BlackBerry Development Fundamentals

The BlackBerry smartphone is today’s #1 mobile platform for the enterprise and also a huge hit with consumers. Until now, it’s been difficult for programmers to find everything they need to begin developing new applications for BlackBerry devices. BlackBerry Development Fundamentals is the solution: the first single-source guide to all aspects of development for the BlackBerry platform.

This book thoroughly reviews the BlackBerry’s unique capabilities and limitations, helps you optimize your upfront design choices, and covers native rich-client applications and Web-based mobile applications for both business and consumer environments. In addition, it is an excellent study guide for the BlackBerry Certified Application Developer exam (BCX-810).

Coverage includes

• The “hows,” “whys,” and best practices of BlackBerry development
• Planning for and managing the BlackBerry platform’s restrictions
• Selecting the correct development platform for your BlackBerry applications
• Describing the different paths any application can take to get to the data it needs
• Explaining the capabilities provided by the BlackBerry Mobile Data System (MDS)
• Pushing application data to both enterprise and consumer BlackBerry devices using MDS, Web Signals, and the BlackBerry Push APIs
• Dealing with both the special capabilities and limitations of the BlackBerry browser
• Building, testing, and debugging BlackBerry browser applications
• Understanding the tools available to Java developers
• Using Research In Motion’s Java development tools to build, test, and debug BlackBerry Java applications
• Deploying BlackBerry Java applications

Sample Pages

Download the sample pages (includes Chapter 5 and Index)

Table of Contents

Preface     xix

Chapter 1: Mobile Applications     1

Chapter 2: Determining the Best Approach     13

Chapter 3: The Connected BlackBerry     23

Chapter 4: The BlackBerry Mobile Data System (MDS)     45

Chapter 5: BlackBerry Application Data Push     65

Chapter 6: Pushing Data to Internal (BES) Users     71

Chapter 7: Pushing Data to External (BIS) Users     111

Chapter 8: The BlackBerry Browser     153

Chapter 9: Building BlackBerry Browser Applications     183

Chapter 10: Testing/Debugging BlackBerry Browser Applications     211

Chapter 11: Building BlackBerry Java Applications     229

Chapter 12: Getting Started with the BlackBerry Java Development Tools     273

Chapter 13: Using the BlackBerry Java Development Environment (JDE)     293

Chapter 14: Using the BlackBerry JDE Plug-In for Eclipse (eJDE)     323

Chapter 15: Using the BlackBerry JDE Component Package Tools     357

Chapter 16: Deploying Java Applications     371

Chapter 17: Using Additional BlackBerry Application Technologies     407

Index     429

AVAILABLE ONLINE

Appendix A: Using the BlackBerry Device Simulators

Appendix B: Creating Application Icons