Four Key BlackBerry DevCon Announcements--and What They Mean to You

CIO.com's Al Sacco shares details and insights, and eliminates the hype, on the most significant announcements made at RIM's annual BlackBerry Developer conference.

By Al Sacco
Wed, October 19, 2011

CIO — Research in Motion (RIM) is holding its fourth annual BlackBerry Developer Conference (DevCon) this week in San Francisco. Though today is only day two of the three-day event, the BlackBerry-maker has already made a number of significant announcements that are sure to please both RIM developers and BlackBerry users.

BBX Logo from BlackBerry DevCon 2011

Keep reading for a quick breakdown of RIM's four most notable announcements, along with explanations of what the news means for BlackBerry developers, as well as RIM smartphone and PlayBook tablet owners.

BlackBerry OS + QNX = BBX--RIM's Next Generation BlackBerry Platform

"BlackBerry BBX" is RIM's next generation mobile platform, and different versions of BBX will run on both BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets.

"BBX-OS" is an entirely new handheld OS, built on a new foundation from QNX Systems, which RIM acquired last year. The software will look and feel similar to the current BlackBerry Tablet OS--also built on QNX code--that runs on RIM's PlayBook tablet, but it will be tailored for smaller, smartphone displays.

BBX-OS "will support BlackBerry cloud services and development environments for both HTML5 and native developers. BBX will also support applications developed using any of the tools available today for the BlackBerry PlayBook including Native SDK, Adobe AIR/Flash and WebWorks/HTML5, as well as the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps on future BBX-based tablets and smartphones," according to RIM. In other words, the new BlackBerry OS will support existing applications built for the PlayBook and the BlackBerry 7 OS using RIM's WebWorks and HTML5 developer tools, as well as the additional utilities listed above.

However, despite past reports to the contrary, the BBX-OS will not support older, Java-based BlackBerry applications. This is an unfortunate bit of news for developers who've invested a lot of time and effort into building Java apps for the current BlackBerry OS--and for BlackBerry users who have come to rely on these apps. But such apps could potentially be "rebuilt" using newer tools to enable BBX compatibility in the future.

(Read one developer's take on the BBX-OS lack of support for "legacy" Java apps here.)

BlackBerry Tablet OS Is Now PlayBook OS 2.0...and Will Be "BBX for PlayBook"?

Future versions of the BlackBerry Tablet OS will also be a part of BBX, though RIM hasn't specified what exactly this OS will be called. Initially named the "BlackBerry Tablet OS," RIM is now referring to the next version of RIM's PlayBook OS as simply "PlayBook OS 2.0." It stands to reason that RIM will at some point rebrand the PlayBook OS as something like "BBX for PlayBook" or "PlayBook Tablet BBX," though I'm not so sure it's good strategy to keep switching software names. (Product branding has never been one of RIM's strong suites.)

As for new features within PlayBook OS 2.0, RIM has finally added the Android app compatibility it promised by summer 2011 and failed to deliver on time--though the OS is currently only available to developers via a limited beta. RIM did not specify when all BlackBerry PlayBook owners will be able to update their tablets and run Android apps.

Along with the limited PlayBook OS 2.0 release, RIM also announced that the new software features a tool for current Android developers, called BlackBerry Plug-In for ADT for Eclipse development environments, which adds PlayBook development support to those environments. The BlackBerry Plug-In for ADT also has a BlackBerry PlayBook Simulator for developers to test and debug their apps before submitting them for distribution via the BlackBerry App World software store, according to RIM.

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