Since launching BlackBerry 10 back on January 30th we’ve seen a lot of great momentum from our customers, our fan base and, of course, developers. The developer journey, however, goes far beyond the launch date. Because of the amazing dedication from our community, and global developer BlackBerry Jam series we were able to launch with over 70,000 apps. Today we’re happy to announce that in just seven weeks since launch that number has grown by 30,000. The application catalogue for BlackBerry 10 has reached 100,000, and there are an increasing number of top brands coming onboard as well.

Today, Amazon Kindle, OpenTable and The Wall Street Journal are available to BlackBerry 10 customers and in the coming weeks CNN, The Daily Show Headlines, eBay, eMusic, Maxim, MLB at Bat, MTV News, Pageonce, PGA, Rdio, Skype, Soundhound and Viber will be available for download or purchase.

And our BlackBerry World Wednesday series has already covered some of these amazing titles that are available right in the BlackBerry World storefront for BlackBerry 10: 8tracks, Angry Birds Star Wars, ATP World Tour Live, BBC Top Gear News, Bloomberg Anywhere, CBS Sports, Delta Air Lines, F1 2013 Timing App CP, Facebook, Foursquare, Jetpack Joyride, Keek, LinkedIn, Navita Translator, Need for Speed, NHL GameCenter, N.O.V.A. 3, The New York Times, PressReader, Slacker, Songza, Twitter, UFC, USA TODAY, Waze, WhatsApp, and Zara.

Here’s what Martyn Mallick, Vice President, Global Alliances at BlackBerry had to say of the announcement:

“The response to the BlackBerry 10 platform and applications has been outstanding. Customers are thrilled with the applications already available, and the catalog just keeps growing, now with more than 100,000 apps,” said Martyn Mallick, Vice President, Global Alliances at BlackBerry. “Top brands and application providers are joining us every day and are seeing the benefits of being early supporters of the new platform. We constantly hear from developers that the BlackBerry 10 tools are easy to build with and that we provide opportunities for app differentiation that they do not see on other platforms.”

Read the full press release here and if you haven’t checked out the BlackBerry World storefront for BlackBerry 10 – head over and see these great apps for yourself. Let us know what your favorite apps are in the comments.

Next week we’re off to San Jose to cover all the action from BlackBerry® Jam Americas, our headline show of the year for developers. The show starts on Tuesday September 25, so be sure to make the Inside BlackBerry Blog your home for news from the ground. Also, don’t forget to check in with our friends over at the Inside BlackBerry Developer Blog and Inside BlackBerry for Business Blog to follow along with news for devs and the enterprise, respectively.

As usual, we’ll have all the action here from the keynote on Tuesday, some exclusive interviews, and maybe even a little taste of what we’ve been working on for BlackBerry® 10. Are you a developer interested in knowing more about the show? Swing by the Dev Blog for all the details, and check out this special message from Alec Saunders on why you should attend.

If you’re unable to make it to the event, tune in to the Live Webcast of the keynote, 8:30am-10:30am PDT on Tuesday September 25.

Are you going to BlackBerry Jam Americas, or will you be following along at home? Let us know in the comments, and remember that you can catch all the excitement here on the Inside BlackBerry Blog.

The last few weeks have been very busy for the BlackBerry® platform teams! We’ve launched important updates to our BlackBerry® WebWorks™ SDK (v2.1) for both the BlackBerry Tablet® OS and smartphone OS, as well as the BlackBerry® Tablet OS SDK for Adobe® AIR® (in addition to working with Adobe® to include optimized support for the BlackBerry Tablet OS in Adobe® Flash® Builder 4.5!). Also, we’ve released BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) Social Platform SDK 1.0 for BlackBerry® Java® SDK along with a beta version of the platform for BlackBerry WebWorks.

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry Developer’s Blog »

We are thrilled to announce that registration for BlackBerry® DEVCON Americas is open! BlackBerry DEVCON Americas – taking place October 18-20, 2011 at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis in San Francisco, California – reflects our commitment to make this an incredible event for developers from across North America and Latin America. In fact, we have re-opened the BlackBerry DEVCON Americas Call For Papers for developers in Latin America until May 30th; we are looking to have sessions presented in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese.

Early Bird registration for BlackBerry DEVCON Americas is only $699 USD, or $599 USD for our qualifying 2010 event alumni. This is our best registration offer ever (35% less than last year!) and represents incredible value to attendees. Also, this deal can be combined this with a special early-bird 4th-night-free offer for even more savings. Please hurry as these early bird offers end June 24th – register now! We also have special registration pricing for students ($199 USD) and faculty ($399 USD). All prices are subject to applicable taxes; please see the applicable terms and conditions.

We are also excited to announce the first ever BlackBerry DEVCON Europe as well as the second edition of BlackBerry DEVCON Asia, which builds on the success of its debut event earlier this year! We are opening the Call For Papers for BlackBerry DEVCON Europe and BlackBerry DEVCON Asia from May 2nd to June 24th. We are expecting great submissions for both events – make sure you stay tuned here for more information on dates and locations!

These events offer the best opportunity for BlackBerry platform developers – learn more about all three events at the official BlackBerry DEVCON website.

The TorontoFlex Group and Toronto BlackBerry® Developer Group have partnered for a joint event to cover BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet development. Garett Beukeboom, Rajeev Massand and myself from Research In Motion® (RIM®) Developer Relations will be onsite to give a presentation to the attendees. The event will take place on April 21st, 2011 at the Metro Central YMCA on 20 Grosvenor Street in Toronto, Ontario. To register, please visit this page.

We are also excited to announce that a new BlackBerry Developer Group is forming in Atlanta, Georgia! The Atlanta BlackBerry Developer’s Group is the place to be for BlackBerry developers who are interested in networking with fellow developers and staying updated with what’s happening in the BlackBerry development platform world. The group plans to have 8-10 meetings per year to share BlackBerry development knowledge and to have some fun in the process. The goal of the group is to build a knowledge sharing network for writing quality software on the BlackBerry platform – a place where developers can turn for answers and advice.

If you live or work in the Atlanta area, please be sure to attend the group’s first meeting on April 25th, 2011. The meeting will take place at 11475 Great Oaks Way, Suite 400, Alpharetta, Georgia. To register for the event and get more information, please visit the official website of the Atlanta BlackBerry Developer’s Group.

As always, we invite you visit our BlackBerry Developer Groups website to find a group in your area. If one doesn’t already exist, you can start a new one by filling out this form.

With a successful BlackBerry® DEVCON Asia just completed, we are already working on creating the best possible BlackBerry DEVCON 2011 on October 18-20 in San Francisco, USA. With little surprise, one of the biggest drivers for both new and past attendees continues to be the speakers and sessions. To ensure that we are providing one of the best programs anywhere in the mobile industry, we are going to open our call for papers earlier than we ever have in the past.

The Call for Speakers submission is now open for developers to submit their ideas for great sessions at the conference. We are now accepting descriptions for sessions that you would love to deliver at the conference. In a simple twist on last year, we are also accepting submissions for sessions you would love to see at the conference but may not be able to deliver yourself. We are actively recruiting great speakers in the field and would like your ideas on key topics for the conference.

The deadline for submissions is April 1st, but we encourage you to submit your BlackBerry DEVCON 2011 session ideas ahead of the deadline. We will be providing feedback on submissions and working with potential speakers through the submission process. I am looking forward to seeing your great ideas and session submissions!

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

BlackBerry® DEVCON Asia 2011 received huge positive responses from all participants and BlackBerry developers in Asia. To close off this amazing event, I tried to sum up DEVCON Asia in a few words – check out the video above.

One of the great parts of BlackBerry DEVCON Asia 2011 was getting to chat with various developers, and learning what they’re excited about and what they thought about the event. We did a series of brief one-on-ones with developers and representatives from the community and compiled them in this video:

Read More at the Inside BlackBerry Developer’s Blog »

As the BlackBerry® Developer Group program continues to expand, several new groups have scheduled meetings for the month of February.

To start off, the Polish BlackBerry Developer Group has organized their inaugural meeting on February 1st (today!) at the Marriott Hotel in Warsaw. For more information on the meeting and to register, visit the group’s official page or their Facebook page.

The second meeting of the New York BlackBerry Developer Group will be an intro to developing for the BlackBerry platform. Topics of discussion will include learning the importance of developing for BlackBerry and learning about recent enhancements to the platform that make this development process easier. The meeting will take place on Wednesday, February 16, 2011 at 6:30 PM. Visit the group’s Meetup page for all the details.

The Sydney BlackBerry Developer Group holds their regular meetings on the last Tuesday of every month. The next meeting falls on Tuesday, February 22nd. Visit the group’s LinkedIn page here for all the details.

As always, we invite you visit our BlackBerry Developer Groups site to find a group in your area. If one doesn’t already exist, you can start a new one by filling out this form.

With today’s release of the BlackBerry® WebWorks™ SDK for Tablet OS, I am very pleased to announce that we will extend the deadline for the free BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet offer. Applications submitted by March 15th, 2011 will be eligible to qualify for the offer, providing an opportunity for both BlackBerry WebWorks and Adobe® developers to bring their applications to the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

Read more at the BlackBerry Developer’s Blog »