Notices

Hey guys,

The thread title is pretty much self explanatory.

A little intro to my intentions:

After seeing many other phones, including some Nokia phones, run some form of a BB messenger app, I've decided to either create something similar, or port one of these already existing applications to the Nokia n900.

The reason for this is simple, I love my Nokia n900, like the concept of the BBM and I hate blackberry's. I don't wish to switch my phone. I'm sure many of you can relate to this as well.

So I think having a sucessful BB Messenger app for the n900 would be highly in demand.

I also understand that there are alternative ways to chat rather than through BBM. I'm aware of these alternatives, but this thread is solely for the purpose of creating/porting a BBM app on the n900. Therefore please keep any such suggestions of alternatives to yourself, as I would like the thread to remain closely on topic.


Now down to Business:

I've never written an app for any phone before, let alone the n900. I have many years of programming experience but have never used QT SDK or Python before. But I am a very fast learner.

As I understand, there are very experienced n900 App developers in this community and I would like to ask for their help during the developement process of this app.

As mentioned above, I am a very fast learner, so if you could point me in the right direction and answer a few questions I would be very grateful and can get down to making a BBM app for the n900.

So:

1. What is the most preferred/reliable method used to making apps for the n900? What software/programs do I go about using? Please give solid examples and reasons as to why you are making these suggestions

2. Is there some sort of virtual n900 program? For example like the Windows Virtual PC that I use to run Windows XP Virtually on my PC. Is there some sort of program that can do this for the n900? So that I can have a virtual n900 or virtual Maemo OS running on my PC?

The reason I am asking for this, is because I would like to do my creating, testing, executing on the virtual n900/Maemo OS rather than my own phone, just incase I make mistakes and end up bricking my device.

3. There is a BBM app for the iPhone, one for Nokia Smartphones and one for Android. Of the three, which one would be more easiest to port to the n900? Which would have lesser complications etc.

4. Finally if any developers of n900 apps could assist me or guide me into how I go about doing this, it would make things go a lot smoother, I'm not sure if such an app has been attempted before, but I am really serious on getting this done. So will appreciate any feedback, input, tips and tricks that anyone has to offer.

Criticism is welcome, but please keep it constructive and explain your reasons, so to not derail this thread.

Thanks in advance

The Qt SDK has all the stuff you are looking for. None of those other apps will be "ported" easily since those phones have complex frameworks for building apps that are very different from N900 (which is much more like writing a desktop app).

And have you found the source code for those already? Because you will need some info on the protocol used to access the BBM.

Some of your questions (2 & 4) should be answered by doing proper research. Start learning the Qt Sdk from the official site.

About 1) Its VERY subjective.

Some prefer C++ because you have less dependencies. You only need to include Qt to have everything.
Some prefer Python, because you dont have to worry for memory management.

At last, you need to try both.

About 3) That's a strange question: What do you mean about "easiest to port"? You can only "port" an app, when you have the source code.

When you are unrelated to the apps, you need to rewrite everything from scratch, so every application has the same insane difficulty.

In the case of Blackberry Messaging, you also need to understand the messaging protocol, so you will have some reverse engineering work. AFAIK, no one has been succesful with this.

Hope this helps

Okay I desire this far far more than you do. All my friends and family use blackberry and so I had to get one just to be able to chat with them. I absolutely hate blackberry. The most boring device in the world. In any event it would be nice not to have to carry two devices. If you can achieve this I will win the lottery and give you a million pounds. Doubt it can be achieved though. This and enterprise email are absolutely the only selling points blackberry has and I am sure RIM have made sure they have closed up every avenue for people to use their messanger on competing devices.

You don't mention if any of the apps themselves are even open-source, so just a reminder: if there is no source for the app it's not going to possible to port it. You'd be creating a clone from scratch, and that'd be tough.

Anyways, if you have any experience with java the android one might be a good starting point. It is not java, per se, but Google's own version of it, but it should be close enough to require little work.

On the other hand, if the one for Nokia smartphones uses Qt and C++ then it might be simpler to port. But if it doesn't use Qt but for example Symbian's own functions and libraries it'd almost be easier to write the whole thing from scratch.

As for the iPhone app to N900? Well, it's designed for iOS, without any kind of portability in mind at all. I really doubt it'd be worth the time and effort to even try.

I appreciate your intentions, but i don't think it's possible to be done.
The problem is, IIRC BBM uses RIM servers, and RIM servers only accept PIN code from Blackberry devices.
So how are we going to emulate the PIN devices on N900?
CMIIW, but unless Nokia agrees to cooperate with RIM for their BBM service i don't think this is possible..

After googling around I can't find a single BBM application either for Nokia or Android. There's all kinds of similar apps, but they do NOT connect to BBM, they use their own protocol and servers.

So, I wonder what are the exact application name for e.g. the android app you're planning to port..?

I have always thought that BBM is as closed protocol as it can be (and it requires some silly patches to operators side in order to even work..)

so this definetly is too big a task for someone who hasn't done any communication protocol hacking etc before....

I wasn't familiar with BBM at all before this thread popped up, but now after some googling around, yeah, I gotta agree. Blackberries apparently all have a unique PIN assigned to them, written in the ROM, and impossible to change, and that PIN number is used to communicate with RIM servers. There is a BB Connect SDK which apparently allows one to generate a PIN, but working out how to use the SDK, compiling it for N900, and then figuring out the actual BBM implementation is a lot of work since atleast I simply cannot find a single application with source codes that'd allow one to connect to BBM.

So, first you'd need to find a way to get a suitable PIN number that the servers even accept at all. Probably doable via BB Connect.

Then you'd need to analyze all the packet data going back and forth between the servers and BBM itself, figure out the exact API, what kind of encryption you might need and all that. Months, if not years, worth of research.

Third, you'd need to create the actual application. Still worth atleast weeks of worth, most likely months.

It would be easier to make each BB user switch to another service than what you are trying to do.