[crozyBB]

Hey CrackBerry!
Amidst the noise yesterday surrounding the somewhat ignorant reporting from a NYT reporter, I thought I would share my experience with BlackBerry and the reason I'm choosing to launch my first social platform on BlackBerry 10.

Before I go any farther I should mention that this might be a long post but I'm hoping it will be a good read and everyone enjoys it.

All my friends know how much of a fan of BlackBerry/RIM I am. I've had a BB for about 2.5 years now. I was an intern at RIM Ottawa for a year in 2010/2011. Heck if it wasn't for BBM I wouldn't be with the woman I love right now. Now with all that being said I don't consider myself to be biased and when I see big opportunities I take them.

About a year ago I bought my first PlayBook. I knew going in that the apps weren't going to be that great but the price was good, I thought bridge would be an awesome feature (which it is) and I mainly wanted it so I could stream content to my TV because I couldn't afford cable. The most disappointing part was indeed the fact that there was very few decent apps on the PB. I was happy nonetheless though.

This led me to begin thinking about developing my apps for the PB platform. If the app I wanted wasn't there, surely I could at least try to make a similar one. There was only one problem - I had no experience with programming other than a very simple C# class in my first year of university. I did some research and native development was too steep of a curve at the time (I was still busy with school) but AIR didn't look all that bad. I started to code and let me tell you it was not easy! I chugged along and learned a bit but I really wasn't able to make anything I would be proud of. Then came along Mr Saunders and his offer to seed out PB's to new devs who submitted app before the launch of OS2. I thought what a brilliant proposition - I could get a free playbook and have an app in app world. Unfortunately I couldn't bring myself to submitting the app that I had developed because I didn't think it was fair. It wasn't top quality and I didn't want to take advantage of the seeding program. When I do decide to submit my first app I want it to be very good and I want people out there to actually be able to use it. Shortly thereafter school became very busy and I wasn't able to really start coding until I finished in April.

Now let's fast-forward to BlackBerry World 2012 in Florida. I was incredibly excited for this event because there was a lot of speculation surrounding the announcement of the Cascades framework. Why was I so excited for this? Well, when I worked at RIM it was during a time when they had bought TAT and it wasn't long after that a particular internal web domain (which will remain unnamed) arrived showcasing much of TAT's UI work and idea's for BB's (including a slick bbm video). Needless to say I was getting excited that I might be able to use some of TAT's brilliance in an app. I wasn't disappointed either. RIM announced the new BB10 (yes, new because the initial announcement was a bit of a failure) and the Cascades framework. I was like a kid on Christmas morning.

But why BB10? I didn't even have to ask myself that question. It was more like why not BB10? Android Market and iTunes are very very difficult to make any decent money in. I wasn't ready to make a game either. It really didn't make sense for me to develop for any other platform. BlackBerry users are very loyal (trust me, I am one) and I've seen the support they have for their developers on the PB platform. I also knew that there was likely going to be more exposure and less competition on launch day. This is the big opportunity I see. This is the best way to launch. I know what BB users are missing, I am catering to those needs and I hope they support me in return. In the future if my any of my apps become very popular then I will probably develop for additional platforms but for now it's just me and BB10.

Over the next month I began brainstorming and coming up with idea for apps. I looked at App World and I wondered about all the apps that I wanted but I couldn't get on my BB or PB. I had a few good ideas but there was only one I really had my heart set on. It was an entirely new social platform called Symposium featuring tracking, sharing and discovering a certain popular thing. Since launch for this app is still a few months away I'm going to have to keep that a secret for now. I will keep you all posted though.

I really wasn't looking forward to what came next - the coding. I had dabbled a bit with the SDK, Cascades samples and the simulation environment but I had never really looked at any of the code until I finally settled on which app I was going to develop first. Wow! I couldn't have been more wrong. I was incredibly surprised at how simple and straightforward it was to develop with Cascades. Within about 20 hours of reading I had understood a great deal of all the API's that were available (with examples) and my app started to take form in my head. Coding started to become a lot of fun. I was discovering all these new things that I never thought was even possible and I had very little coding to do for a decent, slick UI!

Next up was BB10 Jam World Tour - Waterloo (Thanks CB for posting the sign up link). I immediately signed up and began to get excited for the event. I was really hoping to get my hands on some Dev hardware but I wouldn't find out if I qualified until the day before the conference. Unfortunately for me I was approved the dev hardware . At least I had the sessions to learn about code, some more of the framework and that sort of stuff. I also decided to go to the conference with my app artwork and some of the code that I had already developed just in case I wanted to show some people. What happens next is absolutely amazing and where I think RIM really sets themselves apart from other companies. I was able to the Marketing Manager for the Dev Alpha hardware and I explained my whole story to her. I told how excited I was to be developing for BB10 and how I wanted to launch my app with the BB10 launch. I also told how I did not qualify for the Dev Alpha. She then said how important people like me are to future of RIM and mobile platforms and personally assigned me to the qualified developers list for the Dev Alpha. I was shocked and amazed. Plain and simple. With me putting my support and my faith in RIM and BB10 they are supporting and putting faith in me as developer and giving me some awesome hardware. I honestly do not think you see this kind stuff from many other companies in any kind of industry these days.

Its been about 2 months now with Dev Alpha hardware (way better than the simulator) and almost a month since Beta 3 has launched. I'm really happy with the progress I've made on my app thus far and I would not have been able do it with the support of RIM and the Cascades SDK. I would just like to this opportunity to thank RIM and their people for going above and beyond. I would also like to extend an invitation to my fellow BB fans out there for the initial launch of Symposium. If you would like to get on the mailing list or if you have Dev Alpha hardware and would like to be a part of a private beta test just shoot off an email to [email protected].

Thanks you for reading my post here. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed living it haha

Cheers,
Adam

[stevepar]

Inspiring read!! #BlackBerryByChoice

[bbmme]

Good for you eh, goodluck!

[jafrul]

wow... very inspiring. i would love to make an app myself.. but there's lots of things for me to learn first.
maybe after BB10 is out, i will try and spend some time to do app for BB10.

thanks for sharing.

Sent from my torchy Torch 9800 using Tapatalk

[G-bone]

Great story! I will definitely be watching for Symposium!
Go, Man, Go!

[Masahiro]

It's good to know that the urgency for attracting developers is permeating throughout the management of the company. Good luck on your app. I hope it takes off. Either way, it's a terrific learning experience, I'm sure.

Heck, now I feel like looking into coding myself, but I've no background in it at all. Oh well.

[ALToronto]

Adam, thanks for an inspiring story. Good luck with Symposium!

[OniBerry]

Great story Adam!! I wish you success with your BB10 app!

[mikeconnors81]

Definitely an inspiring read, thanks. I am pretty much in the same position as you were and would like to develop for BB10 but have no experience. I have the SDK installed on my computer and have also played around with the sample apps but I have a lot to learn. Thanks again for the great story and good luck with symposium! Can't wait for BB10!

[itsyaboy]

Cool story man! Definitely encouraging to have RIM respond to you like that. Will definitely check out your app. Good luck with it!

[mithrazor]

Thanks for the input! I'm looking to develop for BB10 also. Never developed before. So I wanted to get my feet wet. But my laptop is pretty lame, it doesn't do virtualization so using the simulator is almost pointless to me.

But Symposium sounds awesome!

[Thunderbuck]

I have seen a great willingness on RIM's part to bring developers on board. I, too, am working on an app for BB10 (something simple to start). I, too, committed to attend a Jam session, and I, too was able to convince dev relations to give me a Dev Alpha after initially being turned down.

These guys are great!

[crozyBB]

Thanks everyone for the great comments! I'm glad you all enjoyed it!

I can't say enough good things about RIM but I should also thank the developer community on the BlackBerry developer web forums. They've helped me out just as much with overcoming obstacles in my code and giving some neat ideas.

And for those above who have been considering developing I highly recommend it. I'm not saying it's easy for everyone but the documentation is there and the support is there. Start off slow and keep chipping away at it and you might be surprised at what you can accomplish haha

[crozyBB]

Thanks everyone for the great comments! I'm glad you all enjoyed it!

I can't say enough good things about RIM but I should also thank the developer community on the BlackBerry developer web forums. They've helped me out just as much with overcoming obstacles in my code and giving some neat ideas.

And for those above who have been considering developing I highly recommend it. I'm not saying it's easy for everyone but the documentation is there and the support is there. Start off slow and keep chipping away at it and you might be surprised at what you can accomplish haha