RIM is holding the BlackBerry 10 Jam developer event in Orlando at the beginning of May, and today the company announced that devs that decide to make the trek to the conference will be receiving a little surprise in the form of a prototype device. On its official Inside BlackBerry Developer's Blog, RIM has said that attendees of its BlackBerry 10 Jam event will be given a BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha, a limited edition prototype that is meant to help developers prepare for the arrival of BlackBerry 10 later this year. RIM stresses that the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha isn't a BlackBerry 10 smartphone and that it's not final hardware nor is it running final BB10 software. Instead, it's got a modified version of the PlayBook OS that'll help devs design apps for the BlackBerry 10 smartphone form factor.
It sounds like the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha isn't something that's meant for regular consumers like you and I, and I'm sure few of us will get to play with one or see one in-person. (Though I wouldn't be surprised to see the Internet will quickly fill with videos that show them off.) If you're a BlackBerry developer, though, the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha sounds like a pretty nice incentive to head on down to the BlackBerry 10 Jam if you weren't already planning on going. Meanwhile, the rest of us will have to wait for BlackBerry 10 to officially drop later this year to get our mitts on RIM's new platform. How many of you are looking forward to giving BlackBerry 10 a go?
