BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has detailed its vision for the BlackBerry 10 platform with the release of an initial (beta stage) developer toolkit for both native and HTML5 software programming.
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As the BlackBerry 10 developer beta tools now experience general use among the community, developers can also expect to gain access to an extended set of APIs over the coming months.
RIM handheld platform division VP Christopher Smith explained that the initial toolkit includes the BlackBerry 10 Native SDK with Cascades. This is the new interface framework intended to allow developers to create graphically rich, high-performance native applications in C/C++ or Qt.
"The Native SDK for BlackBerry 10 has a rich set of APIs that give developers access to core device features and a range of BlackBerry application services, such as Push and Payment services. Cascades is a powerful native application development toolset that allows developers to easily build visually stunning applications without having to write graphics code," said the company.
Possibly-not-so-"embattled" as every other media source chooses to describe it, RIM also used a number of posts on its BlackBerry developer blog to announce the new WebWorks SDK for HTML5/CSS3 and a native SDK (APIs).
The 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 capabilities over the coming months.
