RIM Officially Debuts BlackBerry 10 OS

As expected, Research In Motion (RIM) has just taken the wrap off its new BlackBerry 10 operating system, formerly known as BBX.

Based on PlayBook OS, BlackBerry 10 was unveiled at the BlackBerry World conference in Orlando, Florida. For the time being, developers can download a toolkit for native and HTML5 software development, which will soon be available for download here. 

Although RIM announced the availability of these SDKs, the download links are not live yet, so developers might want to wait a few more hours before they become available. 

According to RIM, the new toolkit offered to all devs who wish to create apps for the newly announced platform, includes the Blackberry 10 Native SDK with Cascades, which allows developers to submit graphically rich and high performance native apps in C/C++ using Qt. 

It is also worth mentioning the Native SDK for BlackBerry 10 comprises a range of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that enables devs to access core device features and a range of BlackBerry apps services, including Push and Payment services. 

With Cascades native application development toolset, developers will be able to easily create visually rich apps without having to write “complex, low-level graphics code.”

Furthermore, this toolkit also includes support for HTML5 application developers with the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK.

Each developer attending to BlackBerry 10 Jam will be provided with a BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device that has already been pictured a few days ago. RIM also confirmed that the first BlackBerry 10 devices would be released in the latter part of 2012, probably in October.

“Developers building for BlackBerry 10 will be able to easily create the kind of cutting-edge apps that deliver truly engaging experiences and ‘wow’ customers, whether through integration with native features and other apps like BBM or by leveraging the new signature design elements of this new and powerful mobile computing platform,” said Alec Saunders, vice president, Developer Relations and Ecosystems Development.

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