•
Display information in a way that makes effective use of the small screen.
Before you design your application, consider using the core applications on the BlackBerry device or the BlackBerry Smartphone
Simulator to learn more about the navigation model and best practices for designing your application's UI.
Release cycles and versions
All BlackBerry® devices include a specific version of the BlackBerry® Device Software and the BlackBerry® Java® Virtual Machine.
To determine the version of the BlackBerry Device Software for a BlackBerry device, in the device Options, click
About
. You can
upgrade the BlackBerry Device Software. For example, you can upgrade a BlackBerry device with BlackBerry Device Software
version 4.0 to BlackBerry Device Software version 4.1.
With each major release of the BlackBerry Device Software and the BlackBerry JVM, Research In Motion includes the
corresponding Java APIs and version of the BlackBerry® Java® Development Environment. The version of the BlackBerry Device
Software determines the version of the BlackBerry® Integrated Development Environment that you can use to develop
applications. For example, RIM released BlackBerry Device Software version 4.0 and BlackBerry JDE version 4.0 at the same
time. BlackBerry JDE version 4.0 includes support for the APIs that were introduced in BlackBerry Device Software version 4.0
and BlackBerry JVM version 4.0. Applications that you create using BlackBerry JDE Version 4.0 only work on BlackBerry devices
running BlackBerry Device Software version 4.0 or later.
You can use the following criteria to decide which version of the BlackBerry JDE to use to develop an application:
•
If the application does not need to use specific BlackBerry device hardware features or newly released API extensions, use
BlackBerry JDE version 4.0 to develop the application.
•
If the application is designed to run only on the BlackBerry® Pearl™ 8100 smartphone, use BlackBerry JDE version 4.2 or
later.
BlackBerry Java Development Environment
The BlackBerry® Java® Development Environmentis a fully integrated development and simulation environment for building a
BlackBerry® Java Application for BlackBerry devices. With the BlackBerry JDE, developers can build applications using the Java®
ME programming language and the extended Java APIs for BlackBerry.
The BlackBerry Java Development Environment includes the following development tools:
•
BlackBerry® Integrated Development Environment
•
BlackBerry Smartphone Simulator
•
Java ME APIs and BlackBerry APIs
•
sample applications
The BlackBerry IDE includes a full suite of editing and debugging tools that are optimized for the development of a BlackBerry
Java Application. TheBlackBerry Smartphone Simulator provides a complete Windows® type environment, and is designed to
simulate UIs and user interaction, network connections, email services, and wireless data synchronization.
Fundamentals Guide
Release cycles and versions
6
