BlackBerry PlayBook is almost here

We're about a month away from the release of the PlayBook.  Thanks to a marvelous offer from BlackBerry to its developers, I have a chance to get one for free.  My application is submitted and waiting for approval -- fingers are crossed.

As far as the development experience goes, it was a very interesting learning experience.  I had never programmed for the Adobe platform before, and the QNX API also presents another new wrinkle to learn.  I had always wanted to learn Action Script programming, so I achieved that goal and hopefully get some real reward out of it as well.

Another first was registering as a BlackBerry vendor and going through the application process for my first published mobile application.  Waiving the registration fee for the first year was a brilliant move since I would not have even attempted this if I had to pay $200 up front. While my first application is purely functional and not all that visually stunning, the focus of my next application (assuming I can get a device) will be more fun and also hopefully earn enough to offset the annual fee and development tool cost.

Now, I just need to wait for the "Congratulations!" email.