RIM has been doing a lot to woo developers over to the BlackBerry 10 operating system. In May, RIM president and CEO Therston Heins guaranteed that BB10 apps will make $10,000 in their first year on the BlackBerry App Store -- with a few caveats, of course -- and now, RIM has dialed in standard screen resolutions for both touchscreen- and keyboard-based BB10 devices to make developing apps even less of a headache.
All BB10 touchscreen handsets will have a 16:9 1280x720 resolution, while devices with a keyboard will also have a 720p HD screen, only squared, at 720x720 resolution.
Ironically, the very first BB10 touchscreen phone won't be subject to this standard and will instead ship with the 1280x768 resolution found on the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha testing devices being passed out by RIM on its BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour. RIM's Tim Neil explained why in the blog post heralding the standard resolutions:
I’m pretty sure that I know what most of you are thinking: What about the first BlackBerry 10 full touch device? Why is it a different screen resolution? This first BlackBerry 10 device has been in the works for quite some time now with lots of supply chain management and manufacturing tooling to bring it to launch. So it’s pretty much a sealed deal.
Neil suggested developers should either include a 1280x768 resolution in their apps or letterbox the apps on the first-gen touchscreen BB10 device to avoid having to make code changes when the standardized devices start rolling out.
BlackBerry 10 has suffered from numerous delays, but is currently slated to ship in the first quarter of 2013. Therston Heins recently told Bloomberg that the OS is in the final stages of testing and could be licensed to other manufacturers sometime soon.
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