BlackBerry Developers At Work!

Two days ago, at RIM’s Wireless Enterprise Symposium, Sybase 365 released a BlackBerry client for its free AvantGo mobile content service. Read Sybase 365 Launches AvantGo for BlackBerry for the official announcement.

As the lead developer for this project, I’m very happy to see the first version of the client move out of beta and into widespread circulation. Here’s how to get started with AvantGo for BlackBerry.

Device Requirements

AvantGo for BlackBerry works on all BlackBerry devices running version 3.8 or higher of the operating system software, including the latest devices like the Pearl (shown here) and the 8800.

The client requires network connectivity, which is normally achieved in one of two ways:

• Enterprise devices: If your device is paired to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), AvantGo for BlackBerry uses the BES’ MDS service for connectivity. (Note that some companies disable MDS or place restrictions on the sites that can be accessed via MDS.)
• Consumer devices: AvantGo for BlackBerry accesses the network using the BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS). Almost all carriers support this service.

The two scenarios above are proxied solutions that cover most of the devices in use today. On a very few networks (i.e. Nextel) it is also possible to make direct connections that bypass BES and/or BIS.

The AvantGo for BlackBerry client supports all three connection types (BES, BIS and direct) and will automatically detect and select the correct setting for your device.

Installing AvantGo for BlackBerry

Getting started with AvantGo is very easy and can be done directly from your BlackBerry. Open the browser on your device and go to http://www.avantgo.com:

Click the Sign Up button on the resulting page:

Fill out the information on the sign up form. You’ll need to provide an email address (the email address of your BlackBerry is the best choice here), a password, and some basic demographic information. (The latter is used to recommend content channels.) The form doesn’t take very long to fill out:

Your userid is the email address you specified during the sign up process, so make a note of it and the password you chose. You should see a confirmation screen like so:

Click the Download AvantGo button to download and install AvantGo for BlackBerry. The device will ask you to confirm the download first:

You’ll see the progress of the download:

When the download finishes, press the Run button:

The browser will close and AvantGo for BlackBerry will start.

Running AvantGo For The First Time

The first time AvantGo for BlackBerry runs it will ask you to enter a userid and password. Enter the email address and password you used during the registration process and press OK:

AvantGo for BlackBerry will now fetch your initial set of content from the AvantGo servers. This process is called a synchronization. The initial fetch will take some time, but subsequent syncs will be much shorter because only changed content gets downloaded.

First, however, the client determines what kind of network connection it can make:

Then the default set of content channels get downloaded:

When the initial sync is done, you’ll see the AvantGo home page:

The Default Channels

Your AvantGo account initially contains these content channels if you sign up with a US address:

• AccuWeather (weather forecasts)
• CNet News.com (tech news)
• New York Times (general news)
• Reuters - US Edition (general news)
• The Sporting News (sports news)

Yeah, we’re a bit heavy on the news. Let’s see what the a channel looks like. Move to the Reuters link and select either press the return key or select Get Link from the menu. You’ll see a page that looks like this:

You get the top news items automatically, but you can also customize your Reuters channel according to your own tastes and interests:

Customization is everywhere, in fact. The first time you enter the AccuWeather channel you’ll be prompted for a zip code. Here I’ll enter the only US zip code a Canadian knows:

When I submit the form, AvantGo for BlackBerry automatically goes online to fetch the updated data, which in this case is the current forecast for Beverly Hills:

This just scratches the surface of what’s available in terms of content. AvantGo supports hundreds of different content channels.

Content is Updated Automatically!

The best thing about AvantGo for BlackBerry is that you don’t need to do anything to get fresh content — it’s updated automatically in the background. The default is to sync the data every 12 hours, but you can change that quite easily from the options menu to one of several different scheduling options.

If you have a BlackBerry, please give AvantGo for BlackBerry a try. It’s a great application for your device!