Posted on June 10, 2011, at 4:02 PM .
Before and after
When I first heard of Contacts Cleaner over a year ago, the app was decent but it really wasn’t what I wanted it to be. I found that even after initializing the app and letting it clean my contacts, I still had many duplicates. Yesterday, I decided to give the app another try, grabbing it for $0.99 in App World and it was one of the best app purchases I have ever made. Considering what the app did for me, I’m still shocked at the incredibly low price point. In my address book, Contacts Cleaner found over 35,000 entries and 15,000 duplicates. These duplicates were ruining my Address Book and stem from the fact that I have around 15 Google Apps accounts connected to my device and downloading contacts. Having this many duplicates makes the Universal Search useless for contacts, because you have to still search through your Address Book and figure out which contact is the right one. I also have Xobni installed and while Xobni works great when you’re in your email, making telephone calls from inside the Phone App doesn’t access Xobni. You still need to have your contacts cleaned so that you can make quick calls from inside the Phone App.
Continue reading ‘Contacts Cleaner Review: A Must-Have Application for Anyone with Lots of Contacts’
Posted on June 7, 2011, at 9:48 AM .
Jim Dog overseeing the fun.
The PlayBook is a great tablet. Don’t listen to the haters. It’s a rock solid piece of hardware and the software has huge potential. The problems with it stem from the fact that it’s a brand new OS and still needs a few updates. Recently, BlackBerry users were sent a pretty big update to the PlayBook and it improves many of the features you use on the device such as Facebook, App World, charging the device and video chat connectivity. These updates are welcome and we’re looking forward to more. Hopefully the summer vacation season won’t slow down QNX and we’ll see another big update soon.
New BlackBerry PlayBook OS v1.0.5 features include:
Continue reading ‘BlackBerry PlayBook Gets a Healthy Update with Facebook, App World, Charging Improvements and More’
Posted on June 3, 2011, at 6:00 PM .
Mobihand traffic has taken a considerable hit this past year.
It looks like Mobihand is on the decline and having a hard time staying relevant in light of App World. Recently, Mobihand sent out a letter to their distribution partners saying that they are reducing commission rates in order to accommodate the fact that they are paying developers 10% more on their sales. Developers used to get 60% from Mobihand and they now get the industry standard 70%. According to Mobihand:
Due to this 10% increase given to the developers, we need to lower the shared sales rate you earn to a maximum of 13%, with lower rates applicable to lower amounts of sales, effective July 1, 2011. This is an unfortunate revenue reduction for us and our network partners, but we believe the new developer rate evens the playing field and will have developers promoting our network of stores as much as they have done in the past.
What Mobihand doesn’t seem to understand is that they’re shooting themselves in the foot. Developers don’t make much money on Mobihand. From all the developers we’ve spoken to, it seems the average developer sees about 20% of their total revenue come from Mobihand and the majority comes from App World. The reason Mobihand is great is primarily because of the distribution partners. Mobihand and its distribution partners make a great marketing team and spread the word about apps to the partners’ readership. An additional 10% to developers isn’t going to amount to much in the end. Lowering the commission rates could create a sour relationship with the distribution partners who are keeping the company alive. The distribution partners are also driving a lot of traffic to Mobihand and lowering commission rates could have a negative impact on traffic as partners move elsewhere. From the above graph, it’s clear that Mobihand’s traffic is on the decline and it’s only a matter of time until the company either sells, goes bankrupt or pivots to remain competitive. Click through for the letter from Mobihand to partners.
Continue reading ‘Mobihand Reducing Commission Payments and Unable to Compete with App World’
Posted on May 27, 2011, at 12:18 PM .
After last week’s App World update, some users running older OS versions, specifically OS 4.6 and 4.7, had their BlackBerry App World icon disappear. According to Inside BlackBerry, RIM has released a fix for this and the new version, BlackBerry App World v2.1.2.19, is available for download at the link below.
Download BlackBerry App World v2.1.2.19
Note: Users who weren’t affected by the missing icon issue may also see an upgrade notification for v2.1.2.19. The only change in this version is the missing icon fix.
Posted on May 11, 2011, at 11:13 AM .
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.
Click through for a list of countries where App World is available.
Continue reading ‘App World Now Available in 109 Countries Including United Arab Emirates’
Posted on April 27, 2011, at 4:24 PM .
Magmic has launched a new version of New York Times Crosswords for BlackBerry that features in-app payments for subscriptions. The app features a free week of daily puzzles and it’s free to download. There are also a variety of subscription services you can choose including one month, six month or one year subscription rates. As far as we can tell, this is the first app to use the BlackBerry Payment Service to provide subscriptions.
The New York Times Crosswords is the only officially licensed app and has an archive of over 4,000 classic puzzles as well as lets you participate in the Daily Puzzle. Other cool features include:
- Send messages and compare your solve times with friends online
- Compete against top players via the online leaderboards
- Write in ‘pen’ or ‘pencil’
- Solve puzzles on the grid or directly from the clues list
- Automatic highlighting of related clues
- Check or reveal letters, words or the entire puzzle
Magmic also let us know that while they have limited device support for launch, they’ll be spending this week back-filling device support so stay tuned. Your device should be supported very soon.
Check out the New York Times Crosswords in App World at this link.
