It's a long time until September, and the expected launch of RIM's first BlackBerry 10 smartphones.

But ensuring there will be plenty of apps and games available, RIM's head of developer relations Alec Saunders has revealed developers are going to get access to reference devices soon.

Come to the show

Talking to Bloomberg, he said that around 2,000 devices would be given out to developers at the BlackBerry Jam event.

This is part of the forthcoming BlackBerry World conference, to be held in Orlando, Florida, 1-3 May.

The hardware will be developer-only though.

"The experience ... is not in any way indicative of what the final experience on BlackBerry 10 will be like," warned Saunders.

"We are holding that back to create the interest around that at launch time."

[source: Bloomberg]