 |
 |
Location-Based Services (LBS) are one of the hottest areas for third party application developers in the mobile market today for a variety of reasons. First, it provides new and interesting options for existing applications to provide additional value to their customers. For example, a CRM application can provide additional value by offering directions to a customer's office. Second, the ability to leverage location within an application is something unique to mobile devices, in contrast to PC applications, which provides a new set of opportunities for software developers. Third, the use of location within applications provides new opportunities for revenue based on the ability to serve context sensitive advertisements to users.
The BlackBerry® smartphone has included location based services for several years now via a variety of mechanisms including internal GPS chipsets and integration with Bluetooth® GPS peripherals. There are a variety of third party applications that leverage Location-Based Services on the BlackBerry smartphone and we are always looking for more!
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
Learn how to debug your application, simplifying the development of your
GPS-enabled solution.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
The BlackBerry Developer Conference website has been updated with critical information! Learn everything there is to know about the hottest mobile conference of the year including:
- Session catalog
- Developer session tracks
- Hotel Information
Key Info:
- October 21st & 22nd, 2008 in Santa Clara CA.
- In-depth developer sessions covering all development methods
- Hands on training labs
- Attendee registration is now open
- Early bird rate expires August 31st!
For more information, click here!
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Feature story peak your interest? Find out how to turn ideas into reality using the GPS and BlackBerry Maps Development Guide.
1. Leveraging BlackBerry Maps within your application.
There are a variety of options for integrating BlackBerry Maps within your application. With very little effort, your application can invoke the BlackBerry Maps application using an address or longitude/latitude. To take it to the next level you can invoke BlackBerry Maps using two end points where the application will automatically provide static directions. For more advanced integrations, you can leverage the MapField class, which was introduced in v4.5, to embed the BlackBerry Maps application right into your application. This allows your application to fully control the map including overlaying additional graphics on top of the map.
2. Using JSR 179 to capture location for use in your application
The JSR 179 specification is the gold standard for location based services on Java devices allowing developers to leverage a variety of different types of location mechanism. There are three main types of location "fixes" on BlackBerry: cellsite, assisted and autonomous. With cellsite it uses triangulation or cellular tower location via the network to provide the location. For assisted it leverages the network to reduce the amount of time to find the appropriate satellites for triangulation. For autonomous, it seeks out satellites directly for triangulation without requiring network connectivity.
3. Leveraging GPS on CDMA devices
Many of the CDMA carriers provide additional functionality for GPS on BlackBerry smartphones include cellsite and assisted GPS fixes which are not typically available on EDGE based smartphones. There are also some subtle differences for using the GPSOne chipset provided by Qualcomm in this environment such that RIM has created a brand new knowledge base article showcasing the best practices for GPS usage on CDMA devices.
You can find it here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
 Jobs @ RIM
We are always looking for the best and brightest to join our family! Take some time to learn about just a few of our exciting opportunities...
Technical Writer - Developer Documentation (0801315)
Technical Partnership Manager - Hong Kong (0803580)
Java Development Platform Gatekeeper (0803853)
Click Here: for these and hundreds of other great opportunities
|
|
|
|
|
|
Questions? Comments? Suggestions?
Share them with us!
And remember, the top suggestion will always win a new BlackBerry Smartphone!
|
|
|
|
|
