Archive for the ‘Blackberry’ Category
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 |
Not only have Blackberry added new features like copy and paste to their handsets but they’re also going after Apple’s home turf with their own Application Centre. The new service will be launched on version 4.7 of the Blackberry OS (the OS on the Blackberry Storm).
The Application Centre is designed to function in pretty much the same way as Apple’s App Store; users can find, browse and install/upgrade 3rd party BlackBerry apps hosted by carriers. This means that the Application Center is effectively an interface between the user and the carriers application offerings. The interface will also provide users with a description and marketing information about each application.
The complete solution will consist of a device based application talking to backend sesrved hosted by RIM that the application will interact with to retrieve up to date application list of applications hosted by the carriers.
Application Centre Features
- Available on OS 4.7 Storm devices
- designed for the Storm touch screen UI
- Carriers will be responsible for hosting the application data and sending updates to the directory to RIM.
- Users will be shown a list of all install candidate applications based on the hanset model and OS version. Incompatible applications will not be displayed
- One click installation of applications
- Users can delete apps from within the App Centre
- Notifications on application status will be delivered through the interface i.e. last update of the app list, notification of application updates etc
- The Application Centre checks for updates daily.
There’s some debate over the actual launch date of Application Centre with some sites suggesting it may not even be available when the Blackberry Storm is launched. It’s either a case of the app not being ready or, more simply, may mean that RIM has done rather a good job of hiding the progress. Either way, the Blackberry Application Centre will no doubt be a massive hit with users - as long as the carriers keep the prices down.
images courtesy of crackberry.com
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Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 |
Research In Motion (RIM) today unveiled the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 smartphone, the first BlackBerry phone to come in the popular flip form factor (I have to admit, it’s a pretty sexy mobile).
With the BlackBerry Pearl Flip you get the traditional power and capabilities of a BlackBerry smartphone in a cool looking design. One quick flip of the handset opens up a world of possibilities with the industry’s leading mobile messaging solution and a wide range of impressive Internet and multimedia capabilities, all in one powerful yet approachable smartphone. The BlackBerry Pearl Flip features quad-band EDGE, weighing in at only 3.6 ounces and measuring approximately 3.9” x 1.9” x 0.7” with a 240 x 320 internal LCD display. The Pear Flip comes with all the usual Blackberry features: emails, text messages and phone calls - but you don’t have to open the handset to access the functions.
When you think about it, and considering recents figures showing a strong growth in sales by RIM I’d expect this new Blackberry to attract a lot of interest from the general consumer market.
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Monday, July 14th, 2008 |
For those of you that don’t know, Blackberry is soon to release a new handset; the Blackberry Thunder. There’s a live, hands-on photo of the new Blackberry handset (the link’s at the bottom of the article).
This device is aimed sqaurely at the iPhone market, as you’ll see when you look at the details below. But will it raise RIM’s sales? Well, seeing as we’re going gadget crazy I think the Thunder might just have large scale appeal
Let’s just take a look at what this new Blackberry hanset has to offer:
- Touchscreen display - the screen acts like a single, large button that depresses slightly and click when touched (a sort of confirmation that did actually use the touchscreen) .
- Full QWERTY and SureType entry - the handset can be used in landscape mode giving you a full-qwerty keypad. When used in portrait mode, text is entered on a SureType keyboard. Orientation can be changed at anytime (a bit like the iPhone).
- The glass screen features multi-touch - it’s rumoured that the Blackberry Thunder will utilise WebKit for it’s browser engine (just like the iPhone). This should give Blackberry Thunder users a solid web browsing experience.
Enough talk, you can check out the live images here.
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Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 |
It was only recently that RIM unveiled there latest smartphone; the Blackberry Bold. There are some significant improvements to the newest addition to the Blackberry range such as 3G HSDPA, better MS Office support and an improved screen resolution.
The Bold will also be the first Blackberry device to ship with OS 4.6 which brings a more attractive and improved range of features.
One of the most significant improvements on the Blackberry Bold is support for Microsoft Office docs. Sadly, previous versions had a surprisingly poor abilility to open and manipulate MS docs. Blackberry have finally got around to resolving this by shipping the Bold with Documents To Go - probably the best non-MS Office document tool. One word of warning before you rush out to buy this; you can open, edit and save Microsoft Office docs on the Blackberry Bold but not create them!
Another big improvement is the half VGA screen (the size is just fine for video calls) and the larger keyboard which makes typing messages easier than ever.
That’s all I have for you right now. I’ll do a full review soon.
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