Research In Motion has today unveiled the BlackBerry 10 platform at the BlackBerry World conference in Orlando, Florida. The BlackBerry maker has also released a developer toolkit for software development.
The developers can use the SDK to create apps with C/C++ using Qt. The Native SDK for BlackBerry 10 also has various APIs which will give developers access to core device features and a range of BlackBerry application services, such as Push and Payment services. The SDK will also have Cascades, which is a powerful native application development toolset that allows developers to easily build visually stunning applications without having to write complex, low-level graphics code.
The toolkit also includes support for HTML5 application developers with the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK, allowing them to create native-like applications using common web programming technologies. The BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK allows developers to use HTML5 and CSS for building apps and provides JavaScript bindings to native device APIs along with RIM’s open source UI toolkit, bbUI.js, to create applications with native-like capabilities. In this initial release of the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK, developers have access to a core subset of the full WebWorks APIs, including Identity, Application and App events, System and system events.
Applications created with any of the BlackBerry 10 tools will run on BlackBerry 10 smartphones as well as BlackBerry PlayBook tablets when the new platform becomes available for the PlayBook. All of the SDKs will be updated to give developers access to more of the BlackBerry 10 unique capabilities over the coming months.
To further help developers get started on the BlackBerry 10 platform, BlackBerry 10 Jam attendees are being provided with a BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device which is a developer unit which will be used to develop apps and other softwares for the new platform. The device has a 4.2-inch, 1280×768 display, 16GB internal storage, 1GB of RAM, and a virtual BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard.
So do you think the new OS will save RIM from drowning in deep water? We’ll have to wait and see.