I am really loving the openness RIM has provided into the development of BlackBerry 10 and the tools for developers. The latest in this vein is an article by Tim Neil detailing what to expect in the current “First Beta” of the BlackBerry 10 SDK tools that are available now. On top of that he makes it very clear that this is only the first of many beta’s in the cycle to a Gold release for BlackBerry 10 development tools. They are trying to minimize any changes that may require you to change functionality supported in a previous beta for compatibility.
What I found most interesting was Tim reiterating that:
RIM has a strong heritage in delivering fantastic deep integration into the core BlackBerry experience and providing a differentiating factor for your application on the platform, and this will continue with BlackBerry 10. As we evolve the BlackBerry 10 SDKs, these deep integration APIs will be made available, but they aren’t quite ready for 3rd party consumption yet.
He then went on to list some of the APIs coming:
These APIs are still seeing refactoring as we move through all the use cases of our core applications. We want to ensure that both our core apps are using the same APIs as 3rd party developers and that the APIs see minimal changes after they are made available in a Beta.
I won’t list all of the APIs that are coming, but I’ll list the hot topics where I usually get inquiries:
- BBM™
- PIM (Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes)
- Messages/Email
- NFC
- Share/Invoke Framework
- Adding your menu item to an existing app
- Invoking and being invoked by another app
- String pattern registry
- Geocoding & reverse geocoding
- Bluetooth®
All these and more will be coming in follow-up Beta releases, so make sure you grab the SDKs and start building the core of your application to ensure that you’re ready to integrate these features as soon as they’re available!
I am really waiting for the PIM and Messages API integration since that will start the super app craze. Anyone else excited!
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