Posted on April 18, 2012, at 4:23 PM .
There’s a trend we’ve noticed at festivals lately where BlackBerry support is being dropped. This hasn’t always been the case. For some festivals, there was a previous app and for the most recent year it’s completely absent. It’s not enough to say “well BlackBerry is on the downward swing in North America” because that doesn’t address the current market share. Many of these festivals have enourmous BlackBerry support. For example, Bluesfest happens in Ottawa, Canada, where there’s probably a larger BlackBerry userbase than iPhone. For some reason, the organizers of the festival have a misconception about BlackBerry and don’t feel like investing the resources. Why do we say it’s the organizers? Because the companies that make these apps have the resources and the developers to address the platform, so it seems the client isn’t requesting it (to their own detriment).
The Calgary Stampede is a great example of this. PurpleForge is the development company behind the Calgary Stampede iPhone app but there is no BlackBerry version available. It’s not like PurpleForge can’t do BlackBerry, its App World vendor account has 14 apps in App World, one of which is for the City of Calgary. The only explanation is that the client simply didn’t want it.
Continue reading ‘Why Are Some Major Canadian Festivals Ignoring Its BlackBerry Fans?’
Posted on March 12, 2012, at 2:40 PM .
SXSW (South By Southwest) Interactive is notorious for giving everything away free t-shirts, free food, free drinks, free apps, free, free, free. It’s practically your “right” as a show attendee that you shouldn’t have to spend money on anything; except maybe a pedal-cab ride. This year, however, it’s not the big new free app that’s capturing everyone’s attention, it’s money.
Everywhere you turn in Austin there’s another way to buy, sell, get a deal or somehow exchange payment. There have even been more than a handful of sessions on mobile payments. The speakers are claiming that “now” is the time for mobile payments to really take off. With options from gamified payments to payment within well-known apps to NFC, it could make your head spin. I haven’t honestly seen one super-standout app, but I’ve downloaded quite a few options to give them a try. And I’ve spoken to the others to find out what makes them tick.
Continue reading ‘In A World Of “Free”, Money Takes Center Stage At SXSW’
Posted on March 10, 2012, at 5:58 PM .
RIM is hosting a BlackBerry developer jam session for developers where you can meet BlackBerry experts and develop a killer app. BlackBerry devs are there to help you implement NFC in your app or help it go viral. Also, developers can bring their best app ideas and pitch it for a free BlackBerry PlayBook. There doesn’t seem to be any real restrictions, so even if your idea is “port my existing app” you’ll probably walk away with a free tablet. Android devs should definitely head over as the BlackBerry Jam Session is right near the Google Village too.
Continue reading ‘RIM Hosting BlackBerry Developer Jam Sessions at SXSW #BBJamSXSW’
Posted on February 23, 2012, at 11:14 AM .
Smarter Apps has just launched a beta version of its Google+ app for BlackBerry. One of the coolest features of the app is that it lets you automatically upload images to Google+ that you take with your camera. Generally, we don’t hear of many people using Google+ and it seems like a pretty lackluster social network, but perhaps this BlackBerry app will bring some new interest in the social network from #teamblackberry.
Continue reading ‘Smarter Apps Releases Google+ App for BlackBerry With Instant Photo Upload and More’
Posted on February 3, 2012, at 11:26 AM .
Sometimes it’s nice to get a break from the startup world. It seems Silicon Valley churns out the next “game changing” startup about once a month and the vast majority of these companies are a waste of everybody’s time. Take Kevin Rose’s Oink for example. It’s not a bad a idea, it’s just a waste of your time. No offence to Rose because Oink would be awesome if everyone in your city used it, but that’s incredibly unlikely. What’s more likely is that this idea will pivot about six times until it’s something very different than what it started, or the idea will simply fade into oblivion. In the meantime, if you’re an iPhone user and your friends are into trying every free app that hits the App Store, you will likely get bombarded with friend requests for each of these startups.
Continue reading ‘Sometimes It’s Great That Startups Ignore BlackBerry’
Posted on February 2, 2012, at 1:07 PM .
The BlackBerry Developer team has been working hard to get Android developers to port their apps to the BlackBerry PlayBook. Recently, Mint.com released its Android tablet app and we think this is a great time for the company to submit the app to App World. This makes a lot of sense considering many users have had trouble accessing the Mint.com site from a PlayBook, and BlackBerry’s “get it done” crowd loves a good finance app.
Continue reading ‘Dear Mint.com, Please Submit Your Android App to the PlayBook’
