Blackberry Widgets

This summer I posted about why I thought this was probably the best time for me to be getting into the Blackberry ecosystem. And it looks like things just keep getting better for RIM with the recent release of the Widget SDK to developers. If you're thinking that the whole 'widget' thing sounds familiar, you're right- it was about 2 years ago that the iPhone was using web widgets as a launching pad before full-fledged apps were born. But, because the iPhone has never supported background apps, there was a limit to just how useful those widgets could be. The SDK RIM has released is allowing widgets to utilize the famous push functionality, which presumably could mean that you could have a weather widget that would give you a notification icon to indicate a weather advisory. You would also be able to run more than one widget at a time-big win!
I'm excited about the possibilities with an even easier way to build applications- its no secret that creating apps for Blackberry has not been an enticing option for a developers so far. And if any developers out there are wondering what kind of apps to get started with first, may I suggest:

-Friendfeed
-A proper database manager with photo support
-Mint
-eBay
-Flickr photo viewer
-Google Reader with bi-directional sync





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