ORLANDO, FL – Research In Motion offered the first look at its new BlackBerry 10 platform Tuesday at its BlackBerry World conference for developers and partners.
A new prototype device, unveiled by CEO Thorsten Heins, features a touchscreen keyboard reminiscent of its PlayBook tablet. The company also released in beta the developer toolkit platform, which will allow developers to build and test their apps in preparation for the official BlackBerry 10 launch expected later this year.
The toolkit includes the BlackBerry 10 Native SDK with Cascades, which allows developers to create graphically rich, high performance native apps in C/C++ or the Qt Modeling Language (QML). The toolkit also includes support for HTML5 app developers with the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK, allowing them to create native-like apps using common web programming technologies (HTML5, CSS and JavaScript).
"Developers can use this first beta of the tools to get started building apps for BlackBerry 10 and as the tools evolve over the coming months, developers will have access to a rich API set that will allow them to build even more integrated apps”, said RIM’s VP handheld application platform and tools, Christopher Smith, in the announcement. “The toolkit we are delivering today also meets developers on their own terms. Whether using the powerful Cascades framework, writing direct native code or developing in HTML5, BlackBerry 10 will empower developers to create attractive and compelling apps that excite customers."
Applications created with any of the BlackBerry 10 tools will run on BlackBerry 10 smart phones as well as BlackBerry PlayBook tablets when the new platform becomes available for the PlayBook.
