14 DAY TRIAL // Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion has just announced that a new BlackBerry Push Service is available for developers, offering them a simple solution for the development of Java applications or BlackBerry Widgets for the handset vendors devices. Moreover, the company also notes that the service will offer app builders the possibility to make use of its push technology via the BlackBerry Enterprise Server or the BlackBerry Internet Service, depending on the market segment they target, namely enterprises or end users.
“The BlackBerry Push Service enables developers to easily develop Java applications or BlackBerry Widgets that leverage RIM’s push technology either through the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (for enterprises) or BlackBerry Internet Service infrastructure (for consumers), so that content providers can reliably push images, text, or audio content to millions of BlackBerry devices at once. Unlike alternative push solutions that can only notify users that new content is available for download because of push message size limitations, with the BlackBerry Push Service, full content (up to an industry-leading 8KB in size) is pushed to the device and made immediately available for use,” a recent post on the BlackBerry Developer's Blog notes.
According to the company, while alternative notification solutions are usually set to check only from time to time whether new info is available, the BlackBerry Push Service offers the possibility for push applications with continuous checking in the background to be delivered, so that the solution will act almost immediately. Moreover, the service won't notify users on the new info, but it will bring the information to the users. “Other platforms flip the flag up on the mailbox, letting you know it’s time to go to the end of the driveway and get your mail. BlackBerry Push delivers the mail to your kitchen table, open and ready to be read,” the blog post continues.
RIM also announced that two service tiers were being offered with BlackBerry Push Service, namely Essentials and Plus. According to the company, both services offer developers the possibility to include an appealing experience in their application, yet it seems that the BlackBerry Push Essentials only comes with the basic capabilities needed for the building of push enabled applications. BlackBerry Push Plus also includes the possibility for developers to check on “the status and receive notifications of delivered pushes,” not to mention that they can change delivery times and can cancel push requests. Moreover, the former solution comes for free, while the latter includes a series of paid tiers. All the needed details on the new BlackBerry Push Service are available here.