Playstation and Symantec

Creator of two Blackberry apps for major clients

Back in 2010, Exposure—a graphic design company—hired me to create some BlackBerry apps. The designs were highly specific, demanding careful attention to detail due to BlackBerry's varied screen sizes, which could stretch and squash images unpredictably.

I built these apps in Java, navigating BlackBerry’s quirky development system, which relied on Java structures with minimal control over layout precision. Matching the exact design was a challenge, and I believe this complexity is one reason BlackBerry fell behind iPhone and Android.

Despite the hurdles, I successfully developed two BlackBerry apps for major clients: Symantec and PlayStation. These apps provided product info and details for sponsored exhibitions, including maps of exhibitors and local services.

Symantec

I wrote the blackberry application for Symantec for the 2010 Infosec exhibition. All the design was done by Exposure LTD, which displayed information about the exhibition and about Symantec, including listings of current viruses and threats.

The application showed a map of the exhibition halls with the ability to show toilets/exits/first aid etc on that map. You could also view a list of exhibitors and click on one to see where it was located on the map. There are also lists of local venues for eating/drinking/entertaining with the ability to go to their websites, phone them, or view them on a map. It also had information about the things Symatec has expertise in, viruses, threats, spam etc. As well as graphs and a 'Current Threat' meter which showed the level of threats now.

The app is written in Java using blackberry rim's API's where needed. It was written in OS 4.5 and was written mainly for the bold, though it was viewable in the curve and storm (looks a bit odd in the Pearl - because the Pearl was portait).

It was written under very tight timescales as it needed to be finished for the exhibition in late April and they approached me one month before. This involved working long days (sometimes nights) and weekends as the deadline could not be moved.

Playstation

I wrote a blackberry application for Playstation for the 2010 E3 exhibition. All the design was done by Exposure LTD, and I wrote the app which displayed information about the exhibition and about Playstation.

The application showed a map of the exhibition halls and the ability to show toilets/exits/first aid etc on that map. There were also lists of local venues for eating/drinking/entertaining with the ability to go to their websites, phone them, or view them on a map. It also had information about the latest playstation games, news, and even a twitter feed - all of which was not stored on the phone but was read from CMS via the internet.

The app was written in Java using blackberry rim's API's where needed. It was written in OS 4.5 and could be viewed on portrait (Pearl) or landscape phones (bold/curve).

This was written under very tight timescales as it needed to be finished for the exhibition in late June and again they approached me one month before. It involved working long days (sometimes nights) and weekends as the deadline could not be moved.