BBM and foursquare Demo

One of the highlights for me this week at BlackBerry® World™ 2011 was having the opportunity to showcase some of the amazing work from developers starting to leverage the BBM social platform. Social networking application foursquare is one such example, and was demoed during the Tuesday General Session keynote by Senior Director of Developer Relations (and fellow Inside BlackBerry blogger) Mike Kirkup.

foursquare developers Pete and Jeff provide a great demonstration of the upcoming foursquare for BlackBerry smartphones app integration with BBM in the video above. If you want to learn more about developing with the BBM social platform, check out my Inside BlackBerry Developer’s Blog post, which has an extended interview with both Mike and Pete!

BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 Smartphones Full Touch Demo (VIDEO)

On Monday, we were excited to share with you our latest addition to the BlackBerry® Bold™ family – the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones, powered by the new BlackBerry 7 OS. Onsite at BlackBerry World 2011, I got the chance to speak with Product Managers Michael and Jason to take a deeper look at the hardware and software capabilities of these powerful new devices.

Post a comment and let us know what you think of the new BlackBerry Bold smartphones! If you’re looking for more info don’t forget to check out yesterday’s announcement post for the full scoop:

BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 Smartphones: BlackBerry 7 with a Bold Touch

Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet App Demo (VIDEO)

Hot on the heels of Monday’s Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook app announcement, I decided to catch up with our friend, fellow blogger and BlackBerry App World™ Project Manager, Alex Kinsella to show us the ins and outs of the new app. If you’ve got your BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet in hand, the app is available for download from BlackBerry App World right now!

Let us know what you think and feel free to post a comment if you have questions you’d like us to ask Alex! Don’t forget to check Monday’s post for more information:

New Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet App

Attention BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet owners and Facebook® users! It’s my pleasure to show you the Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook tablet app, which offers the most popular features and functionality of Facebook in a tablet-optimized experience.

The Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook tablet app will be showcased at the BlackBerry World™ 2011 conference and will become available for download from BlackBerry App World™ this week.

Let’s take a brief look at some of the key features of Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

Super Address Book for BlackBerry

Most people when they see such an app, they think it’s too superficial to buy or even download such an app in your BlackBerry and in some cases, they’re actually right but not in this case which is also the reason of why I picked this app to present you.

As you can see, this is just an Address Book for your BlackBerry but they actually called it the super address book – pro. Well, it’s PRO because it doesn’t have ads in it.

One of the biggest features of this app is that you can use some advanced search methods like searching by first name, last name, e-mail, phone number and so on. You can also search company name and professional titles from social profiles.

Another cool feature which is actually my favorite one is that you can scan all new e-mails, SMS or phone logs and it also creates profiles and adding contact info in real-time as they mentioned in the description. Some other little features like click-to-call can be found in this app too, you should just read the description they provided in the App World for further information.

This app costs $1.99 and you can get it from the App World.

Introducing BlackBerry Balance!

Today, we’re very excited to announce BlackBerry® Balance™ technology!

We’ve built BlackBerry Balance with everyone in your company in mind. Employees will be happy knowing they can carry the BlackBerry® smartphone that best suits their needs and personality; your Chief Risk Officer and IT admins will be relieved knowing that they can now secure business information on personal devices; and everyone will be more connected knowing that one device lets you access both personal and corporate data.

BlackBerry Balance is part of the BlackBerry® Enterprise Server 5.0.3 release and also BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express, and we see it as a major step forward for today’s IT managers who are responsible for BlackBerry smartphone deployments.

BlackBerry Partners Fund Launches the BlackBerry Developer Challenges for 2011

The BlackBerry® Partners Fund has just announced the launch of the BlackBerry® Developer Challenge for 2011 and has started accepting submissions for the first Competition! This year, there are three Competitions in total. Their purpose is to recognize, reward and celebrate innovation within the BlackBerry developer community. Similar to last year, each Competition will recognize winners in their respective regions, which will give developers the opportunity to stand out from one another with local content and language support.

The three Competitions are as follows:

Best Adobe Flash/Adobe AIR app for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet – now accepting submissions – click this link for the Official Rules
Most innovative BlackBerry® WebWorks™ app on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and BlackBerry® 6 (same app or companion app) – begins May 9, 2011
Most Addictive social app using the BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) Social Platform – beginning later this summer
New this year, in addition to the Competitions, the BlackBerry Partners Fund will be honouring applications in six categories to receive a Recognition Award. The recipients, which will be recognized regionally, will be selected in the following categories:

Best B2C app developed for a customer by an Agency or ISV
Most useful enterprise application (all technologies)
Best website conversion using the BlackBerry WebWorks platform
Most creative implementation of Super App characteristics
Top Performers – Most innovative use of Payment Service and/or Advertising Service
Academic – Most compelling app created by student or faculty
It’s exciting to note that across the three Competitions, there is approximately $3 million US in prizes available to be won. That’s almost double the value of last year’s prizing. This includes the incentive prizes that will be given out to the first 100 submissions in each Competition. Each incentive prize includes a free BlackBerry smartphone and a feature in the BlackBerry App World™ carousel for 1 week! Please click this link for the full terms and conditions.

To find out more details on the BlackBerry Developer Challenge and to submit your apps, visit the BlackBerry Partners Fund website and BlackBerry Developer Zone. I’m very much looking forward to seeing your apps submitted to the Competitions – happy building and good luck!

BlackBook for BlackBerry

Honestly, I have been looking for such an app for a long time and I’m quite glad I found one either that it doesn’t fit exactly my expectation including the thing that it’s not on the platform I want. Anyway, let’s not talk about that and concentrate a little more on the app itself.

If it happens to have other people using your phone and you’re quite afraid not to violate your privacy, you might want this app or any other app like this one on your phone.

You can hide your contacts and messages with this app so you will no longer have to be afraid of people violating your privacy. This could also help if you have a jealous partner. As they mention in the description, it’s so discreet that there’s no icon to launch it because someone might know how to turn this app off just by launching it but you have to type your custom launch-key on the keypad to make the BlackBook icon appear.

I think this is an awesome app and a must have for most of you but I think it should have had this feature available for photographs too. Anyway, you can buy it for $3.99 from the App World.

How to sync music, video, and photos with the BlackBerry PlayBook

Now that you have a new BlackBerry PlayBook™ tablet and you’re eager to load your favorite music, videos and photos from your BlackBerry® smartphone, PC or other devices, we want to point you to a powerful tool to make managing, transferring, and backing up files a snap: BlackBerry® Desktop Software. I had a chance earlier in the week to sit down with fellow Inside BlackBerry blogger Andrey about the latest version of BlackBerry Desktop Software and get a demo of how to sync media and create backups with the new BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. Check it out!

Here’s a quick checklist of some of the features BlackBerry Desktop Software offers for BlackBerry PlayBook tablet users:

BlackBerry PlayBook media sync (music/photos/videos)
BlackBerry PlayBook software updates notification with option to upgrade via USB
BlackBerry PlayBook device switch wizard to quickly transfer information (applications/media/settings/user data) between tablets
BlackBerry PlayBook backup and restore (applications/media/settings/user data), with automated backups and data encryption
CurrentBlackBerry Desktop Software users have already been notified of the updated version with BlackBerry PlayBook support. Those who missed the notification or haven’t used the software before can download it from our BlackBerry Desktop Software page.


Note: BlackBerry Desktop Software comes in both Mac and PC flavors. However, the Mac version of BlackBerry Desktop Software will not feature BlackBerry PlayBook tablet support at launch. Mac users can still move files to and from their BlackBerry PlayBook via USB or wireless transfer. Stay tuned for more info on an updated version of BlackBerry Desktop Software for Mac!

BlackBerry App World on BlackBerry PlayBook

For Team App World, the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet is the beginning of a brand new chapter in the story of the BlackBerry App World storefront. I wanted to take the time today to give you a rundown on a variety of BlackBerry App World related news.

The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet brings some significant changes to BlackBerry App World. First, there’s the brand spanking new BlackBerry App World storefront. Built using the BlackBerry® PlayBook SDK for Adobe® AIR®, BlackBerry App World is your gateway to an array of games and apps. It’s been great to see the catalog grow since we opened up app submissions for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet in December.

Each of these apps is built with either the Adobe AIR or BlackBerry WebWorks™ SDKs. We’ll soon be launching the new BlackBerry® Tablet OS Native SDK that will allow developers to build powerful and graphically rich apps for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. Two examples of apps built with the BlackBerry Tablet OS Native SDK actually come preloaded on your BlackBerry PlayBook: “Need for Speed: Undercover” and “Tetris” by Electronic Arts. Check out the below video to see Need for Speed in HD action!

Later this year, BlackBerry App World will be introducing support for Android® and BlackBerry® smartphone apps for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. You can read more about the app players and their benefits here!

Speaking of BlackBerry smartphone apps, I wanted to take a minute to talk about the apps you’ve previously downloaded or purchased on your BlackBerry smartphone and what will be available on your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. As you may know, the apps on your BlackBerry smartphone are written in a different language than what is supported on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet today. Because of this, not all of your smartphone apps are yet available for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

Blackberry 8520 - Vlingo app review

If you find yourself in situations where using a phone is very hard, well, you might have just found a solution for that problem. Yes, I think that in most of these cases you’re probably driving and for that situation, you will find many alternatives. Anyway, this is one alternative and you should consider if it’s really worth it or not.
This alternative is called Vlingo as you can also see in the title. They developers of this app are saying about it that it’s a virtual assistant and they’re right about that.

The best free features are that you can search the web using Google or Yahoo!, call a contact, update your Facebook or Twitter account or have your e-Mails or text massages read aloud via SafeReader.

Probably the best paid features that are a really must have is that you can send a text or e-Mail message to anyone. The example they gave us is “Text Sarah; running a few minutes late”. The other two paid features is that you can dictate text into any text box like BBM or Yahoo and you can also get your calendar reminders aloud via SafeReaderTM.

The app is free and you can get it from the App World.

BlackBerry Smartphone Simulators Overview

For all you hard-working developers out there, the BlackBerry® Smartphone Simulator is an essential tool: it enables you to run BlackBerry® smartphone applications on your computer. The BlackBerry Smartphone Simulator includes the BlackBerry native applications that are typically available on BlackBerry smartphones, and enables you to load and test your own applications. You can even simulate and test various connectivity and state changes – definitely useful when you’re trying out a new app! When you use the BlackBerry Smartphone Simulator to perform testing, you might need to simulate additional BlackBerry services; the BlackBerry® Email and MDS Services Simulator Package are available for this purpose.

In short, the BlackBerry Smartphone Simulator allows you simulate all the aspects of the BlackBerry smartphone including battery conditions, network conditions, SD Card, GPS capabilities and more. In this post, I will briefly describe how to simulate some of the functionalities of the BlackBerry smartphone. Before we go further, let’s quickly recap where you can find the latest BlackBerry Smartphone Simulators. All the most up-to-date BlackBerry simulators can be found at the BlackBerry Smartphone Simulators page under the Developer Resources section of the website. You can also head here for the complete instructions on installation details, and you can find more detailed information on the BlackBerry Smartphone Simulators at the BlackBerry Documentation site.

NFS Undercover Game Review

I was very surprised and glad to see that this game is now also available in the App World for BlackBerry because it was available for most of the mobile platforms excepting BlackBerry but as you can see, Electronic Arts made a version for this platform too but let’s fall deeper into the details and see if it is really worth the money.

I want to say from the very first beginning that the graphics of this game are very poor but there are still some people who appreciate its graphics but that’s probably because they have never ever used a better platform before. My opinion is that a BlackBerry game developer should only focus on making the game interesting and not with advanced graphics as most of them try to do and of course that they all fail because let’s face it, BlackBerry OS can’t be compared to iOS or even Android.

They also say that this game is very challenging but as one of the reviewers say, it’s not challenging at all so they were very wrong about that. Besides these things, the “story” of the game is very similar to the other versions from the other platforms. The game costs $1.99 and you can get it from the app world.

Alarms app for BlackBerry 8520 Curve

I am that kind of person who loves perfection and I can’t stand if there is mess in my room, in my desktop, in my phone or anything like this. Actually, I like to have everything organized so this app we’re going to talk would help all person like me.

Anyway, this app just lets you set multiple alarms and categorize them in a very nice way so as you can see, it’s not that special as you might have thought. You can set an alarm without this app too so you might be wondering why would someone want to buy such an app?
Well, as I said, it keeps your alarms organized and you also get the chance of managing these alarms through an awesome interface.
The only thing I hate about this interface is that the clock covers the RIM logo and it looks like there is a bug. If that logo wouldn’t have been there, this app would have looked like it was designed by elecite or some other good designers team.
It has 4/5 stars with 23 reviews which is quite a high rate but we should wait and see some other reviews too. The app costs $1.99 and you can get it from the app world.

Twitter for BlackBerry v1.1 Officially Released!

Today marks the official launch of the Twitter® for BlackBerry® smartphones v1.1 application. This version – which our helpful BlackBerry Beta Zone users have been testing over the past six weeks – includes several new and exciting features, like adding a location to your Tweets and Push @Mentions. (Please note v1.1 will become available for download in BlackBerry App World™ over the next 24 hours. If you don’t see it listed immediately, please keep checking back!)
A big shout out to everyone who participated in the beta and provided their valuable feedback! Since the release of the beta version, the Twitter app team at Research In Motion® (RIM®) has been busy working on some additional improvements in response to feedback raised during the beta.
Let’s take a look at some of the new features in more detail so you can start using them!

Tweet Location
By enabling this feature, you can pinpoint your location in a neighborhood and include it your Tweets. To try out this feature, complete the following steps:

1. Open Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones v1.1
2. Press the Menu key and select Options
3. Enable Add Location To Tweet and save your changes

After enabling this setting, you’ll notice a new compass icon that appears to the right of the photo icon below the Tweet box. To add your location, select this icon and your BlackBerry smartphone will determine where you are and add it to any new Tweets you submit. If you want to remove your location, simply select the icon again to disable this feature until you’re ready to use it again.
Viewing someone else’s location – if they have enabled this feature – is really easy too! All you need to do is select the location icon that appears in the bottom right corner of their tweet and a map view will open, allowing you to see where they were when they submitted that Tweet.

Other new features include Push @Mentions and #Topic Autocomplete, which were previously discussed in the Twitter v1.1 Beta post.
Refreshed Branding
We’ve made several changes to enhance the Twitter for BlackBerry smartphone experience, like updated graphics that reflect the new look of the Twitter brand and a streamlined layout of the Add Photo and Add Location icons on the Home screen.

Retweet Updates
The next time you Retweet something, it will appear in your Home timeline as ‘Retweeted by You’, to quickly alert you that your Retweet was sent successfully.
New language support
Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones now supports the following additional languages:

• Simplified Chinese
• Traditional Chinese
• Polish
• Czech
• Thai

We’ve also made several changes to address feedback that we received from BlackBerry Beta Zone users reported during the Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones v1.1 beta. One of the issues we’ve addressed is the “Unable to Find Location” error message that appeared whenever a user attempted to submit a new tweet. We’ve also made some changes to ensure that you don’t encounter any difficulties when attempting to shorten a URL you’d like to share, or that you don’t experience delays when opening the Twitter app on your BlackBerry smartphone.
We always welcome your feedback, so please post a comment and let us know what you think about the latest version of Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones!

Grow Baby Grow app for BlackBerry

I thought I should review an app which was released today and I did so. The app is called, as you can see, Grow Baby Grow and as its name says, this app allows you to make a journal for your baby.

BlackBerry App World Upgrade

Citizens of the BlackBerry® App World™ storefront! If you’re still using BlackBerry App World client version 1.1, this applies to you (everyone using BlackBerry App World version 2.0 and higher: check out this blog of puppies). Starting tonight, existing BlackBerry App World 1.1 users will be required to upgrade to the latest version of BlackBerry App World. This upgrade will affect only a small percentage of current BlackBerry App World users.

RIM’s expanded App Ecosystem: the benefits for customers and developers

BlackBerry PlayBook tablet

We recently announced plans to enable developers to leverage existing assets for the BlackBerry® Java® Development Environment and Android® platforms to be easily ported to the BlackBerry® Tablet OS via ‘application players’. The application player for supported Android apps will be available this summer, followed soon after by the application player for supported BlackBerry JDE apps. Both will be available through the BlackBerry App World™ storefront.

As a follow up to this announcement, I thought I’d devote a blog post to explain the benefits for our customers and developers. The bottom line is we continue to advance software technologies and other capabilities in order to offer the best platform for both users and developers.

What does this announcement mean for Customers?

For both consumer and business customers, this announcement reinforces our commitment to providing choice while bolstering our platform. Our customers will benefit from having access to highly optimized and integrated apps developed specifically for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet using BlackBerry tools, as well as a much bigger catalog of apps drawing from multiple other sources, such as the Adobe® Flash® and Adobe® AIR®, HTML5 and JavaScript® developer communities (as previously announced) – and now the Android developer community. And this is all being done through our BlackBerry App World storefront to manage the app discovery and download processes for consumers.

We are already hearing overwhelmingly positive customer feedback about the greater choice and flexibility that our broad approach will allow: the best apps built for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet coupled with the “long tail” of apps built for the above-mentioned BlackBerry JDE and Android platforms.

What does this mean for Developers?

For the majority of developers, the way to go is still the BlackBerry platform and the widened set of tools we’ve made available. Only these can ensure that the developer harnesses the full power of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet in terms of extremely rich graphics, full multitasking, and ultrafast processing. BlackBerry smartphone development options include the BlackBerry® WebWorks™ platform. BlackBerry WebWorks offers leading HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript support on a mobile platform. The BlackBerry WebWorks platform also supports modern web frameworks such as Sencha, PhoneGap, jQuery and Dojo.
BlackBerry PlayBook tablet development options currently include BlackBerry WebWorks as well as Adobe® (Flash® and AIR®).
RIM will add full tooling support for native C/C++ development for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet over the coming months. We’re highly confident about this. The QNX team RIM acquired to develop our BlackBerry Tablet OS has won awards for its Eclipse-based native Integrated Development Environment (“IDE”).

Because of the app players we’re providing, if there are developers currently developing for the Android platform, they can now rapidly move onto our platform while they evaluate our other development paths. We can now offer such developers an on-ramp to package and distribute their apps to our growing customer base of consumers, enterprises and governments.

Going forward, we will continue to evolve our various development technologies to deliver the most powerful, flexible and open experiences for developers whether they choose to build with HTML5, Java®, Adobe Flash, Adobe AIR, or native C/C++. And for those developers using our BlackBerry platform tools, we will continue to offer access to a growing set of on-device API’s to enable best-in-class integration with core BlackBerry applications and features (which we call “Super App” experiences). We are also planning to provide a range of advanced cloud-based services including the BlackBerry Payment and Advertising Services, advanced location-based services, application analytics, and powerful Push services. Stay tuned for more details on these future release plans.

Final Thoughts

We believe we are the most committed of any mobile platform to providing both our customers and developers with uncompromised solutions, characterized by offering choice, open standards and tools, and the opportunities to build and enjoy deeply integrated Super App experiences to take advantage of all that the BlackBerry platform has to offer.

We will continue to share more information in the coming weeks so that BlackBerry developers and customers can make informed choices. And stay tuned for more partner announcements along with some exciting details that we will share at the BlackBerry World™ conference in early May.

- Jim Tobin, SVP of the Software, Services & Enterprise Markets business unit at RIM

BlackBerry WebWorks Webcast Series wrap-up

Sincere thanks to everyone who joined us for the “Developing using the BlackBerry® WebWorks™ SDK” Webcast series. The recordings for each session of the webinar are available to access online. If you haven’t already done so, please schedule some time to set aside and watch them at your own convenience.

During this series, attendees were presented with a variety of topics, code samples and best practices. The goals of each of these sessions were to provide developers with new information they can use to build great applications for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet, as well as enabling them to share the knowledge they learn within their own development communities. Here’s an overview of what each webcast covered:

Webcast Part 1 – Getting Started: Discover the purpose and capabilities of the BlackBerry WebWorks platform. Learn how to setup your development environment and build a “Hello World” application. Understand how to configure and deploy applications to a BlackBerry® Tablet OS virtual machine.

Webcast Part 2 – My First App: Learn how to add visual enhancements and application functionality to your BlackBerry Tablet OS applications using BlackBerry WebWorks. Discover how easy it can be to leverage existing assets in constructing your application. Become more confident and efficient at using the development tools.

Webcast Part 3 – BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Integration: Understand what platform features and supported APIs exist that can be used to add functionality to your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet applications. Discover how to use the BlackBerry WebWorks JavaScript® APIs to integrate your application content with the underlying BlackBerry Tablet OS.

Webcast Part 4 – User Interface Guidelines and Best Practices: Learn how to design great BlackBerry PlayBook tablet applications that optimize the experience for your end users. Incorporate best practices and habits in your development processes to help reduce overall development and troubleshooting time of your BlackBerry WebWorks applications.

Start and Grow your Business with the BlackBerry Seminar Series

We’re entering the final stretch of our North American SmartBuilder Tour for small businesses and entrepreneurs. You can join us for a morning of interactive presentations, discussions and networking. Also, you’ll be able to enjoy a complimentary breakfast and listen to guest speakers share insights on BlackBerry® mobile solutions that will help make your business more efficient, responsive and productive.

Did we mention that registration is FREE? There will also be giveaways and attendees at each event can enter for a chance to win a new BlackBerry smartphone.* We’re excited to be bringing these three inspiring speakers to you: Ramon Ray, Brent Leary, and Patrick Schwerdtfeger.

Check out the Start and Grow your Business with the BlackBerry Seminar Series website and register your spot at the following cities:

Miami – April 5, 2011
Los Angeles – April 5, 2011
Atlanta – April 7, 2011
Washington – April 8, 2011
Orlando – April 12, 2011
Boston – April 13, 2011
Chicago – April 14, 2011
Denver – April 14, 2011
Houston – April 14, 2011
Las Vegas – April 15, 2011
Cincinnati – April 20, 2011

Hope to see you there!

BlackBerry Support Community Forums is Celebrating!

Today marks the 3rd birthday of the BlackBerry® Support Community Forums! While we started out solely as a support site, the Forums have successfully grown into the thriving, vibrant communities we see today.

It’s in honor of our birthday that we’d like to announce two awesome new initiatives: We’re getting a brand new look, and we’re launching the Forums in their own Spanish version at Foros de Soporte Comunitario BlackBerry. So not only are we adding some great new features and a cleaner, more modern look, we’re also adding whole new sites to accommodate our ongoing growth.

How to put a song on Blackberry WITHOUT a media card

You need a media card for pictures/videos/music - any media.
You could try hooking your phone up to your computer, and using Blackberry Desktop Manager. It has the music syncing option.

Wi-Fi vs 3G? Which one will my BlackBerrry Use?

I have a blackberry 8520 and was wondering, if I have my 3g(mobile network) on and i'am connected to Wi-Fi will it use the Wi-Fi instead of the 3G? I want to know because if i turn off mobile network(3G) then I cant receive texts, but i turn it off so i don't waste my GB of internet.

I found: It will use wifi where available. 3G otherwise.

Can you activate a BlackBerry onto and EXISTING Verizon line?

Yes you can do it for free as long as the blackberry is a verizon one.
You will probably need to call customer service 1-800-922-0204 since it is a different kind of data plan they have to use. You can still get the unlimited data for 29.99 but the blackberry uses a different plan code in the billing system. Just tell them you want to change your esn.

How do you get more contacts on blackberry messenger?

You need to give somebody your PIN, located in your Blackberry messenger profile. once they accept you, they are a contact, or vice versa

How do you get a Blackberry pin without a Blackberry?

Its simply impossible to get a Blackberry pin without a Blackberry. Thats the whole point of the phone, each phone has a pin just like each phone has a cellphone number. you use the pin to text,and bbm.

How to set up email signatures on your BlackBerry

A simple way to personalize email sent from your BlackBerry® smartphone is to customize the signature that is attached to the end of email messages sent from your BlackBerry. This feature is available for email accounts that are integrated with the BlackBerry® Internet Service and/or associated with a BlackBerry® Enterprise Server.
Today I’ll be showing you how you can customize your email signature, so grab your BlackBerry smartphone and let’s get started!

Before we begin, you might be wondering if you are using the BlackBerry Internet Service, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, or both on your BlackBerry smartphone. Here’s how you can determine what type of email integration you are using on your BlackBerry smartphone (don’t forget it’s possible that you might be using both options, like me). You’ll need to know which version of BlackBerry® Device Software you are using to do this. If you don’t know, check out this knowledge base article.
How to identify if you have a BlackBerry Internet Service-integrated email address

If you are using BlackBerry Device Software 4.2 to 5.0:
1. On the home screen, select Email Settings – this icon may appear in the Setup folder
2. If required, log in to access your BlackBerry Internet Service account

Brain Cube for BlackBerry

Brain Cube for BlackBerry

I have to say that I’m very surprised to see where this game has reached. I don’t know if you noticed this but this is in the first place in the top paid apps which is amazing.

This game has been developed by the guys from XIMAD and they sent me some screenshots and a press release. We actually keep in touch with them and every time they launch a new app, they are telling us through e-mails.

When they told me about this game and I saw it, I was sure that this was going to be one of the best games for BlackBerry ever and I was wrong, it isn’t one of the bests, it is the best.

As you can see, its name is Brain Cube and this is that kind of puzzle game that gets you very addicted to it. You won’t have peace until you finish that tricky level and then you won’t have peace until you finish the whole game.

I also noticed the graphics in this game which are amazing. They also put in some very good colors making this game to look so good.

You can get this game for $0.99 from the App World.

RIM Welcomes tinyHippos!

Today we are pleased to announce that tinyHippos has joined Research In Motion (RIM). We’re excited that the tinyHippos team is joining the BlackBerry Developer team and bringing their expertise in cross-platform emulation environments to the BlackBerry platform.

tinyHippos are the makers of a mobile environment emulator called Ripple and have extensive experience in web and mobile widget/web development. If you are not already familiar with them you can find out more about tinyHippos at http://tinyhippos.com/.

BlackBerry World – Networking, anyone?

Our attendees tell us that one of the most valuable aspects of our BlackBerry® conferences is the networking they do with other BlackBerry platform customers and partners. At BlackBerry World™ 2011, you’ll find many informal opportunities to network with your fellow attendees – over breakfast or lunch, while you’re waiting for a breakout session to begin, on the shuttle buses between hotels, or while you’re grabbing a coffee at the Dev Lounge. You’ll also be able to participate in a few planned activities designed to help you connect with our sponsor partners and your peers.

How to send videos using your BlackBerry

Have you ever captured something awesome on the video camera of your BlackBerry® smartphone and wanted to share it with others? Maybe you caught some footage of your dog chasing its own tail, or your friend’s funny celebration after scoring a goal during a football game. Today I’d like to provide an overview of the various options available to you when you decide to share these videos with your friends and family.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to capture a video on your BlackBerry smartphone, let’s go through the steps now, so that you can try out the sharing options.

To capture a video on your BlackBerry smartphone, select the Video Camera icon – which can be found within the Media folder – and tap the Record button that appears in the middle of the screen to start recording. You can zoom in and out by swiping up and down on the trackpad/ball, as well as toggling the video lighting feature on and off by tapping the spacebar. After capturing your video, press the Menu key and select Rename; this function will allow you to pick a new name for your video.

It’s easy to share your new video with your family and friends after you’ve finished capturing it on your device – all you need to do is select the Mail Envelope icon labeled Send. After you select this option, you will be presented with a list of ways you can send this video to your contacts.

You can also send a previously captured video to your contacts. To do this, select the Videos option that appears in the Media folder. Highlight the video you would like to share, and select Send from the Menu. After you select this option, you will be presented with a list of ways in which you can send the video to your contacts.

As mentioned earlier, when you select the Send option, several methods to share the video are presented to you. Here are some of the options I use the most.

• Upload to YouTube® – This option will allow you to upload your video to the YouTube website. During the upload process, you’ll be able to specify broadcast options in addition to specifying other important information, such as tags and which category the video should appear in. (Prior to uploading your video to YouTube, please read the terms and conditions which apply to uploading videos to YouTube.)

Email – This option will allow you to attach your video file in 3GP format to a new email message . If you have multiple email addresses integrated within your BlackBerry smartphone, change the Send Using field to the email address that you would like to send the new email message from.

• Messenger Contact – This option will allow you to send the video and description of the video to a contact within BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™). The BlackBerry Messenger contact will be given the option to accept or decline the video transfer.

• Bluetooth® – If you are paired with another BlackBerry smartphone using Bluetooth, you can transfer the video file over the Bluetooth connection. For more information on how to use this feature, check out an overview of the Bluetooth feature contained in the following knowledge base article: “Transfer a file using Bluetooth technology between two BlackBerry smartphones.”

Now that you are aware of the various methods of sharing a video, pick one and try it out with a friend. Depending how you share videos, you might incur additional charges from your wireless provider. Contact you’re your wireless provider to confirm the details of your data plan before sharing any videos if you are unsure.

If you have any questions about sharing videos, leave a comment and let me know!

Don’t forget to the visit the BlackBerry Support Community Forums and say hi to @BlackBerryHelp on Twitter®.

Sencha Touch Web Framework with BlackBerry Support Launched

At BlackBerry® DEVCON 2010, we were honored to have the CEO of Sencha, Abe Elias, join us on stage during the keynote to showcase their new CSS3 tool: Sencha Animator. As part of our work with the great folks at Sencha, they pledged to bring the Sencha Touch framework to the BlackBerry platform.

I am very pleased to announce today that Sencha has released an update to their Sencha Touch framework that brings support for the BlackBerry® 6 operating system. For those unfamiliar with Sencha Touch, it is an impressive web framework based entirely on HTML5, CSS and JavaScript® that is designed to bring an incredibly powerful set of components to help create web apps that look and feel like native applications. The Sencha Touch 1.1 release today not only brings support for BlackBerry 6-enabled touch devices such as the BlackBerry® Torch™ 9800 smartphone, but it also supports the upcoming BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet.

BlackBerry Shift theme

BlackBerry Shift theme
This is one of the most recent themes released by elecite. As you might know, elecite is continuing working on BlackBerry themes and from time to time, they release a theme who shocks everyone. Well, they did it again.

Introducing SmartBuilder – Helping You Start or Grow Your Small Business!

One of our passions here at Research In Motion® (RIM®) is helping small and medium-sized businesses start and grow everyday – and we’re serious about it!

One of the tools we’re really excited about is SmartBuilder for BlackBerry®. SmartBuilder will ask you 8 questions about your business and your goals, and will provide you with a recommendation on a possible mobile solution, including devices, accessories and apps! Let us know if you’d like us to connect with you for more details, or follow up with your usual wireless provider. SmartBuilder for BlackBerry helps reduce the research cycles around mobility, so you can focus on doing business. We’re also out looking for your feedback on the BlackBerry platform and hearing about your business – and how mobility is working for you. Let us know in the comments below.

Also, in order to provide additional help to those in the business sector, we’re out on a ten-week “SmartBuilder” tour across the US, talking to entrepreneurs, business owners and their teams about the BlackBerry solution and the tools that are available to them. We might be in your city soon, so check out our SmartBuilder tour dates and come see our awesome tour vehicle!

Hopefully, we’ll see you at an event soon! You can follow along on Twitter® at @BlackBerry4Biz to get updates on the tour.

First Look: Facebook on BlackBerry PlayBook Web Browser - Allows Facebook Chat and Uploading of Photos from Camera App!

I have had quite a few opportunities to go briefly hands-on with the BlackBerry PlayBook now, but for some reason always forget to login to Facebook and see what it loads like on the PlayBook's webkit browser. This time I remembered, and as you'll see in the video above recoreded at CTIA 2011 it really is the FULL Facebook.com that loads. We're talking Facebook Chat and everything.

BlackBerry PlayBook Native Weather App First Look!

Following up our look at the native calculator app on the BlackBerry PlayBook at CTIA 2011, we jumped into the new native weather app that will launch on the device. Powered by Accuweather, the weather app is nice and clean and smooth and simple to use. Pick your city, and flick through the weather. It's as easy as that. Check out the video above to see it in action!

BlackBerry PlayBook Native Clock App First Look!

Following up on our CTIA 2011 quick looks at the BlackBerry PlayBook's native calculator and weather apps, next we dive into the PlayBook's native clock application. Tapping open the app there's a sense of recognition of the clock app as it is on BlackBerry Smartphones running OS 4.6 or greater (the black background, etc.), but from there you quickly realize this app has been seriously overhauled. Instead of being hidden behind the menu key, the Timer and StopWatch sub-apps are found easily on the main clock screen. And one feature that I REALLY love is the ability to create multiple clocks (different time zones, etc.)  and set multiple alarms. Very cool and very handy.

BlackBerry Playbook Calculator First Look!

BlackBerry Playbook Calculator

I'm down in Orlando at CTIA 2011, and while it's a pretty quiet show for BlackBerry. I did get to spend some time with the BlackBerry PlayBook and caught a gander of some of the native apps that are polishing up nicely as we near the PlayBook's launch.

How to change BlackBerry Curve 8520 picture quality

How to change BlackBerry Curve 8520 picture quality and size. you can optimize BlackBerry Curve 8520 camera to change picture quality.

To change BlackBerry Curve 8520 picture quality: Press the BlackBerry key > select Camera > Press the BlackBerry key, select Options > select Picture Quality > select Superfine, Fine or Normal, press the Trackpad.

To change BlackBerry Curve 8520 picture size: Press the BlackBerry key > select Camera > Press the BlackBerry key, select Options > select Pictur Size> select setting you want > Press the BlackBerry key, select Save

How to reset BlackBerry Curve 8520 to factory settings

How to reset BlackBerry Curve 8520 to factory settings.The fastest way to reset your BlackBerry Curve 8520 back to factory settings is to peform a security wipe. it will result in the loss of all user data! It is recommended to perform a backup of the BlackBerry 8520 data. .

How to reset BlackBerry Curve 8520 to factory settings:

Press the BlackBerry key, Go To Options > Security Options > General Settings > Menu > Wipe Handheld > Scroll to Continue, press the Trackpad. it will reset your BlackBerry 8520 quickly.

Blackberry 8520 Themes: Apple

Here’s an Apple inspired theme for the 8520. Download OTA

Blackberry 8520 Themes: Minnie Mouse

Here’s another great Disney Minnie Mouse Blackberry Theme for the 8520.
Download Minnie Mouse Theme OTA

Blackberry 8520 Themes: Spiderman

Download this great Spiderman Blackberry 8520 Theme.  Download OTA 5.0

Blackberry 8520 Themes: NFL Steelers

Pittsburgh Steelers NFL Blackberry 8520 Theme; download OTA

BlackBerry Curve 8520 - Trackkpad

Trackpad
Access the things that are important to you quickly and easily using the new trackpad. Based on optical technology, the trackpad helps you easily scroll through the information you need, with an experience similar to the trackpad on a laptop computer. A subtle press and click allows you to select the item and get you to where you are going.

BlackBerry Curve 8520 - Review

The good: The RIM BlackBerry Curve 8520 features a responsive optical trackpad and dedicated media controls. The smartphone also offers Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a 2-megapixel camera, and good call quality.

The bad: Lacks 3G support and GPS. You can only save downloaded apps to the phone's main memory.

The bottom line: The RIM BlackBerry Curve 8520 is a sleek entry-level smartphone that delivers some nice design enhancements and great performance. While available directly from T-Mobile, Wal-Mart offers the better value on the smartphone.

T-Mobile is getting a bevy of smartphones this summer, and we're happy to see it (as are T-Mobile customers, we're sure). The carrier has recently launched the T-Mobile Dash 3G and the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G, and the HTC Touch Pro2 is just around the corner. All three are sure to please mobile professionals and gadget heads, but what about those making their first foray into smartphones? Enter the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8520.

As an entry-level smartphone, the Curve 8520 lacks some of the bells and whistles of the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8900, such as GPS and a high-resolution screen, but it delivers on the core features and offers great performance. In addition, the smartphone features a sleek design that includes a new optical trackpad and dedicated media controls. That said, T-Mobile's price of $129.99 (with a two-year contract) isn't the most compelling, especially when you consider that for $20 more you can get the extra features of the Curve 8900. However, Wal-Mart is offering the BlackBerry Curve 8520 for just $48.88 with a two-year new agreement or qualified upgrade, which makes it quite a steal. Hopefully, T-Mobile will reconsider its pricing but for now, if you can get yourself to a Wal-Mart, the Curve 8520 is a great device for first-time smartphone buyers.