The BlackBerry Developer Challenge was narrowed down to the Final 16. The event takes 16 up and coming apps and helps them grow by giving the top apps investment.
The 16 finalists were:
1. Kik (awesome music app)
2. Sid Meier’s Civilizations (classic game)
3. Handmark’s AFP news app
4. David (a pragmatic app that tracks your wireless usage to help save you money)
5. Wicked Blogging App (WordPress for BlackBerry)
6. FileScout (advanced file manager for BlackBerry)
7. Expense Report Reader
8. Fierce Towers (tower defense)
9. Shozu (social networking platform for BlackBerry)
10. CBS News app (another news app by Handmark)
11. E-mobile software (an app similar to a theme)
12. Vision for YouTube
13. Astraware solitaire
14. Market Simplified (trading software)
15. 7Digitial Music Store 16. Unsynced Music Player (new music app api) Click through for more pics and info from the Developer Challenge Final 16
The Xobni BlackBerry app does an excellent job of organizing your contacts and saving you time finding and sending emails. The app seamlessly integrates with your email and the above video demonstrates a typical time-saving task with their application.
The 7Digital Music Store for BlackBerry has gone version 1.1 and there are a host of improvements as well as new features. Some of the latest additions include more countries supported, as well as enhanced functionality and a fully optimized touch-screen UI for the BlackBerry Storm.
With this latest version, the following are new:
Ireland country support.
Display rotation for the Storm.
7Digital store track search.
Add to playing playlist.
Download location option.
The following have been improved in the newest version:
RIM announced that App World is now accepting theme submissions. The announcement was a little buried along with the announcement of the BlackBerry Theme Studio 5, which helps developers make more compelling themes for BlackBerry.
RIM have said that they are taking submissions now, and next month we will see an update to App World with a themes category. Presumably, the category will feature a wide range of themes for all the latest devices including the Storm2.
Here at the BlackBerry Developer Conference, Loopt have announced a major update to their free BlackBerry app. The Loopt application is a location based services app that connects relevant people and placing while constantly running in the background.
Today we got a demo of Loopt by Sam Altman, CEO of Loopt, to show off the latest features as RIM announce their latest location services. The app now offers dynamically-generated, relevant local content about places and events from some of the best sources on the Web to help users meet up with nearby friends, explore new places to grab food, and find local events happening now. Feature highlights include:
Discover the best places and events, including those rated highly by your friends on Pulse.
See where your friends are on maps – view their latest updates listed in real-time and comment on them.
Check-in to instantly share your updates with friends – easily update Facebook and Twitter with your photos and places in one Loopt check-in.
Browse and rate local places and events – peruse detailed information from Zagat, Citysearch, and the Loopt community.
Save money through special offers from nearby retailers with local coupons.
Here at the BlackBerry Developer Conference we got a sneak peek at the upcoming Xobni app for BlackBerry. The app features a ubiquitous search bar that is seamlessly integrated into your mail, contacts and social networks. The app gives you a great deal of data about each contact including basic contact information as well as updates from that contact’s social networks. The app will also show you possible connections from within these networks.
One of the most impressions features is the way Xobni organizes your contacts across all your email services. The Xobni demo showed how easy it is to take a common name, for which there could be tens of entries, and efficiently move between the Xobni app and your email. Also, for those names which could have multiple entries, Xobni uses a ranking system that means your most interacted with contacts are at the top.
Xobni isn’t currently available but it looks like they are very close to a launch. Stay tuned because this app looks great.
