BlackBerry Storm Partner Announcement

There's been a lot of chatter regarding the fact we've seen so much BlackBerry Storm promotion coming from Verizon (and now Vodafone), yet Research in Motion itself hasn't said a peep on the record. Times are changing.... Ronen just posted an "official" RIM announcement that went out to RIM partners via the PartnerZone.

For the BlackBerry Storm a new set of enhanced APIs have been developed, and RIM is going to make the JDE v4.7 and Storm device simulators available in October, leading up to the launch of the Storm. RIM has an application center in the works, and the word is they want to launch it on the Storm (would make for a great announcement at the BlackBerry Developer Conference next month too!). That jives well with the contents of this announcement - what good is a BlackBerry Application Center with no Apps! Full Announcement after the jump!

BlackBerry Storm Partner Announcement 

The upcoming BlackBerry Storm is the first touch screen BlackBerry smartphone from Research In Motion and it builds upon a variety of existing BlackBerry features and capabilities to produce a truly compelling touch experience. With the BlackBerry Storm, RIM will introduce a version of software (v4.7) that delivers a new set of APIs and capabilities for third party developers including:

1) Enhancements to the existing RIM User Interface APIs to provide support for touch and gestures including proper handling of multi-touch events.
2) Support for MIDP applications that leverage touch.
3) Virtual keyboard APIs
4) Enhanced and open GPS APIs on all networks

In addition to the new API capabilities, your Browser-based applications will build upon the browser capabilities released in v4.6.0 including:

For third party developers, one of the unique features of the BlackBerry Storm is its compatibility mode which provides an operating environment for existing 3rd party applications that are not implemented to support touch. This feature will automatically convert the touch events into existing trackball events. When an application is executing in compatibility mode, a virtual keyboard will be shown at all times for text input to mimic the physical keyboard on previous devices and will only support portrait mode.

Improved web page rendering including:

  • AJAX
  • XMLHttpRequest 
  • JavaScript® 1.5 
  • CSS 2.1 
  • DOM L2 (including Core, HTML, Style, Events) 
  • HTML 4.01 (including Forms, Maps, Tables, Frames, Objects) 
  • Improved Native Attachment Download Support for downloading files via the browser

Key Features

  • Screen Resolution: 480×360
  • Virtual Keyboard: SureType (Portrait Mode) and Full Keyboard (Landscape Mode)
  • Networking: Global network support (2G/3G)
  • Memory: Embedded Memory

For all BlackBerry Alliance partners, RIM will be providing access to developer documentation, the BlackBerry Java Development Environment (JDE) v4.7 and the BlackBerry Storm simulator in October to enable development and testing of your applications on this new and compelling smartphone.

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