mini-communications centers: a phone, text-messaging system, e-mail client,
and Web browser. Your app should give the user the same kind of experience
as the standard apps that come with the BlackBerry, providing information
quickly and easily with a minimal amount of input.
In this chapter, I show you what tools, skills, and ideas you need to gather
and discover to start developing BlackBerry apps.
The BlackBerry App World from Research In Motion (RIM) provides a mar-
ketplace devoted to BlackBerry users, and a great many apps of all different
kinds have yet to be built. BlackBerry devices have been around a while,
mostly as mobile corporate e-mail connections, but the individual consumer
is now getting into BlackBerry devices as well, increasing the number of
places your app can be running. Figure 1-1 shows the Home Screen of my
BlackBerry Curve, with the BlackBerry Browser Application highlighted.
Figure 1-2 shows the Browser while running.