BlackBerry Steps Up Its Game
Written by Peter Brockmann Tuesday, 10 November 2009 21:01
The #1 mobile device for business users is making big strides in improving the user interface. In an announcement at the BlackBerry Developer's Conference in San Francisco, November 9, 2009 RIM committed to OpenGL® ES, the leading open source 3D graphics development toolkit now imbedded in the BlackBerry Java SDK 5.0, now in beta.
Alan Brenner, Senior Vice President, BlackBerry Platform at Research In Motion also announced at the developer's conference a GUI Builder for BlackBerry Java Plug-In for Eclipse, that promises to simplify user interface designs. The plug-in was previewed during the conference and is expected to be available in mid-2010.
RIM also introduced a new Theme Studio which is a free suite of theme design, illustration and animation tools that make it easier to create custom interfaces. The upcoming Theme Studio 5.0 replaces Plazmic Content Developer Kit features the importation of Adobe Photoshop files to the Theme Builder, add ringtones and insert screen transitions such as zooming, sliding, wiping and fading within themes.
Although these features are clearly positioned to overcome weaknesses in the BlackBerry development environment that will make the platform better-suited to compete with Apple iPhone consumer users experience, it will certainly allow a more impressive presentation and experience with business applications too. Why would you build a simple menu when you could build a pretty one?