Since RIM announced the BlackBerry PlayBook I have been waiting for them to release their WebWorks SDK for the platform. I am no Adobe Flash/AIR developer and am not a big fan developing using expensive proprietary tools. A WebWorks SDK would allow developers to create applications simply using HTML, JavaScript, and CSS to make applications kind of like WIdgets/WebWorks for the current BlackBerry platform. Kashodiya was thinking exactly the same thing when he asked when WebWorks would be available for the PlayBook on the official BlackBerry forums and he actually got a pretty good answer. (hat tip to Josep for pointing it out)
According to the Tim Neil – Manager, Development Tools @RIM:
The BlackBerry WebWorks beta for PlayBook will be out very, very, very early in the new year. This will allow you to share code between your PlayBook application and a BlackBerry Smartphone application using the WebWorks platform.
While I would rather not wait a little less than a month it is better than the old RIM way of waiting 2 months after a device ships. I think RIM has a second chance with the WebWorks SDK for the PlayBook to not cripple it as badly as they do with the current WebWorks SDK. For example using the current SDK you need to perform an asinine hack to get a WebWorks app to start when a device boots. They also wrap the current WebWorks apps inside a Java container like any other BlackBerry app making WebWorks just a weak API.
Hopefully the PlayBook and all upcoming QNX based OSs for BlackBerrys will do web applications natively. If you want to see a good execution of that check out HP/Palm and their WebOS. I am really hoping that RIM does not limit the PlayBook to only Flash/AIR apps since the QNX OS is capable of so much more…
Since hearing about WebWorks at DevCon I have been super excited to see what RIM does with their first “Open Source” initiative. Hopefully they will do us all proud!
Still I cannot wait for very, very, very early in the new year. Thanks Tim for the update!
DavidB ( View Profile) - Posts: