Research In Motion (RIM) has issued the first beta release of version 2.0 of the Native SDK for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet  is now available. Developers can also explore the PlayBook OS 2.0 Developer Beta.

Although RIM's market is in decline the latest Appcelerator/IDC survey shows that  the 13% of developers are still interested in developing for the PlayBook, see Developers Keen on Kindle Fire. For these developers the availability of Native SDK Beta 2 gives them something to be working with.

It has the following features:

• Added Sensors API (magnetometer, gyroscope, and accelerometer support) (device only for now, not available for the simulator at this time)
• Added Payment Service support for subscriptions and in-app purchasing
• IDE improvements in usability, performance, and reliability
• Scoreloop SDK 1.0 Beta 1 is included for trialling social game features such as leaderboards

The Native SDK includes:

• C/C++ based IDE development platform
• STL and POSIX library support (including multi-threading)
• OpenGL ES 1.1 and 2.0 for 2D and 3D graphics
• OpenAL support
• Full suite of debugging, profiling and memory usage tools.

You can download it from the BlackBerry Jam Zone where you can also find a Tablet OS Simulator (for Windows, Mac and Linux) if you don't already have a PlayBook.

If you wish to update your BlackBerry PlayBook OS to the developer-only Beta1 of OS 2.0 you first need to register its device PIN here, but you need to be aware that this version does not contain end user features - mail, calendar contacts, video store, etc.

It contains support for developers to test their applications against the following runtimes:

• Runtime for Android apps
• Adobe AIR 3.0
• WebWorks
• Native API 2.0

Although it was originally expected that PlayBook OS 2.0 would be released in October 2011, its launch has now been put back until at least to February 2012, a situation that isn't going to improve PlayBook's gloomy prospects.

More Information

BlackBerry Developer's Blog

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