Question

I am interested in developing an app for BlackBerry devices, and was wondering if they support the concept of demo or beta releases for their app developers? By this, I mean the ability to deploy a beta or demo version of my app to a limited/restricted audience, such as business partners, customers, external beta testers, etc. Nothing in their Testing and Deployment documentation indicates either way. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I actually don’t know if RIM themselves have anything formal, but since I’ve always released BlackBerry apps on more than just the official App World store, I’ve used a beta testing system that is independent of RIM. Luckily, the legacy BlackBerry Java platform gives you the freedom to do this, free of charge. (Note that this answer is not about the upcoming BB10 platform!)

Over-the-Air (OTA) Installation

You can have your beta testers install your beta versions, Over-The-Air (OTA). Unlike iOS, for example, you aren’t limited to a certain number of test devices, and you don’t have to tell RIM what the unique identifiers of all the test devices are.

So, what I do is just put beta versions of my apps on a webserver, and send links to beta testers that allows them to download them. So, you are in control of who gets access. If you need security to limit the beta version to nobody except the official beta testers, then you are certainly free to add password protected logins to your webserver. That works the same way it would for any other secure web content.

If you do this (OTA), here are a few references:

• http://www.blackberryinsight.com/2008/07/08/howto-setup-an-apache-webserver-to-deliver-blackberry-ota-applications/

• Blackberry over the air installation

• https://stackoverflow.com/a/10307074/119114

There are a couple steps to be aware of:

• You normally just upload a .cod file to BlackBerry App World. If you want to deploy an app to your own webserver, you also need the .jad file. A JAD file is basically just a descriptor of the app, that can redirect a BlackBerry browser to the .cod file for installation. Your build process is already probably generating the .jad file for you, in the same output directory where it generates your .cod files.
• You may need to configure your webserver to properly setup MIME types for files with a .jad extension. If you use Apache, then this is what you would put in your httpd.conf file:

AddType text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor jad

you may also need to add a MIME type definition for the .cod type, too

AddType application/vnd.rim.cod .cod

If you don’t have access to the web server’s httpd.conf file, but can place the JAD and COD in your own user directory, then you can configure the MIME types in a local .htaccess file.

Depending on your web server configuration, there may be a couple more steps necessary. Check the OTA links I provided above.

Desktop Installation

Another option is to simply email your beta versions to beta testers, and have them install on their devices using BlackBerry Desktop Software. I don’t do this, but it is another way to accomplish the same thing. For this, you use the .cod file, and also the .alx file, which is also generated by the normal BlackBerry build process.

Note that some of the project properties that get put into the .alx or .jad files are things that you don’t need to worry about if you only deploy the .cod file directly to BlackBerry App World. If you use one of the options (ALX for Desktop installation, or JAD for OTA), then I would recommend opening up the .alx or .jad file and just inspecting the values for correctness. They’re normal text files, and most of the values should be self-explanatory. I believe all settings can be configured from inside your IDE. If you use the BlackBerry Eclipse plugin, right click on your project, select Properties and look around there.

Here are the official RIM docs on all your installation options