We knew developers were excited about our latest BlackBerry® PlayBook™ offer for Android™ developers when we announced it two weeks ago. You asked that Native C/C++, HTML5, Adobe® AIR®, and Qt developers have a chance to participate and we answered by opening the offer to all developers.

Today was going to be the deadline for the offer – but due to the overwhelming interest in the offer, we’re extending it one more time. How much interest? There have been over 1,500 app submissions as of last Friday and over 6,600 new developers registered in the BlackBerry App World™ storefront.  We have teams working around the clock to approve vendor registrations and app submissions.  Because of the high demand, approvals are taking longer than normal – we appreciate your patience.

To help speed up the approval process of your application, we strongly recommend the following:

• Before submitting your application to BlackBerry App World, please make sure to remove all mention of the word “Android” from your application – both in the application description and the application itself.
• Please remove all links to Android Marketplace from within your application.
• When submitting your Android application to BlackBerry App World, please make sure to select a minimum OS of 2.0.
• Please make sure your application is signed. For more information on code signing, please view the code signing documentation on the BlackBerry Runtime for Android Apps webpage.

If you’re not a registered BlackBerry App World vendor, you now have until 11:59 PM EST on February 15, 2012 to register at http://appworld.blackberry.com/isvportal.

All vendors (new and existing) now have until 11:59 PM EST on March 2, 2012 to submit your application to BlackBerry App World. Check out our offer FAQ and we’ll be updating the official terms & conditions later today.

Earlier today, Adobe announced plans to stop investing in Flash® for mobile browsing, and focus more efforts on HTML5. As an Adobe source code licensee, we will continue to work on and release our own implementations, and are looking forward to including Flash 11.1 for the BlackBerry PlayBook.

The strategic direction announced by Adobe today further validates RIM’s decision to launch the BlackBerry PlayBook with a full-powered and uncompromised desktop class browser supporting both Flash and HTML5. We are pleased that Adobe will focus its efforts on next generation Flash-based apps delivered via AIR and BlackBerry App World™ as well as the great opportunities that HTML5 presents for our developers as we discussed at DevCon Americas.

“The PlayBook browser does a great job of supporting both HTML5 and Flash, including industry leading HD video streaming. Adobe and RIM are focused on HTML5 innovation for mobile browsing and believe it is the best solution for developers to deliver rich web experiences on RIM’s BlackBerry products and other mobile devices. RIM has the ability to continue working on and releasing its own implementations of Flash Player 11 and beyond,” said Danny Winokur, VP & GM, Interactive Development, Adobe Systems Inc.

RIM is also energized by the powerful, open standards-based development platform that HTML5 delivers through our BlackBerry products. To us, this means working with thousands of talented BlackBerry developers to bring new gaming, entertainment, and video experiences that deliver depths of experience we had only dreamed of a few years ago. That’s progress we support, and we look forward to seeing the innovation soon in BlackBerry App World.

If you have questions or comments, please log in and share them with us. We promise to read them all and come back and answer what we can.

- Dan Dodge, President and CEO, QNX

(Originally posted on the Inside BlackBerry Developer’s Blog)

More exciting news arrives today from the BlackBerry Partners Fund™ Developer Challenge, announcing the winners of the Best Adobe® Flash® and Adobe® AIR® app competition for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet! It’s been exciting to see such an array of amazing apps highlighted from all around the world. Thanks to everyone that participated in the competition, and congratulations to these winning developers!

North America:

• Grand Prize Winner: Papa’s Burgeria (Vendor: Flipline IDS LLC)
• First Runners-up: News Catcher (Vendor: XIMAD Inc)
• Second Runners-up: iSpeech Translator (Vendor: iSpeech.org)

Latin America:

• Grand Prize Winner: PaginasAmarillas (Vendor: Carvajal)
• First Runners-up: El Financiero para BlackBerry PlayBook (Vendor: Ironbit SA de CV)
• Second Runners-up: Bubbler! (Vendor: Juan Ignacio Albanesi)

Europe, Middle East, Africa:

• Grand Prize Winner: n-tv Nachrichten PlayBook (Vendor: LINEAS Informationstechnik GmbH)
• First Runners-up: Doodle Blast (Vendor: FlexibleAIR)
• Second Runners-up: SVIT – Ebook Reader with EPUB Support (Vendor: Pronic, Meselina Ponikvar Verhovsek s.p.)

Asia Pacific:

• Grand Prize Winner: Love Indonesia for BlackBerry PlayBook (Vendor: Love Indonesia)
• First Runners-up: StockPulse – Stock and Equity Tracker for BlackBerry PlayBook (Vendor: XLabz Technologies Pvt Ltd)
• Second Runners-up: Abcday (Vendor: Vostrix)

The competition winners take home a share of prizes in a total pool worth over $3 million USD, including BlackBerry smartphones, BlackBerry PlayBook tablets, a BlackBerry App World™ storefront feature, BlackBerry Alliance memberships and more. Be sure to read the full BlackBerry Partners Fund press release to get all the details.

We hope to see you at an upcoming BlackBerry DevCon where these winners will be recognized!

This latest version of the BlackBerry Tablet OS includes support for Adobe® Flash® 10.3 and support for Adobe® AIR® 2.7 software. This means that with this update you should experience even better performance for Flash videos than before, and be able to access new applications that are being built with Adobe AIR 2.7 software. For all the developers out there, be sure to check out our post on the Inside BlackBerry Developer’s Blog.

Today’s update also incorporates the Adobe Flash Player updates as noted in Adobe Security Bulletins APSB11-12 and APSB11-18, which addresses issues that can potentially affect any PC, tablet or other device with an operating system that supports Flash. While there are no known reports of any BlackBerry PlayBook tablet users being affected by these Adobe Flash issues, we (as always) encourage all BlackBerry PlayBook users to update to the newest version of the BlackBerry Tablet OS. For more information about what these security updates mean to the BlackBerry PlayBook please see our security advisory.

How to update your BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet

This free update can be downloaded over-the-air from your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. Existing users will automatically receive a software update notification on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet status ribbon, or they can check for the software update at any time in the settings menu under Software Updates.

Users who purchase and activate a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet on or after Monday, June 20 will automatically be updated to v1.0.6 or later as part of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet setup process.

Our North American series of BlackBerry® Developer Days continues with new dates announced for New York, NY on March 15th; Sunnyvale, CA on March 22nd; Toronto, ON on March 31st; and Washington, DC on April 5th.

This is your best chance to hear about the latest technical platform advances and market opportunities for your BlackBerry® platform apps. An updated agenda now features more sessions on developing apps for the new BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet.

Join us for the morning sessions to get oriented to the BlackBerry Development Platform, and get up to speed on recent platform advancements and opportunities. The afternoon sessions will open with the opportunity to learn from a fellow developer’s success, and then focus on a few key platform updates including the new BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) Social Platform, BlackBerry® WebWorks™ Platform, and Adobe® AIR® development for the new BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

Check out the full agenda for these events and register now!

New York, NY – March 15, 2011
Sunnyvale, CA – March 22, 2011
Toronto, ON – March 31, 2011
Washington, DC – April 5, 2011

The deadline for the free BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet offer is fast approaching. Whether you have already submitted your app or you plan to do so soon, your app will need to be signed before it can be accepted into BlackBerry App World™ storefront.

We’re excited to announce that you can now sign apps using the latest version of the BlackBerry® Tablet OS SDK. Below is a quick overview of how to get started with application signing on the BlackBerry Tablet OS. Be sure you have installed the most recent version of either the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe® AIR®, or the BlackBerry® WebWorks™ SDK for BlackBerry Tablet OS. You can download the latest version of either SDK from the BlackBerry Tablet OS Application Development site.

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry Developer’s Blog »

Last week, we saw the BlackBerry® Application Platform take a major step forward. We’ve posted several key announcements made at BlackBerry DEVCON Asia, and we’re already receiving tremendous feedback from the developer community. To recap:

BlackBerry® Tablet OS announcements

• With the release of the beta version of the BlackBerry® WebWorks™ SDK, developers can now build BlackBerry® WebWorks™ applications for both the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet and BlackBerry® smartphone platforms!
• The release of the updated Adobe® AIR® SDK for the BlackBerry Tablet OS will enable developers to create custom loading screens for their applications and leverage some of the updated look and feel for the native components.
• We announced an extension to the free BlackBerry PlayBook tablet offer, presenting WebWorks developers with the opportunity to participate and providing additional time for Adobe AIR developers to finish their applications worldwide.

BlackBerry smartphone platform announcements

• Developers can now fully test in-app payments with the BlackBerry Payment Service, with the release of the BlackBerry App World™ v2.1 client now available for beta testing.
• With the release of an updated BlackBerry® Push Service SDK, it has never been easier to develop push applications for the BlackBerry platform.

With these announcements we’d like to open the door further, talk about where we are today – and what’s to come.

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry Developer’s Blog »

It’s been about a month since we had our first release of the BlackBerry® Tablet OS SDK for Adobe® AIR, and we’re back with more for you to play with! There’s a few exciting things I wanted to talk to you about with this release, so once we are done here, make sure you get version 0.9.1 of the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK beta!

• BlackBerry OS UI Component bug fixes: Some tweaks were made to the API to make it better for you, and some beta bugs were fixed as well.
• Windows 64-bit support: The installers now work in Windows 64-bit.
• Linux support: Simulator and BlackBerry OS SDK for Adobe AIR now supported on Linux. Let’s hear some feedback from the community on this one.
• Flash Builder 4.5 (Burrito / Flex Mobile ‘Hero’) Support: The plug-in installers will work with either Flash Builder 4.0 or the pre-release version of Flash Builder Burrito from Adobe’s website.

Full BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK Details at the BlackBerry Developer’s Blog »