Native Development

[billbsb]

Hello there,

I saw a bunch of videos of BlackBerry Tag showing of all the cool things you can do with NFC but it got me wondering, what happens if all my other wireless antenas, like WiFi and Bluetooth, are off?

NFC can be used to transfer data but it's not good for big ammounts. I looked a bit further and I found this cool video showing the glaring difference of using Bluetooth 2.1, Bluetooth 3.0 High Speed and Wifi Direct to transfer big files, like videos. Does BB10 already support Wifi Direct? Bluetooth 3.0 High Speed?

I hope BB10 supports ALL of them for maximum compatibility and performance.

I was not sure where to post this question so here it is. Please move it if a better place is found. I think the community needs a General Development session for broader topics.

Cheers!

[ashnazir]

Let me look into this and I will get back to you shortly.

[ashnazir]

As the product has not launched yet, these features will be announced on January the 30th.

[mwoolley · Accepted solution]

Hi

BlackBerry tag and the APIs available to developers will figure out automatically the best way to transfer the data. NFC supports something known as 'connection handover' and where larger payloads or certain types of data are concerned (e.g photos) rather than transfer the data over NFC peer to peer mode, NFC is just used to negotiate an alternative transport. In the case of BlackBerry smart phones that alternative will be bluetooth.

So the users touch devices, there's a brief 'conversation' between the devices over NFC and this results in a bluetooth connection being established and the data transfer initiated across the faster bluetooth connection. This is all without the usual pairing process. Once the bluetooth stage is reached, the devices no longer need to be held close together of course.

The same principle applies to both BlackBerry 7 and BlackBerry 10. In fact we talk a little about this in our most recent article on BlackBerry 10 NFC APIs:

http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/Native-Development/BlackBerry-10-Sharing-using-NfcShareManage...

Hope this helps.

For more on NFC see:

http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/Java-Development/NFC-Article-and-Code-Index/ta-p/1538775

[billbsb]

Thanks a lot for the clarification mwoolley! That's the kind of anwers that really make this forum useful and make me believe in BB10. Great job!

OK, so Bluetooth is covered. I will just assume that it will use the appropriate method for comunicating with the other device, be it Bluetooth 2.1, 3.0 or even 4.0!

Now, as for WiFi Direct ... is there anything you could tell us about it before the launch event? Can we expect to share videos among BB10 devices in seconds instead of endless minutes? ;-)

Cheers!

[mwoolley]

Thank you! You're most welcome :-)

Unfortunately no, I can't say more on that topic at this stage. Not long to wait for Blackberry 10 now though!

All the best

Martin

[billbsb]

Aha! BlackBerry 10 is out in the market and it's quite cool!

So, can you reveal any details now of how the file transfer is implemented? Or is it still top secret?

Cheers!

[mwoolley]

There's nothing secret about it :-)

Data is transferred directly over NFC P2P when the amount is "small" and over an NFC negotiated BlueTooth connection when it is "large". We provide APIs that let you control this (See NfcShareManager). BlueTooth support is 4.0LE. The full specification for the Z10 is available here: http://uk.blackberry.com/smartphones/blackberry-z10/specifications.html