sure that you back up any important documents and files before proceeding. Important: If you backup your PlayBook while it is running the Developer Beta OS, you’ll be unable to restore this backup file to your PlayBook once you’ve loaded OS v1.0.7. This is in reference to running a general back up using the BlackBerry Desktop Manager. What you can back up safely are specific documents, photos, or other files – and then reload them once you’ve restored OS v1.0.7. There are several methods to accomplish this; consider using USB File Sharing, or Wi-Fi® File Sharing to backup important documents, photos, or other files before proceeding with the steps below.
Requirements:
Instructions:
After clicking one of the above options, your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet should have the current non-beta release of the BlackBerry PlayBook OS installed (v1.0.7). After the OS is restored to v1.0.7, you’ll be presented with the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet Setup Wizard, which will allow you to setup the tablet again. While setting up your tablet again, you can check out the BlackBerry PlayBook category of the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog to learn more about your tablet.
The developer beta for the BlackBerry PlayBook v2.0 has been updated. With it brings just a few improvements to help developers in creating their apps. The first is that BlackBerry WebWorks applications can now call the GPS. Secondly, Wi-Fi profiles are now saved and do not disappear after rebooting your PlayBook. After registering to receive the developer beta software, an icon will appear in the status bar on their BlackBerry PlayBook to notify that the update is available. At that point you'll have 24 hours to complete the update of software on your PlayBook. After 24 hours, developers can reregister to receive the Developer Beta of PlayBook OS 2.0 as long as the beta is still open.
If you are already running the developer beta, by now you should see a gear symbol signifying that there is an update available. To update simply tap the top right corner of your screen, select Software Updates, Check for Update and complete.
*Update* - Looks as though RIM decided to put BlackBerry App World back into the build. They've adjusted the information on their blog and it no longer reads that App World will not be loaded. Try reregistering your PIN if you have issues though as suggested in the comments.
Update: RIM let us know that their note in their blog post this morning that said App World not being included in this version of the PlayBook OS 2.0 developer build ”was a typo that has since been removed.” Hopefully that means RIM is not even considering it anymore. Now I can finally download the update and check for myself.
RIM has rolled out an update to the BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 Developer Beta bringing it to v2.0.0.3894. This is not the regular consumer build and to ensure that RIM has taken the DRASTIC measure of removing App World from the developer build in this update. That means you can only sideload applications for testing. The problem is that RIM has essentially turned the developer build from something you could more or less still use regularly and test on to a device that is for development only. There is a reason other OS development builds of upcoming OS releases like Windows, iOS, etc DO NOT DO THIS! It pisses developers off!
Either way if you want to update to this new developer build you will get updates that include two development improvements including:
I really hope RIM reconsiders this mistakenly altruistic idiotic approach of removing App World. Make sure to let them know on the BlackBerry Dev Blog. I for one will not be upgrading but let us know if there is anything new if you do.
Update: RIM let us know that their note in their blog post this morning that said App World not being included in this version of the PlayBook OS 2.0 developer build “was a typo that has since been removed.” Hopefully that means RIM is not even considering it anymore. Now I can finally download the update and check for myself.
That was quick! We told you earlier today that RIM posted up a new version of the PlayBook OS 2.0 Beta with a huge disclaimer. It specifically said that they had removed App World from the development beta. Now just a few hours later that text has been removed from RIM’s announcement and updaters are reporting that they are getting App World. Specifically RIM’s old blog post said (from Google Cache):
Please note that this build is strictly designed for developers and is NOT a build designed for consumer use, since some apps built for BlackBerry PlayBook OS v.1.0.7 may not work correctly. As such, we have removed the BlackBerry App World™ storefront from this developer build (you can still “side load” your applications for testing). If you’ve downloaded and installed this build by accident, or if you’d like to return your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to its previous state, check out our guide to downgrading on the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog.
While the updated announcement now reads:
Please note that this build is strictly designed for developers and is NOT a build designed for consumer use, since some apps built for BlackBerry PlayBook OS v.1.0.7 may not work correctly. If you’ve downloaded and installed this build by accident, or if you’d like to return your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to its previous state, check out our guide to downgrading on the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog.
Notice the retraction? Hopefully that means that RIM has realized how big of a colossal screw up it would be to remove App World from development builds. If anything they could simply not allow users of Dev Builds to leave reviews on apps in App World. What do you think?
RIM has rolled out an update to the BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 Developer Beta bringing it to v2.0.0.3894. This is not the regular consumer build and to ensure that RIM has taken the DRASTIC measure of removing App World from the developer build in this update. That means you can only sideload applications for testing. The problem is that RIM has essentially turned the developer build from something you could more or less still use regularly and test on to a device that is for development only. There is a reason other OS development builds of upcoming OS releases like Windows, iOS, etc DO NOT DO THIS! It pisses developers off!
Either way if you want to update to this new developer build you will get updates that include two development improvements including:
I really hope RIM reconsiders this mistakenly altruistic idiotic approach of removing App World. Make sure to let them know on the BlackBerry Dev Blog. I for one will not be upgrading but let us know if there is anything new if you do.
That was quick! We told you earlier today that RIM posted up a new version of the PlayBook OS 2.0 Beta with a huge disclaimer. It specifically said that they had removed App World from the development beta. Now just a few hours later that text has been removed from RIM’s announcement and updaters are reporting that they are getting App World. Specifically RIM’s old blog post said (from Google Cache):
Please note that this build is strictly designed for developers and is NOT a build designed for consumer use, since some apps built for BlackBerry PlayBook OS v.1.0.7 may not work correctly. As such, we have removed the BlackBerry App World™ storefront from this developer build (you can still “side load” your applications for testing). If you’ve downloaded and installed this build by accident, or if you’d like to return your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to its previous state, check out our guide to downgrading on the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog.
While the updated announcement now reads:
Please note that this build is strictly designed for developers and is NOT a build designed for consumer use, since some apps built for BlackBerry PlayBook OS v.1.0.7 may not work correctly. If you’ve downloaded and installed this build by accident, or if you’d like to return your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to its previous state, check out our guide to downgrading on the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog.
Notice the retraction? Hopefully that means that RIM has realized how big of a colossal screw up it would be to remove App World from development builds. If anything they could simply not allow users of Dev Builds to leave reviews on apps in App World. What do you think?
Millennial Media is working on their State of the Apps report for 2011 and they asked us to help them reach BlackBerry developers. Their survey covers info from the platforms you are developing for to your monetization goals for 2012. Their current survey is running until this coming Sunday (November 6th) and they are looking for more data on BlackBerry development. They share the report results publicly which is nice to see at the end and they also are offering up a $500 prize for those who fill it out.
To take the survey (and be entered for a chance to win $500) head on over to bit.ly/o6wZDR or check out their blog post on the survey.
For the fourth year in a row, I headed down to the San Francisco area for the annual BlackBerry Developers Conference (DevCon). By now many of you will have read the announcements and press releases so instead of rehashing them here let me share some first-hand experiences and highlights from the perspective of someone who has been developing for BlackBerry for a while now.
Lots of new faces at RIM. Surprisingly or not, many familiar faces of senior RIM execs from previous years were no longer to be seen. Clearly, the winds of change are blowing in Waterloo. I am hoping and crossing fingers that the new senior management steers the ship in the right direction.
The Android Player. One word for this one: amazing. The idea of the Android player is to run existing Android app on the Playbook, and subsequently on BBX devices. During DevCon RIM reps were manning booths that helped developers do exactly that – take their Android .apk files and show them how to transform them into Playbook apps.
RIM engineers have done an incredible job here. Even though the player was in beta all it took for the Android version of my app Viira to be repackaged as a Playbook app was a command line incantation – and that’s it. No code change required whatsoever and it ran beautifully without a glitch.
The Android player runs as a background system process so running Android apps on the Playbook is entirely transparent to the user – there is no need to manually start the player. The Android player will be pushed as part of the Playbook OS updates ensuring that Playbooks around the world have an up-to-date version. Expect to see the Android player in the 2.0 update to the Playbook.
No Java on BBX. To be honest, when RIM announced that Java will not be a supported way forward to develop on the BBX platform it left a lot of developers scratching their heads and wondering what the future of BlackBerry will look like. Has RIM gone mad? People were feeling anxious, to say the least.
One senior technical rep that I have gotten to know over the years put things in good perspective for me. With 70+ million non-BBX BlackBerry devices that will be around for some time to come (see no mention of QNX point below), does it make sense to worry [and get your panties in a bunch] yet? (stuff in brackets added by author)
Cascades: the way to the future. Developing rich next-generation user interfaces on the BBX platform rests on the shoulders of cascades brought over by RIM’s acquisition of The Astonishing Tribe (TAT). The demos presented clearly demonstrated some futuristic looks and capabilities. However being a bit of a sceptic here, from what I saw I wasn’t fully convinced that cascades will necessarily make it possible to develop bread-and-butter apps with ease. Only time will tell.
No mention of QNX devices. Normally, RIM gives developers a peak into the future of BlackBerry as early as possible. For this year’s DevCon, that glimpse did not include the much-anticipated and rumoured QNX devices. In short, QNX device availability was not mentioned at all. Does this mean that RIM does not plan on releasing those any time soon or does it mean they are simple mum to not distract potential buyers and upgraders to the new 9900 series and Torch models? Your guess is as good as mine on this one.
Conclusion
Overall, I have to say that this has been one of the most useful DevCons that I have attended. It was amazing to see the BlackBerry ecosystem mature from the “early days” of 2008 where people were trying to get their minds wrapped around what in retrospect looks like basic apps and concepts to the present where so many rich, complex and sophisticated applications and frameworks were presented. The RIM technical reps were incredibly helpful and that alone made the cost of admission well worth it.
