RIM’s decision to keep Flash playing nice with its BlackBerry PlayBook caused plenty of consternation across the web yesterday, not least here at Electricpig Towers. And having taking the Canadian company to task, RIM has contacted us to explain its position, telling us it’s not discriminating between Flash and HTML5. Read on to see just what RIM has to say.
In a statement, the company said, “While RIM will continue to support Flash and the developer community, we also have major plans for HTML5 and don’t see it as an ‘either or’ situation. HTML5 is an enormous part of the BlackBerry platform and vision for the future, which was reiterated at the BlackBerry Developer Conference last month.
“HTML5 is the bridge that allows developers to tap into the millions of BlackBerry smartphones on the market today – plus the next generation of BlackBerry devices in the future. It is key to our BBX platform, which will bring together the best of BlackBerry OS and the best of QNX – to BlackBerry tablets, phones, services and embedded products.
“Our updated HTML5 Platform, BlackBerry WebWorks, offers developers best-in-class performance and rendering to build high performance applications using web technologies. In fact, one-quarter of all BlackBerry PlayBook apps are built using HTML5/WebWorks. BlackBerry WebWorks is a powerful environment that allows developers to create applications for both the BlackBerry PlayBook and BlackBerry smartphones.”
So, there you have it. Is one in four app using HTML5 enough? And has this answered any questions you might have had about the BlackBerry PlayBook’s continuing relationship with Adobe Flash? Tell us your thoughts down below in the comments.
