Blackberry development on any platform but Windows can be a stressful and painful procedure.

I have already started a BugSense plugin for BlackBerry as many clients of BugSense have requested that we support the highly fragmented platform.

At this point I would like to share my experience on how to set up your Mac (running Lion) in order to program for the BlackBerry devices.

You need to download the BlackBerry Eclipse plug-in and the BlackBerry Desktop Software for Mac package. Due to the fact that Lion has dropped support for PPC apps and that the Blackberry Installer is a PPC app you need to copy this lib inside to Eclipse plugins directory. So run the following command:

cp /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Resources/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub BlackBerry\ Java\ Plug-in\ Setup.app/Contents/MacOS/BlackBerry\ Java\ Plug-in\ Setup.

So far so good, you have your IDE of preference (Eclipse for me) installed but you need something more… run and debug your app on the device. Visit the BlackBerry Developer Zone and download the debug files for your device.

In the case that you cannot find debug files for your BlackBerry device you must make your own debug files, well… good lack with it! You need to have Windows somewhere (I guess you already have a virtual machine just to play games or debug Internet Explorer). Then follow these steps.

Hopefully this is all you have to do (at least it worked for me). I also tried to build the libraries with Ant that you find on Windows or use the emulator but it was not my lucky day and I believe it won’t be your either.

You can now connect your phone, open the BlackBerry desktop manager fire up Eclipse with the preload Blackberry plug-in and you are go to! Of course there is no emulator for the Mac so you just use your app straight in the device!

If you have any questions or tips I am glad to listen to them on Twitter.

- Nikos