14 DAY TRIAL // Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion announced officially at the BlackBerry DEVCON Asia the release of new tools that would enable the building of applications for the new BlackBerry PlayBook device, including the beta version of the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS.
According to the company, the new software is meant to offer web and mobile developers the possibility to come up with deeply integrated application for the new tablet PC and for the BlackBerry 6 operating system for smartphones.
In order to attract app builders on its side, RIM announced that the ‘free BlackBerry PlayBook’ offer was extended to March 15, 2011, so that WebWorks developers would have the possibility to benefit from the offer too.
The company announced an early access to the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS, which should prove a great option for developers familiar with web technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript.
The software is only in beta at the moment, but more features and capabilities should come to it in the near future, so that developers come up with more appealing software for RIM's devices.
At the moment, with the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS, you can:
- Support web technology standards such as HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. The BlackBerry platform implementation of the WebKit rendering engine is the core of the BlackBerry WebWorks platform - Extend web applications to use the BlackBerry WebWorks APIs, which provide access to device hardware and capabilities and data such as native dialogs, invoking other applications and system information - Transform a W3C widget archive file (i.e. zip) containing web assets (like images, etc.) into a BlackBerry WebWorks application package - Use your favorite development tools or tooling in combination with the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK to develop, test and deploy applications
As stated above, one of the most appealing feature of the new SDK is that apps built with it would work both on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet PC, as well as on the BlackBerry smartphones, though some changes might be required to enable support for one OS or the other.
Applications built with BlackBerry WebWorks would be distributed through the BlackBerry App World storefront, RIM announced.
Download the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS Beta for Windows PCs from here.
Download the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS Beta for Mac from here.