Blackberry Lovers

BlackBerry Users switching to other phones

Sunny — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 07:00:23 +0000

There have been a lot of surveys and research on Research in Motion's BlackBerry. Many agencies, like Nielsen Co, NDP Group and a few more, have clearly suggested and proved that many people who are presently using BlackBerry phones show an interest in moving or migrating to other platforms, obviously enough to iPhone and Android devices. Most of the BlackBerry users have already moved on to these rival platforms making themselves formar BlackBerry users.

What can be the reason for this paradigm shift? BlackBerry has been losing grounds on different issues recently, this is a known fact. Countries are moving forward to an extent of even banning the company's services in their countries. Research in Motion has seen a worth while dip in its market share and stock market. To make it up to this, the company has started buying other app companies which are popular and best selling apps for the BlackBerry phones. This can be a move to make these apps exclusive to BlackBerry so that users will start buying the phone at least for the reason that those apps are not available for other platforms.

It is yet to see how BlackBerry users are going to react to this new acquisition and stuffs being made by the company.

RIM acquires Documents To Go and DataViz

Sunny — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 06:00:57 +0000

There is a rumor flying around the internet that Research in Motion (RIM) has acquired Documents To Go and DataViz. It is assumed that Research in Motion has made this acquisition to provide its BlackBerry customers with a free version of Documents To Go on its phones.

For those of you who dont know, Documents To Go is an app for the BlackBerry phones which lets you open Microsoft Office documents easily and edit them with ease. The app is very popular one of the best selling apps on the BlackBerry App World. There is no firm details about the amount of money that RIM has used to acquire the company, but the rumors on the internet say, about $50 million.

It is known that DataViz had canceled its development of the Documents To Go app for the Palm's WebOS. So does this mean that it is going to become an exclusive app for the BlackBerry phones? The employees of DataViz have, reportedly, already changed their employer to BlackBerry on their LinkedIn profiles. So what does this mean?

It is also said that Research in Motion has also acquired another company, Cellmania. This is supposed to be done for delivering the apps more easily to the customers. We may see BlackBerry doing what ever it takes to get up those market share.

BlackBerry app review: Voice On The Go

Sunny — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:00:55 +0000

Voice On The Go is a cool app for your BlackBerry phones. The app is a very useful app, but at the same time, it also fun to use the app. The app makes your work so easy, you just have to speak into the phone. This is both easy and fun, right?

So what is this app actually? You can send and reply to your emails, sms, mms or anything with this app by just speaking into the app. You can even update your Facebook status, or send tweets with Twitter, all by just speaking into your phone. With this app, you even get 100 minutes of free long distance calls. But you get this only if you are in North America.

The app will also read out your calendar entries and also lets you create new calendar entries. The app supports up to four email accounts. So its pretty much a complete hands off solution package for your phone. The app supports English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch.

You can buy Voice On The Go for your BlackBerry phone from Handango for $49.99 per year. You can download it here. If the link doesn't work, click here to download.

BlackBerry game review: Marble Manic

Sunny — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 07:00:05 +0000

Remember the days when you were playing marble shooting games with your friends. Now you dont, due to lack of time and your busy life. But dont worry, if you are a BlackBerry person. Here is a game that will remind you of the olden days. Marble Manic is a marble shooting game for you BlackBerry phone. The game is very addictive and has good graphics. There are different modes of playing, four game modes actually. And you will get four bonus rounds if you do well. These are mini golf, invasion, darts, etc.

You can get your score online on the company's server and keep track of it, flaunt it and stuffs. You can compete with friends remotely with this online score keeping facility. The needs quick reflexes and your mind should be working quicker than usual. A very good stress relief game as well.

You can buy Marble Manic for your BlackBerry phone from Handango for $8.95. Buy it from here. There is an offer for this. If you buy Jeweriumbie 2 with the game, you will have to pay just $13.42 for both the games. You can buy the game(s) from here as well.

Indian Government asks more from RIM

Sunny — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 11:47:29 +0000

The security agencies in India have already started putting to test BlackBerry’s messenger service. But now, its maker Research In Motion (RIM) has been asked by India to provide technical solution to intercept its enterprise mailing service, which provides a private virtual networking among a group of people.

Official sources said the BlackBerry has provided a technological facility of intercepting its Messenger service between two handsets after providing the Personal Index Number (PIN).

The security agencies were asking the intercepting provisions provided by the Canadian smart phone manufacturer. This provision is needed for intercepting BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). A detailed report on the same would be submitted to the Ministry of Home Affairs later.

The sources said that while some delay had been noticed in the getting the intercepts, the BlackBerry manufacturers had assured them of getting a real time intercepts with very less human interface once the cloud computing environment was put in place.

The Department of Telecom and the security agencies are now looking forward for a technical solution to be provided by the smart phone maker for intercepting the BlackBerry Enterprise Service under which a private virtual network is created within the server between a group of individuals who can exchange emails without getting intercepted, they said.

“There will be no discrimination. All networks operating in India will have to give access to their services to law enforcement agencies,” a senior Home Ministry official said.

Starbucks announced its app for BlackBerry

Sunny — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 09:00:39 +0000

Starbucks has announced their Starbucks Card Mobile App for BlackBerry phones. So now you can give your favorite coffee a touch of your favorite phone, BlackBerry. The app has the best features and the ones you would want. If you have an account with Starbucks, you are going to love this app. The app easily syncs with the Starbucks Cards and your My Starbucks Rewards. So now you can manage your account with ease and more conveniently.

The Starbucks Card Mobile app for BlackBerry lets you do the following things on your BlackBerry phone:

Check your Starbucks Card balance
Reload your Starbucks Card account with any major credit card – You can even set up automatic reloads when the balance gets low
Find nearby Starbucks stores with a worldwide store locator feature
Check your My Starbucks Rewards status
Experience mobile payment at Starbucks stores in more than 1,000 U.S. Target locations or in trial Starbucks stores in Seattle and Northern California.

The Startbucks Card Mobile App for BlackBerry is available here for download.

BlackBerry 8980 ‘Atlas’ with China Mobile Branding

Sunny — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 07:00:12 +0000

The mainland China has not yet seen the latest BlackBerry devices. But the local company China Mobile is bringing almost all the popular BlackBerry devices from the western countries to the mainland China. Chinese customers are in for a treat now. The mainland customers will soon be getting an upgrade for their Curve/Bold. The second generation Atlas is going to be released soon.

Recently, a BlackBerry Curve 8900 replica, the China Mobile Curve 8910 was released to the mainland China customers. This phone still had the trackball. There is no info about the sales. But very soon enough, there is going to be an upgrade for this phone in the area. China Mobile will be launching the Curve 8980 in a while. The China Mobile 8980 is almost the BlackBerry Bold 9700, but with a Curve keyboard and a plastic battery replacing the leather one. The specs of this phone will most probably be similar to that of the Bold 9700 with a 624 MHz processor, a 3.2 mega pixel camera and a 256 MB or RAM. This is also going to be China Mobile's first phone with a trackpad. The device will have WiFi support, but no 3G. Some of the images of the phone are given below.

RIM’s new flip phone to be called BlackBerry Style 9670

Sunny — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 12:11:00 +0000

You will probably have heard about the rumored BlackBerry flip phone, or technically, the clamshell phone. Till now, we only knew that the phone has been given the model number 9670, but we had no idea about the name. Now though, there is another rumor going around in the internet about the name of the device, in Style. This is because the new clamshell phone is expected to be named "BlackBerry Style 9670".

This is going to another new from Research in Motion after the very new BlackBerry Torch has been announced. BlackBerry Torch is also a new offering from RIM, with a capacitive touch screen and a slide out QWERTY keyboard. This here, the BlackBerry Style, is also a new offering. BlackBerry is trying hard to give a tough competition to the Android and the iOS. But is it yet to see what will really happy between these big players in an industry that they themselves have created.

Dubai Police Chief picturing BlackBerry phones as spy tools

Sunny — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 11:52:11 +0000

A new country is joining the list of countries which had and are still threatening the ban of BlackBerry services. Dubai is that country. And the Police Chief here has stated that the BlackBerry phones may be used as a spy tool in the country to spy on the people there. Like India and Saudi Arabia, Dubai has also given a dead line to RIM, Research in Motion, the maker of BlackBerry. The country has asked for access grants to encrypted data that is sent through the phone. Dubai is worried that the countries US and Israel may spy on Dubai using the devices made by RIM.

'Dubai's police chief, Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, said that fears of espionage and information sharing by foe Israel — as well as UAE allies United States and Britain — helped prompt the possible limits on the popular BlackBerry.

Tamim told a conference on information technology that the proposed BlackBerry curbs are also "meant to control false rumors and defamation of public figures due to the absence of surveillance," according to a story posted Friday on the website of the UAE newspaper Al-Khaleej.

It is yet to see what RIM will say as a reply to this and how the country's agencies will take that.

UN Chief says RIM should give access to encrypted data

Sunny — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:00:13 +0000

UN technology chief has said that the Canadian company, Research in Motion (RIM), the makers of BlackBerry, should grant access to the government agencies across the world to monitor data sent and received on their BlackBerry devices so that terror threats can be minimized to a great extent.

Hamadoun Toure, the secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Unit (ITU) said that the countries that are facing terror issues have the right to ask the access grant to the encrypted data of the BlackBerry phones, and that the phone manufacturer should do nothing but give full access to the data to make the world a better place to live. "Those are genuine requests," he told the AP news agency. "There is a need for co-operation between governments and the private sector on security issues."

India, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates are the countries that have previously threatened to block the services of the BlackBerry phones. Lebanon, Algeria and Indonesia have also raised the same security grounds to ask BlackBerry the access grant.

On the other hand, Civil rights activists have argued that the whole controversy is due to the government's lack of security and frustration over their inability to eavesdrop on BlackBerry using citizens. It is yet to see what BlackBerry will have to face in the future.