BlackBerry NDK 2.0 for the BlackBerry PlayBook OS now officially available

By Adam Zeis on 28 Feb 2012 11:22 am

The BlackBerry Native SDK 2.0 for the BlackBerry PlayBook has finally made its way out of beta and is now officially available for developers. The latest version includes new APIs as well as new wizards. The Device Information API allows developers to use data on battery, phone, storage and more to alert users on resources. While the LED service API will allow notifications in applications. Developers can also take advantage of the BlackBerry PlayBook's stereo sound with the Soundplayer API.

New additions include:

The streamlined deployment setup wizard, which makes it easier for developers to set up their development environment and troubleshoot issues. The wizard also leverages automatic device detection to help set up targets
The Add Library Dependency wizard simplifies the process of adding library dependencies to a project
The New Example wizard provides access to more example projects

The Native SDK now allows developers to target multiple device versions from one instance of the IDE and they can also filter files out of the BAR package to exclude unnecessary assets. It also includes the Scoreloop SDK, which provides ways for developers to integrat social capabilities and gamification into their PlayBook applications. More info cab be found at the BlackBerry Developer Blog.

More information/download of Native SDK 2.0

Topics: BlackBerry Playbook BlackBerry PlayBook SDK NDK BlackBerry Playbook NDK BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 News & Rumors

Adam Zeis 3026 (articles) 2790 (forum posts)

20 comments

pmccartney Feb 28, 2012 at 11:27 am

More great news...awesome!

q649 Feb 28, 2012 at 11:34 am

Adam,

The BlackBerry Developer Blog link does not work.

jimbob4321 Feb 28, 2012 at 11:34 am

working now !!!

q649 Feb 28, 2012 at 11:37 am

Very strange...

Still doesn't work for me (Google Chrome).

This does:

https://bdsc.webapps.blackberry.com/native/

Edit: Ha, 3rd time's a charm. Not sure why it wasn't working, perhaps a temporary server issue.

glenixtr15 Feb 28, 2012 at 11:42 am

LED NOTIFICATIONS!!

ODAAT Feb 28, 2012 at 11:53 am

Let's hope some people use it. More useful than the Android player, which seems to contain negative API's.

Darlaten Feb 28, 2012 at 2:29 pm

Amen to that. I've always wanted native apps over Android apps.

ayekon Feb 28, 2012 at 12:09 pm

Nice release immediately after everyone was crying foul after seeing the TAT demo...

Looking forward to new apps with additional functions... Thank you RIM!

Joe257 Feb 28, 2012 at 12:21 pm

Yaayyyy! More ammo for PlayBook developers to bring more great native apps to this great platform!

Just look at the success Box.net has had with the PlayBook -- y'know, that tablet "that failed to deliver that nobody wants"? Well, 500,000 of those "nobodies" have registered to use Box.net from their PlayBook in less than 6 months!!!

This only proves the point that App World is rocking! BlackBerry and PlayBook owners are hungry for good apps!

So what's keeping other developers away? RIM is 100% committed to the PlayBook. So, Skype? Where are you??

djtaube Feb 28, 2012 at 2:28 pm

The argument in developer groups that I have been a part of is development cost for BlackBerry has been higher than Android and iOS. Therefore, despite the possibility of high returns due to a better opportunity, there can be a break even and to them that's not worth it.

Box stated that PB is around 16% of their tablet users... then that sort of leads on to say that Android and iOS make up 84% which even shared evenly is 42%; almost 3 times the PB market share. Some just rather take the easy route and if they have the resources they can develop for BlackBerry only at that time.

What I do not understand are the larger companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Skype when they obviously could spare the resources to hire BlackBerry developers, but don't. I feel there is some politics involved with that situation.

westex#WP Feb 28, 2012 at 3:49 pm

Amazon has a competing Android based product, and Skype is owned by microsoft, which is readying it's own tablet.. So yeah, I would say there is quite a bit of politics going on there. But Netlix, and Spotify, et al... there is no excuse.

Joe257 Feb 28, 2012 at 12:34 pm

I was just noticing that App World has come a long way in 3 years:

Jul 20, 2010 had 1 million downloads per day
Feb 14, 2011 had 2 million downloads per day
Mar 22, 2011 had 3 million downloads per day
Jul 12, 2011 reached 1 billion downloads
Feb 7, 2012 had 6 million downloads per day
Feb 7, 2012 reached 2 billion downloads

Look at the jump from July 2011 to February 2012: a 100% increase!! Isn't that incredible? I don't think Apple's AppStore or Android's Market can match that growth over the same period.

Kudos to the BlackBerry team!!!!!!

yaletownboy Feb 29, 2012 at 1:22 am

Minus the upgrades to free apps, general upgrades, etc....

so how many in NEW paid downloads?

Joe257 Feb 29, 2012 at 8:23 am

Does Apple and Google keep and report those stats too?

blackcaneaddict Feb 29, 2012 at 10:42 am

I'm not sure about IOS but the android market went from 10 billion downloads in mid december '11 to 11 billion downloads by mid January.
Nevermind that but more importantly Hooray for the NDK 2.0 release!

crozyBB Feb 28, 2012 at 12:42 pm

This is great...it really is but it still doesn't have TAT Cascades integration. RIM has been touting for the past 6 months about how Cascades is going to bring incredible simplicity to making awesome PB apps. There are hundreds of thousands of developers out there that aren't experts in app development but can still make pretty slick apps on iOS and Android...simply because its easy. Make it easy and people will adopt it. I've looked through the upgrades to NDK 2.0 and there is serious progression here however I really want to be able make apps that are way beyond what iOS and Android can do.