BlackBerry 10: new user interface, apps, and developer tools
RIM has fully unveiled its new operating system, BlackBerry 10, today at BlackBerry World 2012 in Orlando, Florida. The new OS isn't expected to be available on any consumer devices until later this year, but the company's given a quick demo that shows new widgets, a new touchscreen keyboard, and new gestures. Be sure to stay here for more information on the OS and the developer tools as we hear them.
AT&T to sell BlackBerry Z10 for $199.99 on March 22nd, pre-orders begin tomorrow
AT&T has just announced that it will offer the BlackBerry Z10 to customers on March 22nd for $199.99 with a two-year contract. The carrier plans to open up pre-orders tomorrow, March 12th. At $199.99, the BlackBerry 10-equipped phone will be going head-to-head with the iPhone 5 and top-end Android phones like the Galaxy S III. The price isn't a surprise, but some were hoping BlackBerry would attempt to woo customers with a lower price-point than the competition. Today's announcement matches...
Sprint confirms it won't offer the BlackBerry Z10, sticking solely with the Q10
Sprint has now confirmed that it will not be carrying the BlackBerry Z10, the first phone to run the new BlackBerry 10 operating system. Instead, the carrier will only offer the keyboard-equipped BlackBerry Q10. Mark Elliott, a spokesman for the carrier, told Bloomberg that "we aren’t saying there’s anything different about our customers... we think our customers will be happy with the QWERTY keyboard and touchscreen on the Q10."
The news was not wholly unexpected: Sprint drew a bit of...
BlackBerry Z10 review: a new life, or life support?
BlackBerry is about to enter the battle of its life, and as you'll see in my review of its new flagship phone, the Z10, it's using everything in its arsenal to win. Maybe win is the wrong word; perhaps victory for BlackBerry right now is something more like not losing everything. Because if you've been following this story, you know that everything is what's at stake.
The company is coming back into the game with force, that much is clear. Its new touchscreen smartphone is the serious...
BlackBerry World web store goes online with apps, videos, music, and more
RIM announced a sweeping overhaul of its online content offerings this week, and the new BlackBerry World storefront has just gone live. You're now able to see the selection of TV shows, movies, apps, music, and so on from the web store, giving a look at one aspect of what RIM will have to show the world at its make-or-break BlackBerry 10 unveiling later today.
Pricing seems to be in line with other services, and RIM has already said that content updates will be timely — movies will hit...
BlackBerry Z10 available on January 30th in the UK?
RIM let us know months ago that BlackBerry 10's coming out party would be this Wednesday in New York City, but we haven't known when the heavily-leaked BlackBerry Z10, the first device to run the company's new operating system, would be going on sale. A Vodafone UK employee has sent us an internal communication from the carrier that confirms the device will be available to order online at 5PM local time on Wednesday, January 30th, and that phones will be in-stock at all store locations by the...
Revamped BlackBerry World includes music, movies, and next-day TV shows for BlackBerry 10
RIM said last week that it renamed its app store to BlackBerry World (from BlackBerry App World) as it intended to add music and video offerings to the service for BlackBerry 10. The Waterloo-based company has now given us details on what sort of selection the store will offer: it has released a full list of music labels and movie studios it has made deals with to distribute on the storefront. There's little information on pricing or payment options, but users will be able to rent or download...
BlackBerry 10 exposed in full detail thanks to batch of leaked screenshots
We're just over a week away from RIM's big BlackBerry 10 launch event, and leaks of the new devices and operating system are coming fast and furious. The latest leak to hit the internet is a batch of 100 screenshots of the new BlackBerry 10 platform, posted by BGR. The images detail everything from the setup of a new BlackBerry 10 device, to the settings menus, to the new home screens, to RIM's Siri-like voice control system. Unfortunately, the leaked images don't give us any more clues as to...
RIM relaunches app store as 'BlackBerry World,' music and video content coming soon
RIM has today announced the rebranding of its BlackBerry App World as "BlackBerry World." With the new name comes an increased area of focus, specifically on music and video content, as previously teased last September. The beleaguered manufacturer made the change in preparation for the launch of its new OS, BlackBerry 10, later this month. It recently announced that it had amassed 15,000 BlackBerry 10 app submissions in just two days, and calls BlackBerry World "the one-stop shop for all of...
Unannounced BlackBerry Z10 shown on video: is this your next touchscreen phone?
The BlackBerry Z10, widely believed to be the name of RIM's first full-touch BlackBerry 10 device, hasn't yet been announced — that'll happen later this month at an event in New York on January 30th — but units and details are already leaking well in advance of that date. The latest comes from Austrian publication Telekom-Presse, which has posted a seven-and-a-half minute video of what appears to be the Z10's hardware and software in detail. RIM has been very deliberate in leaking a...
BlackBerry 10 sees 15,000 app submissions in less than two days
RIM will be facing an uphill battle when it does eventually launch BlackBerry 10, but the company is making sure it’ll have a healthy selection of apps from the get-go by incentivizing developers. RIM recently hosted two Port-a-Thon events to encourage developers to submit their games and general apps for BlackBerry 10, offering $100 for any app approved to the store. Naturally, the promise of cash seems to have worked: 15,000 apps were submitted over the course of 37.5 hours.
Money...
Sprint confirms that it too will carry BlackBerry 10 smartphones this year
Earlier this week, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and T-Mobile all confirmed that they will carry BlackBerry 10 smartphones at some point this year, and now Sprint has also thrown its hat into the BlackBerry 10 ring. The carrier confirmed in a statement to The Verge that it "plans to bring BlackBerry 10 devices to our customers later this year." Unfortunately, Sprint didn't say exactly when that will be or how many BlackBerry 10 smartphones it will carry. RIM has a major event planned for January...
RIM says it has the apps it needs for successful BlackBerry 10 launch
Three weeks.
That's how long until RIM officially launches its new BlackBerry 10 phones. One year ago, I explained why RIM had a long road to getting developers enthused enough to create apps for the new platform. The company has spent that year going down it, honing its developer message, offering $10,000 guarantees, posting insane videos to rally the troops, and launching zero BlackBerry 10 devices.
This year, as I sat down with RIM yet again to discuss the state of its app situation, my...
Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile all confirm they'll give BlackBerry 10 devices a chance
RIM's lost a lot of favor in the wireless industry over the last few years, and has a sizable hole to dig out of with BlackBerry 10. But it's going to get a chance to do so: Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T all confirmed to Reuters that they will offer BlackBerry 10 devices. From Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam's simple "we'll carry it" to T-Mobile chief John Legere's proclamation that "it's going to be a successful product," each made it clear than BlackBerry 10 will have a place on its shelves....
RIM will host its BlackBerry 10 launch event in New York City on January 30th
RIM already revealed back in November that it would be officially unveiling its BlackBerry 10 platform on January 30th of next year, and now the company has sent out media invites to an event in New York City for the official launch. RIM has not said specifically what it will announce with regards to devices, but the company has promised to announce both full-touch and QWERTY-equipped devices in the early part of next year. BlackBerry 10 represents a seismic shift in RIM's smartphone...
RIM CEO Thorsten Heins: 'we have this one shot with BlackBerry 10'
RIM CEO Thorsten Heins has spent the past week on a media blitz, speaking to multiple outlets about his plans for the BlackBerry 10 launch on January 30th. RIM will be missing the important holiday shopping season with that launch date, so it's no surprise to see Heins making the rounds. The good news for RIM is that Heins is a relatively open and candid CEO — especially compared to his predecessors — and not afraid to drop a hint or two about the company's future plans.
We sat down with...
BlackBerry 10 to have Facebook, Twitter apps at launch; app submissions begin October 10th
At the BlackBerry Jam Americas even today, RIM announced that it will have apps from the big four social networks for BlackBerry 10 at launch: Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and LinkedIn. The company demo'd the Facebook app, which was fully native on the platform, and it looked very similar to the iOS app — but it seems like it was developed by RIM itself instead of Facebook. Later in the keynote, Foursquare took the stage to demo its BlackBerry 10 app, which looks much more like a native...
Hands-on with the BlackBerry Dev Alpha B, is it the L-Series in disguise?
Alongside the announcement of another BlackBerry 10 SDK for developers, RIM also announced that it has created a second developer device it's calling "BlackBerry Dev Alpha B." RIM tells us that it simply ran out of the five to six thousand devices it originally created for developers and so needed to create new ones.
That's the official story, but there's another story hiding underneath the device's boxy exterior. Looking closely at the device, we can't help but notice that the outer casing...
BlackBerry 10 Beta 3 hands-on photos and video
RIM has just unveiled the latest iteration of the BlackBerry 10 operating system, set to be released on new devices early next year. We have finally gotten a look at the UI RIM will be shipping, and it's an interesting mix of user interaction metaphors we've seen on multiple devices to this point and a strong progression from the version of the software we first saw back in May.
We have separate a hands-on post with the Dev Alpha B hardware, but what you should know is that it's a simple...
RIM settles on BlackBerry 10 screen resolutions: 1280 x 720 and 720 x 720
BlackBerry 10 is still months and months away, but the first devices are nearly finished and the time to build apps is now — and to that end, RIM has just informed developers that the new operating system will target two screen resolutions. We'd previously heard that RIM is building just two types of BlackBerry 10 device to start, and today we know how many pixels they'll use. While the very first device will have a 1280 x 768 screen, a la the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha, subsequent phones will...
RIM revs up: a new QWERTY phone, new software, and new ambitions
In a meeting Tuesday in New York, Research In Motion CEO Thorsten Heins along with other executives discussed —and demoed — the future of the company.
It was a candid opportunity to hear Heins' plans for the future, discuss the challenges of the last few years, and see a first hand demo of the next iteration of BlackBerry phones. While the executives certainly have plenty of worries to focus on — like the fact that RIM stock prices have lost nearly 70 percent of their value in the last...
RIM confirms BlackBerry 10 'can be licensed' as it enters final stages of testing
In an interview with Bloomberg, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins has said that the BlackBerry 10 platform, now in its final stages of testing, may end up being licensed. Heins said that the company was looking at how it could be used by other companies, comparing it to BlackBerry 10's underlying QNX software, which is used by multiple industries. "QNX is already licensed across the automotive sector — we could do that with BB10 if we chose to," he says. "The platform can be licensed." This statement...
BlackBerry
RIM may need to license BlackBerry 10 to beat competition's 'economy of scale'
RIM CEO Thorsten Heins says that his company may need to license BlackBerry 10 in order to make the platform competitive. Heins told The Telegraph that "we don’t have the economy of scale to compete against the guys who crank out 60 handsets a year... To deliver BB10 we may need to look at licensing it to someone who can do this at a way better cost proposition than I can do it." Though he says RIM is still just investigating its options, it's apparently considering building and licensing a...
Apps & Software
New BlackBerry 10 SDKs released as App World goes live for Dev Alpha devices
Thanks to an update to the BlackBerry Dev Alpha software, developers can now submit BlackBerry 10 apps into BlackBerry App World. That will put them one step closer to earning the $10,000 RIM promised to every developer to builds a "certified" app for the platform. Once uploaded to the still-expanding store, other owners of a BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device will be able to try out the app. The announcement comes alongside the release of the latest BlackBerry 10 SDKs, which includes new push...
Alleged renders of BlackBerry 10 Colt device running Facebook app surface
Various codenames have been flying around the BlackBerry 10 project for quite some time, and Colt is one of the earlier examples — we heard about it as a QNX device way back in August, but then later got word that it may have been canceled after the eventual renaming of BBX to BlackBerry 10. All bets are off, then, as to what the leak of mockup images at N4BB alleging to show the Colt device running a Facebook app could mean.
The renders don't give away a lot of detail, but the device...
Mobile
BlackBerry 10 confirmed to get video chat in BBM
During RIM's annual shareholder conference today, CEO Thorsten Heins briefly confirmed that video chat support will be added to BlackBerry Messenger in the BlackBerry 10 platform debuting early next year. Screen shots from BlackBerry 10 — as leaked last month by CrackBerry — already suggested that video chat would play a prominent role in the company's next-gen communication suite, and now we've confirmed it. There's more, though, and Heins isn't tipping his entire hand; here's the full...
Mobile
BlackBerry 7 will continue until 'full portfolio' of BlackBerry 10 phones is available
At the company's annual shareholders' conference today, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins noted the company's strength in emerging markets with its entry-level BlackBerry 7 devices — the Curve line, for instance — which is a message he has delivered in the last two earnings calls as well. BlackBerry 10 will begin at the high end, though, with just a single full touch and QWERTY model launching around the same time in the calendar first quarter of 2013, so Heins says that the BlackBerry 7 line will...
BlackBerry
RIM reiterates BlackBerry 10 hardware plan: fewer devices, QWERTY and full touch models around the same time
On its rather somber fiscal Q1 2013 earnings call today, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins talked briefly about the plan for BlackBerry 10 hardware (which has now slipped to the first calendar quarter of 2013), noting again that there's no plan to abandon what he calls the "iconic" QWERTY form factor that helped propel the company to success in the last decade. He expects both QWERTY and full touch BlackBerry 10 models to launch in "close proximity" to one another, and it sounds like there might just be...
BlackBerry
Alleged BlackBerry 10 images show the next version of BBM
Yesterday N4BB revealed what appeared to be new specs for two upcoming BlackBerry phones, and today the site has what it claims are images of the BlackBarry 10 version of BlackBerry Messenger. Based on the images, which supposedly come from internal RIM slides, BBM appears to be very similar whether it's running on an all-touch or keyboard-based device. There isn't much in the way of details, though it does appear that the new BBM will let users customize the visual theme, with certain color...
Mobile
Blackberry 10 app tray revealed (updated)
RIM held back many of the details around BlackBerry 10 during BlackBerry World earlier this month — one of the most important of which was a very basic one: how do you launch apps? At a UK press event earlier today, RIM's Vivek Bhardwaj finally dropped that small detail. As we saw in our closer look at BlackBerry 10, the default homescreen is a set of "tiles" that represent a widget-like view of your recently used apps while you can swipe to the left to view the messaging app. As it turns...
Apps & Software
BlackBerry 10 screen sharing, video editor, and more hinted at by leaked presentation
Last week RIM CEO Thorsten Heins was getting excited about the new BlackBerry 10 interface, keyboard, and camera app at the BlackBerry World keynote. However, some slides leaked by CrackBerry Forums member biggulpseh hint at a number of other features still to be announced. The most notable is the OS's screen sharing ability, which allows you to show someone your screen during video chat, deliver presentations while on the move, or share anything else from your phone wherever you are. It's a...
Mobile
RIM stock price falls to eight-year low following BlackBerry 10 reveal
Two days ago, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins unveiled the new BlackBerry 10 platform, but investors don't seem impressed: today, the BlackBerry manufacturer's stock hit an eight-year low of $11.91 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Stock reached a high of $14.46 in anticipation of the BB10 reveal, but after Heins pulled out the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha handset and finished presenting his plans, the stock price has dropped like a staircase each day since.
It's not uncommon for stock prices to sink even...
BlackBerry
BlackBerry 10 devices with physical keyboards to get word-prediction technology
One of the highlights of today's BlackBerry World keynote was RIM's take on the touchscreen keyboard, complete with word prediction, the ability to automatically personalize key targets for "fat thumb" syndrome, and even (as TechCrunch reports) personal language analysis for better predictions. Those are all features that sound like SwiftKey to our minds, a hint borne out by the fact that CrackBerry discovered that the PlayBook's text prediction algorithm returns the names of SwiftKey...
BlackBerry
BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device won't receive official BB10 release, will be exchangable for official smartphone at launch
At today's BlackBerry Jam keynote sessions (a parallel conference to BlackBerry World this year), RIM announced that developers who create a BB10 app and turn in their BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha prototype will receive a "limited edition" final BB10 smartphone in exchange, reports CrackBerry on Twitter.
We spoke to RIM about the arrangement, which might seem strange given that developers will already have the Dev Alpha device. However, it turns out that this prototype will likely never receive...
BlackBerry
RIM guarantees developers will make $10,000 on their 'certified' BlackBerry 10 apps in first year
RIM has announced at its BlackBerry Jam keynote address in Orlando today that it'll be guaranteeing that developers will make at least $10,000 in sales of their BlackBerry 10 apps in the first year — if they don't, RIM will cut a check for the difference. It's a widely-held belief that developer participation in a mobile ecosystem is what ultimately makes or breaks it (which is why Microsoft has been incentivizing developers on Windows Phone in a variety of ways), but this takes it to a new...
BlackBerry
BlackBerry 10: a closer look (video)
We've taken a closer look at the UI elements revealed during RIM's BlackBerry World keynote and put together a video detailing the major new elements we've seen. Firstly and foremost, RIM is focusing heavily on gestures to move between and within apps. It's all about "flow," as CEO Thorsten Heins put it. While we don't know exactly what "flow" means for how the actual experience of using a BB10 phone, we can put together a good part of the story.
Mobile
BlackBerry 10 apps reveal the future of RIM's ecosystem
At the BlackBerry World keynote, RIM is currently giving its developer partners an unusually large portion of the spotlight to show off the apps they have built for BlackBerry 10, some in as little as ten days. The apps are designed to show a few things: how easy it is to port apps to BB10 from other platforms, how flexible RIM's developer tools are, and most importantly how the new Cascades framework gives developers a way to create apps that match the look and feel of BB10.
We'll update...
Mobile
BlackBerry 10 Cascades interface revealed, tools released to developers
RIM CEO Thorsten Heins just officially launched the "BlackBerry 10 Platform," or everything that makes up the development stack for BB10, including many architectural elements of the PlayBook OS. What's new is something that RIM has only hinted at before: Cascades and the Cascades UI.
"Cascades" is RIM's shorthand for a set of developer tools and resources for building apps that fit the look, feel, and interaction models of BB10. Developers can build apps using Cascades tools in either C/C++...
Mobile
BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha developer testing device hands-on impressions (update: video)
RIM may finally be ready to begin showing BlackBerry 10 to users, but right now the company has another priority: getting developers on board with the new platform. To that end, it's giving every developer at the BlackBerry Jam conference here in Orlando a phone, the "BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha developer testing device."
That mouthful of a name is actually descriptive of what this device is and what it is not. It's not a prototype, it's not a phone that will ever be released, and RIM wants to...
Mobile
BlackBerry 10 unveiled
At its BlackBerry World event in Orlando today, RIM pulled the wraps off BlackBerry 10, a thoroughly-revamped platform based on QNX that the company is hoping will bring it back into contention. Though it's been talking about BlackBerry 10 since last year (when it was known as BBX), this is the first time that RIM is getting into details about what we can expect when it debuts on retail devices later in 2012.
RIM's putting an emphasis on "glanceable" gestures in the platform, allowing the...
