Ottorino Bruni’s Mobile Blog

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The latest release of the BlackBerry® Java® Application Development v5.0 beta provides an end-to-end set of tools for easily developing robust wireless applications.

Feature Highlights

• SQLite® Support
• Improved BrowserField API
• Third-party Application Phone Screen Integration
• JSR 135 Video Capture
• Multiple ContactList Support
• Enhanced Media Key Events

Productivity Boosters

• SQLite Support: New API provides fundamental support for data sharing across different applications on BlackBerry® smartphones. Also supports the Gears JavaScript® API with the database portion layering on top of SQLite

• Improved BrowserField API: New updated API enables you to quickly and easily embed web content within a Java® application

• Random File Access: Read data from and write data to any specified location within a file

Compelling Java User Interfaces

• Support for JSR 239 and OpenGL® ES: Rich 2D and 3D graphics support using JSR 239 and BlackBerry APIs. JSR 239 contains the Java binding for OpenGL ES

• Date and Time Picker: High level picker, which allows users to choose a day, month, year or time visually

• File Picker: High level picker, which allows users to navigate to files by embedding a system file picker in third-party applications

• Location Picker: High level picker, which allows users to choose a location from a list that a third-party application defines

• Grid Layout Manager: An easy and simple way to manage a table or list layout on the screen

• Screen Transitions: Animation API, which enables visual effects that appear when your application opens or closes a screen

• Picture Scrolling: An image field where a row of images is displayed. Users can scroll through the images

• Eyelid Field: Display fields on a pair of managers that appear on the top and bottom of a screen

• Image Zooming and Panning: Zoom in and out within any image and pan the image

• Bitmap Scale and Compare: Manipulate Bitmaps and display them in a specified size and aspect ratio

Application and Data Integration

• Third-party Application Phone Screen Integration: Enables third-party developers to customize incoming and active call screens by adding static text or images to the lower half of those screens

• Multi-line Support: Multiple cellular and PBX lines are now available on BlackBerry smartphones. Third-party applications can access the various phone lines, retrieve corresponding phone numbers, invoke the phone app and have it use a specific phone line, etc.

• JSR 135 Video Capture: New API enables third-party applications to embed the BlackBerry viewfinder to record video clips and display and stream them in the view finder as specified in JSR 135

• Multiple ContactList Support: New API supports multiple Personal Information Management (PIM) data sources. It allows third-party developers to use existing PIM APIs to access and query each individual address book on a BlackBerry smartphone

• Enhanced Media Key Events: Third-party media players can access and respond to dedicated media keys on the newer BlackBerry smartphones, plus there’s a new API and media player event handling mechanism

• Updated Touch Event Injection: The existing EventInjector API has been updated to support touch events such as swipe, tap and click through

• Custom User Authentication API: Create custom user authentication modules that work with security devices

• Name Reading Support in Contacts: Enables access to extended Yomi fields in BlackBerry contacts. This extension only applies for the Japanese market

• Biometric API: Store, manage and access fingerprint data on supported smart cards

• MEID Retrieve API: Programmatically retrieve the Mobile Equipment Identifier (MEID) string from a CDMA device

ResearchIn Motion (RIM) announced the BlackBerry WidgetSoftware Development Kit (SDK) to enable third party application developers tobuild rich, integrated applications for BlackBerry® smartphones using commonweb technologies. With the new BlackBerry Widget SDK, developers can buildweb-based applications for BlackBerry smartphones with advanced features andfunctionality, a capability only previously available for BlackBerryapplications written in Java®.

A BlackBerry Widget uses the BlackBerry® Browser engine torender an application’s user interface using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.Developers are able to use existing web content to create BlackBerry Widgetsand extend the capabilities of their web applications using BlackBerry WidgetAPIs.