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By Rob Garretson
Faced with increasing pressure from competitive smartphone providers such as Apple, Motorola and Google, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) rolled out a new push service designed to make it easier for developers to build apps that are automatically updated with new data.
RIM's new BlackBerry Push Service is aimed at developers building applications for the BlackBerry OS, allowing them to update or create mobile apps that provide users with automatic, uninterrupted updates that don't require downloading the new data. Apps that use the new push feature will be able to send larger updates than competing smartphones can receive, maximizing efficiency and battery life, the company says.
Developers can write Java applications or BlackBerry Widgets that leverage RIM's push technology through the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (or BlackBerry Internet Service infrastructure for consumer apps) to deliver images, text, or audio content to BlackBerry devices. Unlike push mechanisms used by other smartphone systems that can only notify users that new content is available for download because of push message size limitations, RIM says that its push service can transmit up to 8KB of data, which is immediately available for use.
"BlackBerry Push Service does not send notifications that tell you to go get information, it brings you the information," according to the announcement on the RIM Developer's Blog. "Other platforms flip the flag up on the mailbox, letting you know it's time to go to the end of the driveway and get your mail. BlackBerry Push delivers the mail to your kitchen table, open and ready to be read."
Users of the newly developed push apps will see on-screen notifications when there is new information. They can then open the updated app without closing programs that are currently running. Other mobile app update protocols require users to open the updated app and download the new information, RIM says.
The new service minimizes the impact on the BlackBerry smartphone battery life by not requiring apps to actively check for new data, RIM says. Apps "listen" in the background for the server to push data to them. The process is different from alternative methods, such as polling, where a device regularly polls an application server to see if there is new content, even when none is available. Each poll reduces battery life through activation of the antenna and access to the wireless network.
RIM's release of its new push feature comes at a time when the smartphone leader is facing fierce competition in the burgeoning smartphone market. Google's Android OS and Apple's iPhone are narrowing the gap in market share, ever so slightly, according to the most recent quarterly data from Comscore . And though Windows Mobile continues to slip, Microsoft has overhauled its smartphone operating system strategy with the introduction of Windows Phone 7, due before the end of the year.
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