It could be said that historically BlackBerry has always been a messaging platform. The first versions of RIM smartphone devices were little more than glorified pagers. Today, of course, BlackBerry smartphones are a one-stop-shop for productivity, acting as an integrated telephone, text, e-mail, and rich application environment. Some of the more current BlackBerry devices even include media, games and GPS capabilities. While many of these features are fun and useful for any type of person, the BlackBerry smartphone is a tactile device that proves to be indispensable for those in the business world.

Because BlackBerry devices are so deeply rooted in the business world, developers should expect to find themselves developing apps geared toward this market quite often. These types of apps are able to complete a complex task, which means extra care should be taken to ensure they run properly.

In addition, BlackBerry applications have penetrated the consumer market as well, offering up a host of other scenarios programmers need to consider when writing their programs. In order to make sure these apps run accordingly and do what you envisioned them doing, you will need to utilize device simulators.

As a developer, it’s very important to know the ins and outs of programming for BlackBerry with the BlackBerry device simulator, which is what we’ll discuss here today. BlackBerry’s simulators enable the code, compile, and debug cycle to take place directly on the computer you used to develop the application. This will prove to be a great advantage over just testing on the device itself.

Any developer who’s been working with apps for any extended amount of time knows that good coding practices dictate that testing should take place on the device before the release of the product. That being said, using a simulator will prove to be an amazing time-saver during the application’s development phase.

Using BlackBerry’s device simulators will also prove to be a very important part of the application-support process. Surely every developer at some point or another has encountered a user that reports an app you made behaving oddly on their particular device, while another user with a different device reports no such behavior. In these particular instances, using a simulator will prove to be incredibly beneficial as it will allow you to quickly isolate the problem and then find the solution.

The best thing a developer can do is periodically test their apps on the latest device simulators as they become available. This will obviously prove to be a much cheaper alternative to purchasing every new device that becomes available.