BlackBerry maker RIM has announced some relatively impactful changes to its developer platform with the release of its WebWorks SDK 2.0 offering. With this release, JavaScript APIs are now separated from the OS. This new architecture is designed to allow developers to modify and enhance the existing APIs and package them with their BlackBerry WebWorks application. It will also simplify adding new APIs to applications.
The BlackBerry WebWorks framework and all of the APIs are open sourced and are available on GitHub. Developers can now contribute and participate in the evolution of the BlackBerry WebWorks project.
RIM says that these changes meet developers' needs in terms of ease of development and flexibility &mdash and that now programmers can take advantage of the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK support for web standard technologies (HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript) to build integrated standalone BlackBerry applications. Once developed, these apps can be fully integrated into the BlackBerry ecosystem and distributed and monetized via BlackBerry App World.
To streamline development work even further, RIM has aligned the versioning of the two platforms so that developers can deploy applications on the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS and Smartphones.
RIM has also introduced the final version of its BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR, which includes the following changes:
- Special APIs for the BlackBerry PlayBook Plugins for Adobe Flash Builder
- A BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Simulator
- A Getting Started Guide
"With this update of the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR, RIM gives developers the opportunity to leverage a strong competitive advantage, the Adobe AIR technology's capability to enable developers to share code across multiple platforms, thereby offering them the benefit of a wide choice of development environments," says the company.
