Before the new devices got announced I was under the impression that a lot of users would be holding off and waiting for the QNX-based BlackBerry devices. I thought that RIM would be in transition and release something only slightly better than last year’s offerings, leaving BlackBerry fans to be sentenced to exile or to wait patiently for the second coming of BlackBerry.
Continue reading ‘BlackBerry Torch 2 9810 Review: The Updated Touchscreen and QWERTY Slider’
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The BBM Music Service is live in the Beta Zone (maybe not for everyone) and we’ve prepared a Beta Review for those considering trying the app. When the app goes live, it will probably come with a month free trial, so you can try it out for yourself. From there, you can decide if you’re going to spend the $5 per month. Continue reading after the jump for a review of the BBM Music Service.
Continue reading ‘Beta Review: BBM Music Service’
BlackBerry App World 3.0 has launched and is up in Beta Zone. The latest version, according to RIM, makes “discovering and downloading apps, games, and themes easier than ever.” We’ve tried the new App World on both a well-established device, the Torch 9800, and a brand new device, the Bold 9930. There are some major pros and cons about this latest version and we thought we’d put together a beta review since App World has become such an important part of the BlackBerry experience. To recap, App World 3.0 features:
Sleek New Design – The BlackBerry App World experience has been enhanced to help you discover the latest and greatest apps and content, starting right on the BlackBerry App World home screen where rotating spotlight banners show off all that’s new and exciting.
New Channels – Apps, Games, and Themes now have their own channels so you can get to what you want even faster. Each channel offers up a whole range of Categories, Top Lists (for Paid, Free, Rated, New Arrivals) and a Search Bar.
Introduction of My Account – My Account makes managing your BBID and payment options easy with direct access to all of your account information from the home screen.
New My World Features – My World gives you a streamlined view of all your apps and their status, and now at a glance, in addition to seeing which apps are installed and uninstalled, you can manage your subscription content and services. When new updates or subscription renewals are available for your apps, you’ll be notified using push technology.
App Social Sharing – When you find an app you can’t live without, share it with your contacts directly from the app details screen through BBM, Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS.
Evolved App Details Screen – At a glance, you can get a quick summary, check out reviews and star ratings, take a look at screen shots, and more.
More Search Options - Quickly find apps with a Search Bar now appearing on the storefront home screen and search results are presented across Channels as well as My World. Search Bars are also within each Channel and users have the ability to filter by App Name, Price, Rating, Newest, Best Match, or Popular.
Both developers and consumers are crucial end users of this product so it’s important to review App World 3.0 from both perspectives. Click through for more about how App World 3.0 may impact both of these user types.
Continue reading ‘Beta Review: App World 3.0 From a Developer and User Experience Perspective’
This screen would look much cleaner if the font size wasn’t set so high.
When we announced the BBM Hackathon winner for BlackBerryCool was Smarter Apps, we didn’t mention what the app actually was. Well the app was hacked together at the hackathon and will be going live in App World soon. The app is called Who’s Around and the concept is really awesome and simple. The app duplicates the BBM experience but uses the BBM Social APIs on top of location to make BBM location aware. This is just like what Wikitude does for Augmented Reality but instead of needing OS 7 and Augmented Reality, you get a similar experience on a wide range of devices.
Once you have downloaded the app and connected it to BBM (make sure you have BBM 6), you can now set your name, avatar and preferences. Everything about the app is intuitive because it’s made to look just like BBM. The major difference in your profile settings is that you can tell the app what you’re interested in, whether it’s sports, business, investment, dating, drinks, movies etc. You can select from a list of preset preferences or customize it with your own interests. The app will then let you search for other BBM users that have the same interests. This is going to be especially cool when we start to see the overlap with BBM and Twitter and connecting users by hashtags. Are you at a conference with the hashtag “network2011″? Then set that as your profile preference and you can search for others at the conference on BBM.
Continue reading ‘Coming Soon: BlackBerry Messenger + Location = Who’s Around? By Smarter Apps’
More pictures from the event available from PhotoJunkie.ca.
First of all, can you believe these model numbers? RIM couldn’t have made them more confusing. I have been writing about BlackBerry for years and I simply cannot remember what device they’re talking about when they say 9850, 9860 or 9810. The 98xx doesn’t even represent the same device anymore. You used to be able to write 97XX and you knew the 9700 and 9780 both looked the same, but not anymore. From now on, we’re going to refer to the devices by name only. The following seem most appropriate:
Bold 9900 = Bold Touch
Torch 9810 = Torch 2
Torch 9850/9860 = Storm 3
Recently, we attended the BlackBerry 7 Fan Night in Toronto and we had an opportunity to get some quality time with RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry 7 devices. There are a lot of things to say about these devices with some Pros and Cons for each of them. Generally, these devices are everything we saw last year but turned up around 40%. The user experience is faster, with homescreen switching and app launching all happening much faster (Liquid Graphics), and the web browsing experience is also much faster. The Torch 9850 and 9860, aka the Storm 3, seems to be RIM bringing back the all-touch experience (with trackpad), and it’s probably the most risky of the BlackBerry 7 devices.
Continue reading ‘First Impressions of the Bold 9900, Torch 9810 and Torch 9850/9860′
