Astraware have launched a collection of classic board games called Astraware Board Games. The board games pack is available for the Storm, Curve 8900, Tour and all trackball/touchscreen BlackBerry devices. It features chess, checkers, reversi, backgammon, Nine Men’s Morris, Snakes and Ladders, Tic Tac Toe and more.
Each board game has user-customizable rules and a range of difficulty levels. Some of the features you’ll find in this board game pack include:
8 classic boardgames in one easy-to-use pack.
User customizable rules so you can play it your way.
3 levels of difficulty, designed for casual players and non-experts.
Evokes the feel of classic boardgames played on wooden boards.
One of the greatest things about owning a BlackBerry is that if you’re ever feeling like the device lacks a particular feature, there is usually an application out there to help.
For users with a BlackBerry Storm, one of these features is “flick scrolling,” which is available on most touchscreen devices such as the iPhone.
BerryScroll gives you flick scrolling functionality for the BlackBerry Browser, contacts, phone and media application. While there is no free trial available, the app has gone through extensive beta testing.
Simon Sage was good enough to point out that around 6 months ago Mike Kirkup confirmed Flash would find its way to BlackBerry sooner or later and while it’s interesting that Silverlight will be part of the equation, the idea that Flash will come to BlackBerry in around a year can be easily deduced from simply keeping up with the industry.
The news is likely based on an inside tip relating to the known fact that RIM is planning on updating its BlackBerry Browser in order to be more competitive with the other smartphones in the market. This is common knowledge as anyone following the industry knows that BlackBerry gets a lot of criticism for not producing a browser experience on par with the likes of iPhone. If you hear the Internet complaining about a BlackBerry feature, rest assured the 10,000 employees at RIM have heard and are working on it.
While it’s nice to get affirmation that RIM is planning on updating its browser, the following could just as easily be deduced:
1. It’s pretty much confirmed that RIM will be launching a device with more than 1GB of on-board memory.
2. It’s pretty much confirmed that RIM is working on a new media player for future consumer devices.
3. It’s pretty much confirmed that the next generation BlackBerry processors will exceed 1GHz.
On a related note, Skyfire should be coming out with a beta before any of this can be confirmed. BlackBerry users should be able to enjoy Flash well before RIM updates the browser.
Regardless of how you may feel about the iPhone as a productivity or enterprise tool, it has done wonders for encouraging mobile software consumption and educating users about what is available to them.
Analysts are saying that the mobile games industry grew in North America by nearly 19 per cent in 2008, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers projects the market will grow from $858 million in 2008 to $1.3 billion in 2013.
Developers are having great success with mobile gaming in the App Store, but BlackBerry App World isn’t seeing the numbers just yet. Companies like Top Hat Monocle, are seeing excellent download rates in the App Store on their casual games such as Hopple, which has been downloaded more than 80,000 times.
Slacker is now available for BlackBerry Storm users! The new and improved version is available on all channels including the BlackBerry Cool store and it’s also available on App World.
One of the best features included in this latest update is that the battery life has been greatly improved while streaming music.
Here is a breakdown of the features you’ll find in the latest update:
Improved battery life up to 2x (over previous versions) while streaming (Slacker has seen Storm devices playing up to 9 hours over 3G with this build)
Improved usability enhancements to the interface, including a “Home” button to quickly access the station list
Added ability to toggle the explicit content filter (on/off) from the main menu
Addressed an issue where pausing a song for an extended period of time did not properly resume playback
Addressed an issue where phone calls or message alerts would prevent playback from resuming properly for some listeners
While BlackBerry devices don’t come with a built in compass, like the iPhone 3GS, the on-board GPS does provide enough data to calculate true North once a heading has been determined.
Compass Lite is an app for the BlackBerry Storm that has this basic functionality but differs from the other apps in that it uses a clean UI and graphics.
Blue Solutions Inc, the makers of Compass Lite, will be releasing an updated version to their compass software for BlackBerry. Features you’ll find in the update include:
The ability to store WayPoints (specific points of interest where the user can record a meaningful description about the particular spot).
A ‘Guide Me Back’ feature that will point the way from your current location to the WayPoint you choose. This is ideal for finding your car in that enormous parking lot.
The ability to change backgrounds: 5 stunning new backgrounds are in the works.
Multi-language support.
The ability to change the format of the Line of Travel and the Lat/Long.
Additional header graphics showing satellite signal strength.
On the Storm, the ability to change from portrait to landscape format and back.
Face Lift for the BlackBerry Storm is a fun photo manipulation app that lets you distort images right from your BlackBerry. This app is great for uploading pictures of your friends, manipulating them and sending them as a gag. Tweak your Facebook profile picture or online avatar to look crazy.
Features include:
Load or take a picture with the camera
3 levels of zoom
Send your warped photo by email directly from the application
Research and consulting firm IDC have put together the top selling smartphones in the United States in the second quarter of this year. The list counts vendor sales to carriers and channels (sell-in) rather than sales to end users (sell-through). Further, these numbers are based on preliminary data; IDC will finalize its numbers at the end of this month.
RIM dominate the list holding the number 1 spot, as well as the 6th, 5th and 3rd. RIM’s device strategy, while it may frustrate developers in that it requires apps to be ported several times after development, it is definitely working from a sales perspective. In the end, RIM’s core business is to manufacture and sell smartphones, and in this regard they are clearly succeeding.
The BlackBerry Storm has been dropping in price all over the Internet. The reasons are two-fold in that the Storm is coming on its first birthday, which will always mean a price drop, and the Storm 2 will be launching, further dropping the price.
Just recently, Verizon began offering the BlackBerry Storm for $99. AmazonWireless is offering the device for $49.99 and the lowest price actually comes from the BlackBerry Cool device page.
Congratulations to Slacker! They have recently signed a partnership with Verizon to be pushed to every Verizon BlackBerry Storm. Verizon Storm owners will see a Slacker icon on their device ready to use.
A feature unique to the BlackBerry app for Verizon is that it can connect to Verzon’s V CAST service. When a song is being played using Slacker Radio and is one of the more than 4.5 million available in the V CAST Music with Rhapsody catalog, a V CAST icon will appear on the screen that will let customers easily purchase that track while it continues playing on the device.
If you’re a BlackBerry Storm user on Verizon, check it out and let us know what you think.
