I’m John C Bland II

Husband, Father, Tech Author, Deacon.
Founder ofย Katapult Media, and full-stack polyglot developer.
Political Free Agents Podcast Host.

I create. I launch.

YouTube Channel

I post regular fun on YouTube like me playing the bass and anything else I find fun.ย 

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All project work goes through Katapult Media. Business is open. Let’s chat.

BlackBerry Playbook may be a hit…start dev’ing!!

I’m impressed. BlackBerry devices have never been a desire of mine but I find myself seriously considering putting my Galaxy Tab and iPad desires on hold to see where Blackberry stands price-wise.

What’s most impressive is the Playbook runs on the Adobe AIR runtime. This means AIR developers are 90% prepared to build these apps. I give the other 10% to learning the dev approach [simulator, signing, sdk, etc]. I predict the Playbook as being a big deal very soon.

I wanted to post links to dev resources so you can get started developing or porting current apps to the Playbook:

  • Flash Platform Development for BlackBerry Tablet OS [link]
  • BlackBerry Developer’s Blog [link]
  • Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR [link]

That’s a great start but what is even better is the promotion RIM is running to help entice us to start dev’ing Playbook apps:ย BlackBerry PlayBook Developer Promotion Information. Here is the skinny on the promotion:

“…the plan is to provide one free BlackBerry PlayBook to every registered vendor with a BlackBerry App World-approved AIR application that is available for the BlackBerry PlayBook prior to launch.”

Now, who says the Flash Platform is going to die? ๐Ÿ˜‰ Rock on RIM!

Every web developer is now a mobile developer

Ok…maybe it isn’t 1:1 in terms of skills/knowledge but consider the age of today. 5 years ago mobile stylesheets were the rave and were dang near required for every mobile device out there. Now? Nope. With Webkit running rampit on smartphones and smartphones becoming the normal end user phone, with the surge of iPhone and Android devices on the market, there is a shift from doing strict mobile development to making sure your site works on the web and Webkit.

This is pretty key and very interesting in terms of the direction our industry is heading right now. Mobile dev’ is not gone though. You still have a need to provide a scaled down version of your site, depending on what it is and depending on whether you’re using some device that can’t deliver the “whole web” or not (lol; yes, that’s a jab), for mobile devices. I much prefer not having to load non-mobile optimized ads or a two-mile navigation when attempting to load a simple blog, hint hint…mine. ๐Ÿ˜‰

Either way…the point of this post is to have web developers now consider the market and device changes bringing more mobile to your web experience. Consider mobile when building your sites.