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An Exploration of BlackBerry 10's Programming API
Nerval's Lobster writes "BlackBerry 10 is completely different from previous BlackBerry operating systems — with good reason. Its core assets come from a company named QNX, which Research In Motion acquired in 2010. Blackberry 10 features include 'live tiles' that dynamically refresh with new information, as well as a revamped keyboard and security upgrades. But what really makes or breaks a phone is the quality (and quantity) of its third-party apps. Jeff Cogswell pokes through the BlackBerry 10 programming API in a quest to see what app developers can do with the platform, and how it compares on that front to Apple iOS and Google Android. His conclusion? Although some of the underlying components are showing their age, BlackBerry has 'spent a lot of time building up a foundation for a good development community.' He also goes over BlackBerry 10's viability for porting apps and building games. But will developers actually work with a platform with such low market-share?"
I'm not interested in learning yet another API. Keep it.
Is the API that includes bad_management() public or private? Either way the return value is doomed
"Once installed, you get a version of Eclipse that’s customized for BlackBerry 10 development. Eclipse is re-branded as QNX Momentics IDE, and it has the QNX logo on the front screen."
Yes, the IDE is based on Eclipse CDT, which was originally contributed by.. wait for it... QNX. Nice try at making it sound like they were just 'rebranding' Eclipse. The rest sounds is one petty gripe after another, e.g. complaining wording in the installer, or about the how samples are written in C, instead of C++, etc. Pathetic.
If BB pitch is to corporate clients (still) - how do they plan to attract all these devs who certainly don't care about the enterprise and much, much smaller target market.
Our mobile app, we have built native for Android and iOS. We've had a grand total of one person ask for BB and one ask for WP8. We simply have no interest in investing the money to build for something no one cares about.
Saying it, doesn't make it true. The numbers were well over a million z10 sold in North America alone. The q10 is expected to do even better.
I really want this to succeed. First of all, QNX is awesome. I had the pleasure of working with it back in the day when they had the 1.44M demo disk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_VlI6IBEJ0 has a video). At a time when GNU/Linux was working on getting POSIX-compliant and X was clunky and required some expertise to set up, QNX offered an OS with POSIX-compliance, real-time capabilities, a package manager, a GUI that worked out of the box, and managed to produce a 1.44M bootable diskette that showed off the OS with GUI and web browser.
Secondly, I want my software to be efficient. I'm sure you can do great things with J2ME, Dalvik, or even HTHL and JavaScript. But if you want the best performance or resources are at a premium (hello, battery-powered mobile devices!), you can do better by being closer to the metal. And we have APIs and programming languages that allow us to program closer to the metal. BlackBerry allows us to use those APIs and languages. The author of TFA makes fun of the BlackBerry APIs being in C. I see that as an advantage. You can easily build abstractions on top of low-level APIs. Getting efficiency back once it's been lost in someone's abstraction layer isn't as easy.
So, while it seems popular to make fun of BlackBerry these days, I really want them to succeed. I think they've made a great product that deserves our consideration. Of course, they have low market share and strong competitors - but then again, so did Apple when they launched the iPhone, and Google when they launched Android.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I don't know. Do developers want to work for a platform that is saturated with thousands of similar applications, like the Apple and Android markets? It seems to me that the Blackberry market may not be a bad one to enter. Yes, the market share is much smaller, but there's also less competition.
That is QT/QML means that it could be ported (or just recompiled) to Linux, Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish, or other platforms that don't have QT included but that is available (and that means most of alternatives). Is not a dead end, but a good training camp if not successful. Focusing where possible in what is not platform specific will help too.
Programming application programming interface... seriously?
Their tablet is really fast and slim but with no update to BB10, devs can only port older droid apps (from what I understand 2.3 and older) Comon bring out BB10 for the PB.
did you know that the US and Canadian versions of the Z10 are different? In the US it's the zee 10 and in Canada it's the zed 10. Amazing!
rewriting history since 2109
In a month and a half in the US and 5 months in Canada. The iPhone 4S did that in its first day and the iPhone 5 did 2 million its first day.
The Q10 will be the true metric though. There are a ton of people out that that have been waiting 2-3 years for the next physical keyboard phone. Q2 should be a good one for BB. However, once that initial flood comes through...
I was a bit surprised to see C and C++ but no Objective-C support.
If Blackberry is really hoping to get those "killer apps" ported over, supporting Objective-C would seem like a no-brainer.
Trolling is a art,
Surely I can't be the only one that remembers when QNX made their source code available (under a look but don't touch license). It was very educational and useful. I even found a couple bugs and submitted fixes for them. But then they revoked access to the code just before RIM bought them. Too bad. I learned long ago not to depend on closed source operating systems. When Blackberry unlocks the source code, I'll buy one and start developing. Until then, I'll stick to Android.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
"But what really makes or breaks a phone is the quality (and quantity) of its third-party apps."
Pundits keep saying this (over and over and over), but I tend to disagree. I and everybody I know who have Windows Phones generally don't see "apps" as a problem. Personally, there aren't any "apps" that are a deal breaker for me, because I use my phone for business. Games and "apps" are for the laptops.
I don't respond to AC's.
For this to be a programmable API operation? To Eclipse is to be pedantic. RIP Ann-Margret./
Compatibility is a two edged sword. Being able to easily port Android apps makes that the easy path - develop for Android, still get BB support.. why would you bother writing for the BB API? That means your platform gets more apps to start, but very few unique ones - and many that don't make best use of your unique features/APIs.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
A nearby McDonald's franchise sells a lot more hamburgers than my favorite sit-down beef restaurant, but I'd be willing to bet the sit-down is just as if not more profitable than that franchise.
Volume is not everything, especially out of the gate. The Z10 is an incredible piece of technology that you have to use to appreciate. They will do fine with it, but it might take some time.
Sold one million to one customer alone in North America, that should be.
Given that no-one is admitting to that purchase, is it beyond the realm of belief that they brought those themselves?
Short answer: NO
Long answer: NO.
Correct, volume isn't always everything. However, that is only the case when there are large differences in profit margin. In this case, there isn't much difference. The Z10 (which I've used a little bit, not every day) is an average device these days with some neat features. Nothing earth shattering. Its as average as an iPhone or any number of Android devices. The sales however, have been disappointing. The largest factor, is that without any large distinguishing feature, most people have already moved on from Blackberry to other smart devices.
However, as I said above, its all about the Q10 for Blackberry. It has a much higher profit margin, and they will sell a ton. There are plenty of people out there just waiting for their "real" keyboard. With very little competition in that market, and a loyal fanbase in that market, they should do well. In the first quarter. They will probably even pull a million or so iPhone/Android users back with the physical keyboard. However, when you consider that Apple is averaging about 30 million units a QUARTER over the last two years or so, that doesn't really make a dent in market share. The Q10 will get most of its sales from people that have waited 2-3 years for the next generation Blackberry, that didn't migrate away to touch platforms. Blackberry's own estimates are that they will sell multiple 10's of millions of Q10's. Apple does that every quarter. Quarter after quarter. They have such a huge installed base, most of their sales at this point are people aging off of their iPhone 3gs/iPhone4.
A MILLION? Really? With LASERS?!?!
Sold or Shipped? Either are good news for Blackberry (at least in the short term) but developers care more about the actual sales.
BlackBerry support QT4.8, and 5.0 can be compiled. Digia (who now own QT) have ported it to Android and IOS, with Win8 on the horizon.
Finally, portable C++ apps.
And if you prefer something standards-compliant, you can code in HTML5 and embed that as an app.
Btw if you you do create web apps, BlackBerry own and develop the Ripple emulator.
What's not to like?
The zed 10's dead baby, the zed 10's dead.
"But what really makes or breaks a phone is the quality (and quantity) of its third-party apps."
Oy, this makes me feel really old. I remember when what made or broke a phone was its ability to make and receive calls well. What's worse, maybe, it's what I still select phones by.
Well, people develop for Windows Phone, and WE are not that many, either ;P
Blackberry doesn't have idiotic users waiting in line, throwing their old phones in the garbage just to have the new shiny each year because of some software based feature (that's been available on it's own store for every single one of their devices but apparently it's just too difficult to update and so it's arbitrarily restricted to the last 1 or 2 generations of devices.
I can only speak for myself here. I ported my (fairly successful) app to Windows Phone. My reasoning was that MS was big enough, and Nokia committed enough that they would do whatever it takes to make WP work.
It was a very bad use of my time, I get a bit of cash from WP, but it is a rounding error compared to iOS, or even Android.
It may be that Windows and Nokia will do better in the future, but for now, it is an unrewarding platform.
Blackberry have spent a bunch of time trying to convince me to transfer my Android builds over to their platform, but even spending a day or two to make the necessary tweaks feels like a bad investment.
VLC Remote for iPhone and Android
There are 80 million BlackBerry users and growing. You don't think you can sell even a few hundred copies out of 80 million users? Even if you make 10x more money on other platforms, it never hurts to add an extra few % to your bottom line.