See table of contents for full list of web 2.0 expo posts

I was going to have Blackberry and IBM share a blog post but Blackberry had too much good content and deserves its own. I’m really excited about trying Ripple.

Live blogging note: when typing on your lap, it helps to have the angle/stand for the ipad. And as usual, i will fix typos/format from home

The BlackBerry Web Platform – Adam Stanley

• Web app platform on BlackBerry changed a lot in last 2 years
• Powered by webkit (finally gave up on blackberry browser engine and moved to open standard)
• On blackberry 6+ (half of users are still on version 5)
• Showed graph that Bold 4 times as fast as Torch
• AliceJS – framework to add CSS based animations
• “the great thing about web is that it is built on standards … As long as we follow those stamdards” – problem #1?
• devblog.blackberry.com – has most announcements for developers
• Off topic: noted use micropayments to buy apps (iphone and android too). Why can’t the newspaper do this? 5 cents per article?
• Even 99 cents is a barier to entry. See if can give away part for free to get people to try
• Don’t know or can’t say what percent of users are business users (vs those who can download apps)
• Blackberry makes a tablet now (playbook) – supports flash (ipad giving in one day?)

Dev tips

• Use feature detection over browser detection [when will this become universal?] – modernizr and has.js frameworks help
• Viewport – use initial scale so can scale
• Use addEvenListener rather than assigning to onclick so don’t wipe out extisting (or use jquery)

Blackberry webworks framework

• for apps that have own icon on the device.
• Write app in html 5
• Webworks platform like an adapter from the html app to the java code actually running on the blackberry
• Provide javascript apis so can call blackbeery specific parts – blackberry.invoke lets you do things like open the camera
• Other choices : adobe air

Coding concerns

• Need index.html ( app home screen) and config.xml (blackberry icon and the like)
• That’s how launchers work. Point xml to url on web
• Blackberry ripple emulator – said better than simulator because faster. Can see how app looks without fully running it [ i look forward to testing the coderanch mobile site with ripple]. Ripple is a chrome extention. Can run against local or internet content
• Web inspector – profiling and debugging tool that comes with webkit. It needs to be opened up so can connect to it