Most recently, the UAE joined the ranks of countries where App World is available. This is great news not only for BlackBerry users in that country, but also for bloggers and support forum moderators. BlackBerryCool alone gets one or two emails per week from someone in the UAE saying “why is BlackBerry App World not available in my country? Please fix this!”. It should be interesting to see what, if any, applications get banned from the UAE and what sort of restrictions are imposed on anyone who wants to distribute their app there. On a more optimistic note, perhaps we’ll see a surge in developers writing apps for UAE users and distributing them in App World.
We’ve seen some of what’s possible with the BlackBerry PlayBook OS NDK (Native Developer Kit) and the graphics look pretty amazing. The above video shows you some examples and the most impressive was the ability to use the Cascades Engine to create 3D user interfaces. TAT was showing this off and when you add another dimension to user interfaces, especially for timelines and activity feeds, it creates a much more useful scrolling system. To learn more about how all of this is going to work, you should attend the NDK webinar on Thursday, May 12th, 2011, at 2PM EST. Continue reading ‘Register for the BlackBerry PlayBook OS Native Developer Kit Webinar’
The rumor has been going around for some time now that BBM will be heading to other platforms. We decided to revisit the topic as it was something discussed a lot at BlackBerry World and we’re still getting companies asking us about it. The problem with the rumor, is that RIM and the carriers know the real value in BBM is not as a successful messaging platform per se, but rather its value as a customer retention tool. We’ve heard carriers consistently say that BBM is the number 1 customer retention tool for BlackBerry devices, as users will purchase another BlackBerry simply to not lose those BBM contacts. So given that understanding, why would RIM want to open it up to other platforms and give those users an out? They wouldn’t; but here are a few ways they may implement. Continue reading ‘How RIM Might Implement BlackBerry Messenger on Other Platforms’
Twinkle is a useful and simple app that lets you set and keep track of upcoming and past events. Worried about missing your anniversary? Set a Twinkle alert and make sure you know it’s coming. Twinkle tells you how far away an event is, and allows you to send events to and from your BlackBerry’s native calendar. The app also gives you the ability to add and edit events, lets you keep track of how soon something is, or how long it has been since an event. Furthermore on devices with OS 6.0 Twinkle integrates with universal search, making it easier then ever to find your events. Continue reading ‘Twinkle Event Tracking App Updated with In-App Purchases and More’
BlackBerry Messenger is a really powerful platform. It’s also incredibly disruptive when you consider that 100 billion BBM messages are sent each month. Consider how the carrier must view that. BBM is taking 100 billion messages away from the carriers that would have otherwise been done over SMS. We’ve been talking about the BBM Social Platform a lot lately because it’s a natural progression of BBM to bring more users together and bring apps into the fold. Here are 5 companies and apps doing cool stuff with the BBM Social Platform: Continue reading ’5 Cool Instances of BBM Integration in BlackBerry Apps’
Al Jazeera is a great source for news and the app brings you the latest news and live broadcast of Al Jazeera English, free of charge. Currently, Al Jazeera is broadcasting to more than 220 million households on six continents in more than 100 countries, and their mobile clients should boost these numbers tremendously. Features of this app include: Continue reading ‘Al Jazeera News App Now Available With Pictures, Video and More’
