development with Blackberry JDE4.7?

Question

RIM has released a new Blackberry JDE4.7 after releasing the Blackberry Storm. Does the Blackberry storm support programs created using the previous versions? I've heard there have been a lot of changes in this version compared to the old ones. And there have been complaints about Storm having many bugs.

Should I use 4.7 or keep using the older JDE?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Depends what you want to do. You'll actually get the rotation for free if you've designed your application's layout to be fairly resolution independent. When the device is rotated your layout and sublayout methods will be called again (or if you've just used built-in fields and managers, it's all automatic).

The big things you'll need the 4.7 JDE to do include:

• Responding to specific touch events (events which result in e.g. focus going to a Field, or scrolling, are automatically mapped to the older APIs)
• Detecting device orientation (though again, layout is already taken care of - this is more if you want to use the accelerometer at a low level to e.g. control a game or something)

Bottom line: backwards compatibility is in general very good, RIM has mapped the new touch interface to older APIs in a sensible way, and since the Storm hasn't quite taken off as the iPhone has (most people believe that the Bold and Curve are still better devices), stick with an older SDK unless you're doing a very Storm-specific application.