14 DAY TRIAL // Canadian mobile phone maker is hard at work with the building of proper development tools for its new BlackBerry PlayBook tablet PC it should bring to shelves very soon, and the new beta 3 release of its BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS comes as a proof of that.
The latest flavor of the SDK, 1.0.0.23 Beta 3, comes with a nice range of enhancements, including a series of important architectural changes.
Developers are encouraged to download and install the new flavor of the tool, as they would have to re-compile existing applications using it so as to make sure that their software would run on the new BlackBerry Tablet OS simulator v.0.9.4.
Apparently, the development team behind the SDK was focused on bringing some other enhancements into the mix as well, including some related to the capabilities, the stability and performance levels the tool could offer.
Some of the main enhancements in this release would include:
- Code signing enabled – you can now secure your application using the BlackBerry code signing process for BlackBerry Tablet OS. Learn more about signing your applications. - AJAX support for local context. This fix improves the quality of support for using AJAX to retrieve local resources. A benefit of this fix includes improved support on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet for JavaScript frameworks like jQuery. - Loading screen image – Developert can define a loading screen and transition effect in their config.xml file to improve the user experience during application startup. - Major improvements in Mac support – Absolute paths now allowed in ZIP archive; _MACOSX folder no longer being included in BAR file; Format of bbwp command line arguments changed from “-“ to “/”.
Some other improvements were also included into the mix, and you can learn more on them by reading the release notes for the SDK, available on RIM's website here.
While this new release comes with many appealing features, more enhancements are expected to be added to the SDK in the not too far future, closer to the actual release of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet PC on the market in the United States and Canada.
Download BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS Beta 3 for Windows Download BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS Beta 3 for Mac Download BlackBerry Tablet OS simulator v.0.9.4 for Windows Download BlackBerry Tablet OS simulator v.0.9.4 for Mac