BlackBerry Application OTA Download Setup
While working on my latest project, BlackPing, I ran into another snag - I couldn’t get my application to download Over-The-Air (OTA). The problem was due to my lack of understanding, hopefully my trouble is your gain. Below you’ll find instructions that guide you through preparing your application for OTA downloads.
Setup the HTTP Servers MIME Types
If you do not have administrator access to your web server then you’ll need help from the administrator to perform the following.
Verify that there are MIME Types setup for COD and JAD files. The correct MIME Types are respectively “application/vnd.rim.cod” and “text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor”
Upload the Application to the Server
You’ll need to upload the application’s COD, JAD and JAR files to the web server.
Create an HTML “Download” Page
This is the part that I spent a while figuring out. During my first attempts at OTA installation I opened the BB Browser and went directly to the application’s JAD file. Each time I did this the browser displayed the contents of the file instead of trying to download and install it.
To get around this issue, create a “download” page. I recommend a simple page that way you don’t have to worry about the page renders on varios BlackBerry devices. This page should reside in the same place as the application files, but you can place it whereever you want, you’ll just have to do more configuration.
My simple download page:
<html>
<head>
<Title>Download [APPLICATION_NAME]</Title>
</head>
<body>
<a href=”[APPLICATION_NAME].jad”>Download</a>
</body>
<html>
I hope this post saves you some trouble. If it does, or if you have questions, please leave a comment.