Posted on September 9, 2008, at 4:10 pm .
Recently, you may have heard about Vayyoo and their vPost solution, which enables BlackBerry users to capture pictures, voice, text, and location (via GPS) through one single user interface. Our sister site QuicklyBored has been displaying it’s potential as both a restaurant review device and blogging tool. We were so enamored with Vayyoo’s solution that we signed an exclusive agreement to use vPosting for the majority of our CTIA coverage (sorry Ronen).
However, vPosting is much more than a simple consumer application, it’s a new medium for mobile communication. Before we start vPosting like crazy all over CTIA, we thought we should take the time to fully explain what Vayyoo can do.
Click here to learn more about Vayyoo’s vPost
Posted on September 8, 2008, at 10:14 pm .
Sometimes it pays off to arrive to the party early. Wandering the streets of San Francisco this afternoon anticipating what wireless news CTIA will bring, I ran into a few old industry friends on Market St, having just touched down and looking for their hotel. After some idle chat, they were able to confirm a sneaking suspicion we’ve had since late Sunday night: RIM will officially announce the BlackBerry Pearl 8220 this Wednesday during CTIA.
We first had the itch that a fresh BlackBerry announcement was coming when our friends at CrackBerry tipped us off to the fact that Rogers had sent out flyers in Canadian newspapers promoting the BlackBerry Pearl 8220 before any official announcements had been made. We’ll do our best to learn if RIM plans to reveal any information about the BlackBerry Storm or Javelin as well, and maybe try to bust into the CTIA showfloor early in the hopes of snapping some pics of RIM’s booth.
Posted on September 8, 2008, at 1:32 am .
Well now, isn’t this a strange bit of news. Remember that Rogers promotional flyer we showed you confirming the BlackBerry Pearl 8220’s priced at $150 CAN? It turns out that this flyer has found its way into newspapers across the country. This, in and of itself, isn’t so unusual until you remember that the BlackBerry 8220, previously known as the BlackBerry KickStart, has never been officially announced or acknowledged by either RIM or Rogers. While upgrades to older models, like the BlackBerry 8820, often don’t receive separate press releases, I can’t remember another time a BlackBerry has been promoted before any RIM employee can officially speak of its existence.
This would lead us to believe that an official announcement for the BlackBerry Pearl 8220 should be coming very soon, either this week at CTIA (maybe during Jim Balsillie’s keynote?), or even sooner. As I write this late Sunday night in foggy San Francisco, Rogers’ BlackBerry page is currently down, which might mean they’re updating it with 8220 info. Regardless, for now we’ll just have to keep a close eye on things and assume someone in Rogers PR didn’t press ‘print’ a little too soon.
(via CrackBerry)
Click here to see full BlackBerry Pearl 8220 device specs
Posted on April 22, 2008, at 7:31 am .
The Fast-Pitch competition, which AT&T held at CTIA Wireless, has finished up and they’ve gone ahead and announced the winners. Topping the list and winning $15,000 is eMobilePOS from eNabler, a point-of-sale app available for WinMo, followed by MedsTimer by JavaDive. The app, which won $5,000, can be installed on a patient’s phone during clinical trials of drugs, and remind them of dosage schedules and more. Three more category winners won $5,000 each: Activity Management Inc. won the best small-medium business category for their Insight GPS service, while BlueTech won most improved application category for FieldRanger, which greatly simplifies managing workers in the field. Finally, Opticon won best network device for releasing the Opticon H19, a new rugged smartphone for outdoor work. Too bad the guys at WebMessenger didn’t make the cut, but we’re sure they’ve got some good stuff lined up for WES.
Posted on April 7, 2008, at 7:33 am .
BlackBerrySync got the scoop on Sprint-Nextel CEO Dan Hesse’s speech at CTIA, where he said they’ll be replacing the iDEN-capable 7100i with a new BlackBerry equipped with iDEN and Wi-Fi. Though they’ve been on the ball with other BlackBerry releases, iDEN-capable phones have been pushed to the wayside. The 7100i was originally released way, way back in October of 2005. Push-To-Talk features — which is what iDEN does best — aren’t exactly deal-breakers to most people, I know, but two and a half years between releases seems a little excessive. There’s no word yet on what model they’ll be replacing it with, so we’ll have to wait on the details.
Posted on April 4, 2008, at 5:24 pm .
BBCool ushers in April with some CTIA news, most notably the announcement of the CDMA Curve across Verizon, Sprint and Telus. We also peep fresh developments in India, RIM’s latest quarterly results, and talk with fine folks from SimulScribe and Pinger. We’ve got all the colours of the audio rainbow: iTunes, MP3 and feeds.
Posted on April 4, 2008, at 8:27 am .
Zumobi, a slick new content delivery platform for mobile, won the Consumer Mobile Widgets award at CTIA Wireless, which wrapped up just yesterday. If you haven’t seen it, Zumobi offers 16 zoomable content tiles that you can arrange, swap and transfer from your mobile. A BlackBerry client should be along soon, so keep your eye on these guys.
Posted on April 3, 2008, at 10:03 am .
T-MobileEngadget picked up on some interesting commentary from AT&T Mobility’s Ralph de la Vega at CTIA. After being confronted with the distinct lack of 3G BlackBerrys, Ralph shot back that that all smartphones would be boasting 3G in “months”. Yeah, it’s pretty much locked in that the BlackBerry 9000 will be packing HSDPA, but there are still plenty of other BlackBerrys, let alone smartphones, that have yet to receive the royal treatment. Either it’s a hint of things to come, or de la Vega is causing his PR people some serious blood pressure issues.
Posted on April 2, 2008, at 8:21 am .
AT&T has teamed up with TeleNav to launch a branded GPS service on a wide range of smartphones. It comes with everything you’ve come to expect from a GPS suite: written and spoken direction, access to points of interest, even gas prices and traffic information. Uniquely to BlackBerrys, speech recognition is also available, allowing you speak the name of a business or address for turn-by-turn directions. The whole thing comes with a $9.99/month price tag, and is available on the 8310, 8800 and 8820. They’ll be demoing the whole deal in booth #3428 at CTIA, so give us some impressions if you get a chance to check it out.
Posted on April 2, 2008, at 8:19 am .
It looks like Verizon and Sprint aren’t the only ones getting the CDMA Curve – a teaser site shows the Telus version coming “soon”, complete with GPS and preloaded with the recently-gone-platinum Facebook app, and Pocket Express. It’s possible Telus’ Curve will be like Verizon’s and come out in May (possibly WES?), and for that matter, Sprint’s 8330 has yet to show up in their online store, either. Regardless, it’s good to see Canada’s CDMA carrier getting some device love too, and with any luck Telus will get some nice colours for it just like the Pearl. We still got two more days of CTIA in front of us, so stick around!
