February 2009

The Missing Sync for BlackBerry

Mark/Space has released The Missing Sync for BlackBerry 2.0. This latest version provides a rich suite of synchronization options, made possible by a device-side Java application developed by Electric Magic. The Mac application uses our ZBlackBerry Mac/Black SDK for its USB communications.

March 2008

Mac/BlackBerry SDK

The BlackBerry is a very popular mobile communications device. Official Mac support from Research in Motion is limited to providing the PocketMac utility as a free download. With no official SDK the Mac/BlackBerry ecosystem has seen very little activity.

ZBlackBerry is a suite of code that implements the BlackBerry USB communications protocol in a generic fashion. A few hundred lines of code let Macs use that protocol. A few hundred more allow multiple Mac applications to talk to a single BlackBerry simultaneously, something that has not been possible till now.

ZBlackBerry can also make a BlackBerry connected to a PC accessible via the same API as is used when it's connected directly to a Mac. This lets Mac application developers run their BlackBerry application under the Windows-based debugger and still have it communicate with their Mac application. This is a crucial capability when writing anything more than the most trivial application.

ZBlackBerry is part of ZooLib, our open source C++ library.

January 2008

iMobimac Modem

The Research In Motion BlackBerry is famous for its connectivity. iMobimac Modem runs on a BlackBerry and the Mac to which it is connected, and lets Mac applications access the Internet using the BlackBerry's connection.

The BlackBerry application is written in Java. It maintains a single communications channel with the Mac application, over which it receives requests to make, use and break network connections. The channel is multiplexed with ZooLib's Java ZStreamMUX on the BlackBerry side, and its C++ ZStreamMUX on the Mac.

Much of the Mac application's functionality is a C++ HTTP and port-forwarding proxy server, most of which is in ZHTTP. Its UI is implemented in Objective C using Cocoa Bindings.

The remainder of the Mac implementation effort was in reverse-engineering the BlackBerry/Host USB communications protocol.

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