Today RIM has made two important introductions for developers: the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK 2.0 for Tablet OS and Smartphones, and the final version of its BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR.

The BlackBerry WebWorks SDK 2.0 for Tablet OS and Smartphones

With this release, the following changes are introduced:

·         JavaScript APIs are now separated from the OS.  This new architecture will allow developers to easily 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.

These changes meet developers’ needs for ease of development, flexibility and choice. This important update positively impacts broad categories of developers including new and established developers. They can take advantage of the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK support for web standard technologies (HTML5, CSS3, Java Script) to build rich, well integrated standalone BlackBerry applications. Once developed, these apps can be fully integrated into the BlackBerry ecosystem, and distributed and monetized via BlackBerry App World. Furthermore, there is no need for developers to learn native programming languages to build mobile applications; they can simply use their existing web skills to build amazing BlackBerry apps.

To streamline development work even further, RIM has aligned the versioning of the two platforms so that developers can easily create and deploy applications on the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS  and Smartphones – making the best of both worlds.

BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR
Today 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.

These landmark updates from RIM coincide with the BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet’s availability in stores in North America today and they further empower developers to create amazing applications  the device.

To find out more about these updates and download the latest SDKs go to http://us.blackberry.com/developers/tablet/webworks.jsp for BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS, http://us.blackberry.com/developers/browserdev/widgetsdk.jsp for BlackBerry WebWorks SDK for Smartphones and http://us.blackberry.com/developers/tablet/adobe.jsp for BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR.