BlackBerry 10 begins carrier testing for 2013 launch

If you’re part of the dwindling group that hasn’t given up on BlackBerry, take heart in the knowledge that Research in Motion is still on schedule to launch BlackBerry 10 early next year.

Thorsten Heins, RIM’s president and CEO, said in a statement that BlackBerry 10 has entered lab testing with more than 50 wireless carriers around the world. This puts the first BB10 devices on track to launch in the first quarter of 2013.

RIM still hasn’t announced any hardware for BlackBerry 10, and in the United States, no major wireless carriers have publicly stated any plans for the operating system. But in the letter, Heins said the response from carriers around the world has been “tremendous.”

“They are excited about the prospect of launching BlackBerry 10 in their markets,” he said.

It’s been a rough road for RIM and BlackBerry 10. The company had originally planned to release its next operating system by the end of 2012, but announced a delay in June. RIM wanted more time to polish the software, and Heins has argued that the holiday season is already overcrowded. He may have a point, given that the iPhone 5, Windows Phone 8, and the usual barrage of Android phones are all competing for attention right now.

BlackBerry 10 is a complete overhaul of RIM’s smartphone software, designed to be more touch-friendly than previous versions. Its main features are a universal inbox for e-mail, text, BBM, and social network notifications; an improved rich browser with HTML5 support; and a unique software keyboard, which lets users auto-complete words by flicking upwards from each corresponding letter. The OS is designed around the idea of “flow,” allowing users move between apps and peek at their inbox using swipe gestures.

The interface looks promising, but questions remain on how much app support BlackBerry 10 will see from developers, what types of cloud services RIM can offer for documents and media, and whether the software will have a virtual assistant to compete with Google Now and Apple’s Siri. (Basic voice commandshave surfaced in RIM’s alpha devices, but details on the finished product are lacking.)

From Heins’s latest statement, it sounds like all will be revealed in a few months or so. Consider this a friendly reminder that RIM’s Hail Mary operating system is still on course.

Source: pcworld.com

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Leaked video shows Qwerty, touchscreen RIM BlackBerry 10s

Video posted about the time RIM announced second-quarter financial results also explains elaborate marketing plan for the smartphones.

A newly leaked video shows off two coming Research in Motion BlackBerry 10 smartphones, while also describing an elaborate marketing campaign designed to help launch the devices in the first quarter of 2013.

CrackBerry.com first posted the video on Thursday at about the same time that RIM posted its second quarter earnings, according to BGR.com.

BGR apparently grabbed the video before it was pulled from CrackBerry, and posted it on its site Friday.

The two BlackBerry 10 phones, shown side-by-side at one point in the 3:20-minute video, include a tall touchscreen device that is similar to the Dev Alpha devices being used by RIM developers to build applications.

The video also shows for the first time a Qwerty smartphone with a screen that is not as tall. The phone has a familiar-looking BlackBerry physical keyboard below a display that's a bit taller than the one used in RIM's current Bold 9900.

On the screen of the Qwerty device is a depiction of how BlackBerry Hub might work, with a document overlaid on an email.

BlackBerry Hub is designed to bring emails and notifications together easily in BlackBerry 10. RIM officials demonstrated Hub earlier this week at the BlackBerry Jam event in San Jose.

RIM disclosed at that event that its subscriber base has passed 80 million, up from 78 million in the first quarter of 2012. On Thursday, RIM reported a second quarter loss of $235 million, which beat expectations and led to a surge in the company's stock price.

During an earnings call yesterday, RIM officials and CEO Thorsten Heins said RIM projects another loss in the third quarter, and is likely to report deficits for several quarters to come.

Still, Heins said that the highly anticipated BlackBerry 10 will launch "on track" in the first quarter.

The video also describes an "In the Right Hands" marketing campaign involving celebrities and average BlackBerry users that use a BlackBerry 10 smartphone for one day apiece, adding content and then passing it on until the day the device is formally launched.

For example, the narrator says musician Lady Gaga could write and load on the phone a single music track on one day, followed by a short story from writer JK Rowling and then a movie recorded onto the device by film director Ridley Scott.

RIM officials declined to comment on the video.

Source : computerworld.com

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RIM to block access to porn on BlackBerry in Indonesia

Research in Motion said Monday it will work with Indonesia's carriers to filter out pornography websites as soon as possible for BlackBerry subscribers.

Internet service providers are required by law to block pornographic content, said Heru Sutadi, commissioner of Badan Regulasi Telekomunikasi Indonesia (BRTI), the telecommunications regulator in the country. If RIM does not block pornographic sites, Indonesia may consider blocking the service, Sutadi said.

Tifatul Sembiring, Indonesia's minister of communications and information, had warned of legal action if RIM did not filter pornographic web sites, according to media reports.RIM said in its statement that it shares Sembiring's sense of urgency on the matter and that it is fully committed to working with Indonesia's carriers to put in place "a prompt, compliant filtering solution for BlackBerry subscribers in Indonesia."

A meeting between RIM and the government is scheduled for Jan. 17. “We hope RIM will be compliant by then,” Sutadi said.

The BRTI is also pressing RIM on an earlier demand that RIM should install a server in Jakarta so that domestic communications traffic does not go out of the country, Sutadi said. It also wants access to some of the communications for security reasons.

RIM is already under pressure in India to allow the country's security agencies access to communications on its services. The company has agreed to provide lawful access under certain conditions to traffic in India on the BlackBerry Messenger service, but said that it does not have the technical ability to provide its customers' encryption keys for its corporate service, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

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Free BlackBerry Downloads: 5 (More) Essential Apps

If you're anything like me, you spend entirely too much time poring through Web pages and online search engines seeking the latest and greatest free BlackBerry downloads for your Research In Motion (RIM) smartphone. But today's your lucky day. Today, the search stops right here.

Over the past weeks and months, I've worked hard to deliver to you the best free BlackBerry applications the Internet has to offer. I dug up my top picks for free open source BlackBerry apps, the best mobile Twitter apps, and the highest quality BlackBerry Storm software. I even asked RIM's co-CEO and two additional executives for their favorite free BlackBerry software, then delivered the answers directly to you.

This time around, I picked a handful of new apps that promise to vastly improve your BlackBerry's audio experience, help you rapidly browse the Web, manage your online DVD mailing account, find just about anything from anywhere, and even grab screen captures of your device's display without the need for a PC.

Slacker Radio for BlackBerry: Your New Radio is...Your BlackBerry!?!

It's rare, but every once and a while a new BlackBerry application comes along and single-handedly raises the bar for all other mobile apps. The last such piece of software I can remember to fit this description is Viigo, the ultimate mobile RSS reader and lifestyle app. For a long time, Viigo has been my favorite free BlackBerry app, but today, thanks to Slacker Radio for BlackBerry, I'm just not sure anymore.

Slacker Radio for BlackBerry is an easy to use, personal Internet radio app that brings unlimited free music to your RIM smartphone. More than 100 pre-programmed "genre stations" let you listen to a variety of artists and ensembles for as long as you want--or your battery lasts. And the app works well on just about any BlackBerry device running RIM's handheld OS v4.3 or higher and with at least an EDGE or another 2.5G data connection. The app also works over Wi-Fi. (For best results, employ Slacker for BlackBerry on a device running BlackBerry OS 4.5 or higher.)

The best thing about Slacker for BlackBerry? Why, it's free of course--or at least there's a free option. To employ the new app, simply surf on over to Slacker.com using your BlackBerry browser and follow the on-screen download instructions. Once the app's installed, you can either log in to an existing Slacker account or create a new one. You'll have two options for account creation: 1) a free account, which delivers the occasional audio and visual advertisements and lets you skip over songs just six times an hour; and 2) the commercial version, which is available via subscription for US$3.99 a month--$47.88 a year--and doesn't have a limit for song skips or requests.

iPhone and iPod touch, one of its most valuable features is currently restricted to the BlackBerry-specific version: station "caching." The ability to cache, or store, Slacker stations on your BlackBerry's media card means that you can listen to your favorite tunes without wireless connectivity, which makes the app particularly well suited for use during travel. (You must have at least 500MB of free space on your media card to cache Slacker stations.)

And like most BlackBerry apps, it supports multitasking, so you can, say, play a game of BrickBreaker while jamming out to the Beatles on Slacker.

More details on Slacker Radio for BlackBerry can be found online.

Bolt Browser for BlackBerry: Lightning Speed

RIM is a legend in the smartphone space: Its keyboards are inimitable; its "push" e-mail delivery system is the envy of the mobile industry. But the company's browser? That's a whole different story. The BlackBerry browser sucks; it's relatively slow, awkward to use and doesn't always render pages correctly, among other complaints. (The BlackBerry browser on the Storm, in OS v4.7, is a step in the right direction, but still...)

I've offered up free alternatives to the BlackBerry browser in the past -- namely, Opera Mini--but today, there's a new kid on the browser-block: Bolt.
I have a few quibbles with Bolt--it too has problems rendering certain pages; it uses a proxy server, which could be considered a privacy/security risk; and it's still in beta and is a bit unstable. But whatever it lacks in these categories, it makes up for in speed.

Bolt is fast, Fast, FAST; in fact, it's the speediest mobile browser I've ever used. And it employs similar shortcuts to Opera Mini for scrolling, zooming and other page navigation, so it shouldn't take you long to get used to it. And Bitstream, the company that makes Bolt, also says the browser uses one-third of the battery life of comparable mobile browsers.

As mentioned above, Bolt is still in beta testing, and as such, you'll need to request an invite for a free download at this point. But Bolt ought to be hitting the big-time any day now, and you can expect to find a download link on the Bolt website as soon as it does.

(Note: Bolt is not BlackBerry specific and will work on a wide variety of Internet-connected mobile devices.)

SmartFlicks: Netflix for Your BlackBerry

I'm an unabashed film buff; I love movies and DVDs. But it's been quite some time since I stepped foot into a brick and mortar movie rental joint like Blockbuster or Hollywood Video to pick up a flick. I've long been a user of the Netflix DVD mailing service, as the price is right, selection is great and you can't beat the convenience of having movies delivered directly to your door.

I've always wished for more though: Wouldn't it be handy

, and add movies to your online queue whenever, and wherever, you might be. Thanks to Pyxis Mobile and its SmartFlicks app, my wish is now a reality.

The SmartFlicks free BlackBerry app lets you manage and update your NetFlix account from anywhere there's cellular connectivity. You can not only add and remove titles from your movie queue, but also reorder them at any point with no restrictions. You can even add films to your "Instant" queue for future viewing on your TV. (A Netflix compatible DVR, Blu-ray player of other peripheral is required for Instant viewing.)

The free BlackBerry app also offers up-to-date movie news, recommendations for future rentals, a film search feature and "What's Hot" and "Coming Soon" tabs for information on the most popular films and actors at a giving time. And its clean, intuitive user interface makes employing SmartFlicks almost as much fun as watching the movies it helps you procure.

Download SmartFlicks here.

Where for BlackBerry: Your GPS-Based Search Companion

You can find plenty of local search applications for BlackBerry devices -- some free, some not; others GPS-based, others not. One of my early favorites in this category was Beyond411 for BlackBerry. Then there was Poynt. Now there's Where.

What's truly valuable about Where? You can customize it to your own specific needs and tastes: the app uses your phone's built-in--or externally connected--GPS data, along with a set of custom widgets, to let you know what sorts of businesses and establishments are around you at any given time. And you can also use Where to find out information about those specific establishments.

For example, the free Where app comes with widgets for finding gas prices in your area; pinpointing events; locating the nearest Starbucks and digging up local user reviews on Yelp. But that's not all; Where lets users download a variety of additional widgets that provide information on items like local golf courses and the "10 Best" food/travel/hospitality recommendations for specific cities.

Where is available to users of BlackBerry Bold 9000, 8800, Curve and Pearl series devices, though whether or not the app will work on your smartphone depends on your wireless carrier. T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless users appear to be out of luck, for now at least, but AT&T, Boost Mobile, Helio, metroPCS, Sprint and Virgin Mobile customers shouldn't have any issues with Where.

Capture It with On-Device BlackBerry Screen Shots

Have you ever wanted to take a picture of your BlackBerry device's screen, to help a friend with a handheld-related issue or describe a problem of your own to your IT help desk? If so, your days of fiddling with a camera to get a decent shot of your BlackBerry's shiny screen are over.

Thanks to Capture It, a free, on-device application that grabs images of whatever's on your BlackBerry's display and saves them as .jpeg files in your Pictures directory, snapping BlackBerry screen shots couldn't be easier.

First you download and install the app to your device, set it as a device convenience key and you're good to go. (To assign Capture It as a BlackBerry convenience key, launch the Options icon, click Screen/Keyboard, scroll down to the "Convenience Key Opens" section and choose Capture It from one of the corresponding drop-down menus. Finally, hit the Escape key to exit the Screen/Keyboard screen and then save your modifications when prompted.)

Taking BlackBerry screen shot from there is as simple as tapping the corresponding convenience key whenever something you want to capture is on screen. And you can transfer the jpeg files from your BlackBerry to a computer or other device using Bluetooth, USB, e-mail or MMS.

Download Capture It via BlackBerry browser here.

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T-Mobile Refreshes the BlackBerry Curve

T-Mobile's update of the BlackBerry Curve, the 8900, isn't an earth-shattering revision of one of Research in Motion's most successful QWERTY keyboard models. But for those who are content to browse over T-Mobile's somewhat pokey EDGE network when Wi-Fi isn't available, it offers an improved camera, a sleeker design, and a snappier processor than its predecessor, the Curve 8320 (which is still available from T-Mobile but for US$100 less than the 8900).

Like the 8320, the 8900 is a quad-band phone, meaning you can use it on pretty much any GSM network worldwide. For data, it supports EDGE, the 2.5G network technology that approximates dialup in real-world performance. That's fine for e-mail, but Web browsing is somewhat sluggish (although the desktop-style browser does a good job of rendering large pages and then letting you zoom in on sections of interest).

Black with silver accents, the 8900 is slightly skinnier, a tad more lightweight and more sculpted looking than earlier Curves, with some of the design motifs we've seen in the BlackBerry Bold and Storm. I'm on the fence about the use of red type for keypad numbers, which is more subtle but also makes them slightly less legible than on the 8900's predecessors (which used black on silver). Still, when the phone screen is on, the red numbers do glow so I had no problems dialing. RIM continues to refine its keyboards, and thumb-typing on the Curve is eminently doable. Of course, you get the terrific corporate and Internet e-mail features RIM is known for.

Voice call quality was solid in my tests, Like its predecessor, the 8900 uses UMA technology to let you make voice calls over Wi-Fi when a Wi-Fi network is present. However you must sign up for T-Mobile's Hotspot at Home service to enable seamless transition from Wi-Fi to cellular calls.

The supplied media clips looked good, given the smallish but bright high-res screen. The 8900 comes with the updated media manager introduced since the last Curve, a definite plus. The 3.2-megapixel camera with built in flash and autofocus is also an upgrade from the previous 2-megapixel model, and it definitely shows in the improved images; shutterbugs will appreciate the difference.

Overall performance on apps definitely seemed snappier thanks to the upgraded CPU RIM is touting. Wi-Fi setup was easy and quick. GPS location, on the other hand, wasn't so hot with my production-level unit. The device hung for quite some time on its own requests for satellite fixes, and ultimately appeared to give up. I'm trying to figure out what happened here and will update as needed.

That glitch aside, the Curve 8900 should appeal to T-Mobile BlackBerry fans who feel the original Curve is starting to get a bit tired-and who have no particular need for a handset that supports faster UMTS/DSMA data networks. The rather high $300 pricetag (with a two-year T-Mobile contract) can be lowered to $200 via mail-in rebate when the device hits T-Mobile's retail outlets next week (B to B customers can start ordering now).

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Blackberry Storm's components cost more than iPhone 3G's

iSuppli didn't heed James Dean's outburst in Rebel Without a Cause, because they keep tearing things apart. The latest device to go under their knives screwdrivers isn't an Apple product--rather, it's a competitor--but what lies beneath the surface can shed some light on Apple's iPhone too.

RIM's Blackberry Storm--it of the clickable touchscreen--was touted as a potential rival to the iPhone when it debuted late last year. Interesting thing, though: when iSuppli took apart the Storm, they discovered that its component costs are actually not only more than the price of the very device at your local Verizon store, but more than the comparable cost of the iPhone as well.

The bill of materials for the Storm totes up to US$202.89; the Storm itself has a suggested retail price of $250, but is currently being sold with a $50 rebate from Verizon. iSuppli says the iPhone 3G, meanwhile, costs approximately $174.33 in components, despite a similar retail price.

Of course, a teardown can only tell you what the cost of the physical materials is--it doesn't factor in software development, R&D, marketing, etc. More to the point, as iSuppli points out, the price subsidy from the carrier means it's hard to tell exactly how much each device is really costing.

Still, it's an interesting point that even though the Storm and iPhone seem at first blush to share most of the same parts--LCD touchscreen, camera, cell phone chips, flash memory, GPS--Apple would seem to be in a position to reap more profit of each device than RIM (of course, it's also hard to know what kind of deals each manufacturer has with component vendors).

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