I’ve recently had the (mis)fortune to work on a mobile application which tried to support Blackberry versions lower than 4.6. This is not fun!

Blackberry browsers prior to 4.6 really do not support web applications. They may render static html alright, but do not try to create an interactive application utilizing JavaScript and CSS.

BlackBerry Device Software 6.0

This browser is leaps and bounds better than the previous versions. It is based on WebKit which makes it’s HTML, CSS, and JavaScript support far superior to the prior generations of Blackberry browsers.

BlackBerry Device Software 5.0

Blackberry 5.0 seems to work reasonably well. I did experience some issues, but there were usually alternative ways to structure the JavaScript to solve them.

BlackBerry Device Software 4.6-5.0

Blackberry 4.6 and higher is definitely better than 4.5 and under. For instance, most of my JavaScript worked in 4.6 except for JQuery validation. But, it’s still not great.

BlackBerry Device Software 4.5 and Under

Blackberry 4.5 and under should not even be considered a web browser. Here is what Blackberry says: “Browser supports JavaScript 1.3, subsets of JavaScript 1.4 and JavaScript 1.5, and the ECMA-262 ECMAScript™ Language Specification.” 1

Really, a subset of multiple versions of JavaScript?? That’s awesome; I’m sure you’ll tell us what that subset is, right? Oh, no, you don’t? Well, that’s not very friendly.

Seriously, I haven’t found where Blackberry specifies what is supported. That makes it fun to try and determine what will work. And, if you’re curious about the support for CSS, don’t worry: it’s just as bad. 2

Final Thoughts

Basically, if you’re writing a mobile web application and your client wants to support Blackberry 4.5, follow Nancy Reagan’s advice and just say no. If you need to support 4.6, make sure you test all of your JavaScript really well on a Blackberry running 4.6 or in the emulator.