RIM released the initial developer toolkit for native and HTML5 development on its planned BlackBerry 10 platform, as part of its effort to drive developer interest in the as-yet unreleased smartphone platform.

Applications built using the BlackBerry 10 tools will run on BlackBerry 10 smartphones – slated for launch later this year – as well as BlackBerry PlayBook tablets, once the platform is available for these devices. All of the SDKs will be updated to give developers access to additional features in the coming months.“

"Developers building for BlackBerry 10 will be able to easily create the kind of cutting-edge apps that deliver truly engaging experiences and ‘wow’ customers, whether through integration with native features and other apps like BBM or by leveraging the new signature design elements of this new and powerful mobile computing platform,” said Alec Saunders, VP of developer relations and ecosystems development for RIM.

At this week’s BlackBerry World event, the company announced the beta of its BlackBerry 10 Native SDK with Cascades, which it said enables developers to create “graphically rich, high-performance native applications in C/C++ or using Qt.”

This also offers a rich set of APIs which give developers access to core device features and a range of BlackBerry applications services, including push and payment services. Cascades is a development toolset that allows developers to build “visually stunning” apps without having to write “complex, low-level graphics code.”

Also available is a beta of the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK, which enables the creation of “native-like applications using common web programming technologies.” It support HTML5 and CSS for building apps and provides JavaScript binding to native device APIs along with RIM’s open source UI toolkit.

It noted that “in this initial release of the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK, developers have access to a core subset of the full WebWorks APIs, including identity, application and app events.

At BlackBerry World, developers attending the BlackBerry 10 Jam sessions were provided with a BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha handset, a prototype smartphone using the next-generation OS.