RIM Launches Tools, Services For BlackBerry Tablet OS, Smartphones

Research In Motion (RIM) has launched the beta version of the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS and new services and developer tools for BlackBerry smartphones at BlackBerry DEVCON Asia.

“With BlackBerry WebWorks, developers will be able to use standard Web technologies to build powerful, integrated applications quickly and easily for both BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, and the GitHub open source project around BlackBerry WebWorks means more support for developers,” said David Yach, CTO, Software, RIM.

The BlackBerry WebWorks platform will allow Web and mobile developers to use the SDK in combination with their Web development tools of choice to create deeply integrated applications for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet that also support BlackBerry smartphones running the BlackBerry 6 operating system.

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The BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS also features RIM’s WebKit Web rendering engine (which is at the core of WebWorks) supporting Web technology standards including HTML5, CSS and JavaScript.

The key highlight that RIM executives underlined was the ease in creating applications for the QNX-based PlayBook, using deep integration with Adobe Air and using the WebKit web rendering engine. RIM executives insist that thousands of Flash applications, including Flash games, etc, can be ported to PlayBook easily and that this will boost the PlayBook’s attractiveness to consumers, adding to the powerful hardware it features and the cutting edge QNX OS.

At BlackBerry DEVCON Asia, RIM is also launching BlackBerry Payment Service SDK in Beta, as well as an update of BlackBerry Push Service SDK (v 1.0.1) and a new release of BlackBerry Java Plug-in for Eclipse (version 1.3).

Integrated into an application as a library, the BlackBerry Payment Service offers new ways to monetise applications by allowing developers to incorporate options such as subscriptions, feature unlocking and pay per use.

The latest update to the BlackBerry Push Service SDK improves management of Push operations for content providers through a new subscription check API, offers simpler statistics gathering and query capabilities as well as installer enhancements. The new subscription check API provides the ability to check the registration status of a smartphone with the specific application via a server-side framework, ensuring Push only occurs to currently subscribed users of the application.

The BlackBerry Java Plug-in for Eclipse version 1.3 includes many enhancements and new features that help making Java development more productive on the BlackBerry platform.