Yet another twitter & facebook update is in Beta for BlackBerry SmartPhones with more new features.

Showing the commitment social media companies have to BlackBerry, this latest release  of twitter sees an updates screen, with a much improved content-rich detail screen, giving you more info, geotagging, easier to follow conversations and more.

The ability to undo a Retweet, right to left language support and additional languages, including Finnish, Arabic and Hebrew.

facebook 3.1 for BlackBerry comes with Group support, a long awaited feature, liking comments and child protection support, something with is more and more on the agenda for parents with the ever increasing numbers of children using BlackBerry SmartPhones.

Comment Liking Features:

• Ability to like/unlike each comment from within the comment screen
• If a user likes/unlikes a comment, an outgoing notification is populated in their notification list
• News Feed like rendering
• If someone has liked my comment, the current user will be notified through pre-fetching or background polling.
• The likes list allows users to see the Facebook users who have liked a post
• Split of the single comments and likes field in details screen, to separate comments and likes fields. Comment count is not focusable in details screen.
• Ability to open likes list screen from posts, photo posts, and comments by clicking on likes field
• Up to 25 likes are retrieved
• Ability to click on a user in a likes list screen and view the user’s profile
• Ability to view menu options of each user in likes list
• Removal of detailed like names from details screen

Group Feature Breakdown:

• Opening a group notification will open the group screen
• Group screen will display the group name, privacy, wall, and description.
• Users’ can write on the group wall, comment, and like group posts.
• Group List Screen: From the navigation grid, the Group List screen is opened when a user clicks on the Groups icon. The Group List screen will contain a list of groups the user is a member of, according the bookmark order specified by Facebook. Each group will contain a profile photo and the group name.
• Group Screen: From the Group List screen, or from a Group notification, a user can open the Group screen. The Group screen will show the group profile photo, group name, and privacy settings. A user can see the group wall, and post text messages to the wall. A user can see the group description, and also open the Group Members screen.
• Group Members Screen: From the Group screen, a user can open the Group Members screen. The Group Members screen will show a list of members of the group in alphabetical order

This article is copyright © 2012 Mike Bowers.

o2 Travel spells out great news for any business mobile users who user their devices abroad.

For £1.66 ex vat, business mobile users will get up to 25MB per day, for calls they have a connection charge of just 42p, for all calls made and received in Europe.  They can then user their UK minutes allowance, along with having any received calls being free, up to 60 minutes.

What does this mean for our business mobile clients?
Eligible customers can now be in control of their roaming costs.

Making calls
Every outbound call will incur a connection fee of 42p ex VAT. After that customers are free to use their mobile like they do at home in the UK, with calls coming out of their inclusive minutes up to 60 minutes per call. After 60 minutes calls are charged at 30p ex VAT per minute.

Receiving calls
After the 42p ex VAT connection charge, received calls are free up to 60 minutes.

Data allowances and costs
When it comes to data, customers will now know that if they connect they will be charged £1.66 per day. This is for 25MB of data. We’ll send customers an alert when they reach this allowance.

Other charges

• Calls back to the UK and within Europe outside of bundled allowance – 30p per minute
• For each call that lasts more than 60 minutes, customers will be charged 30p per minute from the 60th minute onwards. This is charged in per second increments
• Texts sent to the UK and Europe – 9p (free to receive)

Who can have O2 Travel?
O2 Travel will be available to SMB customers on tariffs with domestic voice bundles.
O2 Travel is not available for customers without domestic call bundles e.g. B4B PAYU, Mobex, Mobile Broadband, iPad & Data Only Tariffs.

How can I get O2 Travel?
To benefit the most customers, we want to make sign-up as easy as possible. Eligible customers will have the opportunity to choose either our standard roaming rate or O2 Travel.

I currently have a monthly recurring roaming bolt on, can I also add O2 Travel to the account?
If customers have one of our recurring roaming bolt Ons, then they will not be able to get O2 Travel until this Bolt On is removed. These Bolt Ons are My Europe Extra, Chosen Country Spain, Ireland Bolt On. Customers with the Blackberry Daily or Monthly Roam service will also need to remove the service before moving to O2 Travel.

Where can I get more information?
Further information on O2 Travel will be announced in the next few weeks.

This article is copyright © 2012 Mike Bowers.

Everyone knows that BlackBerry business mobile devices are smart and secure, but having the ability to take remote control of your car..!

BlackBerry app developers Bluelink have done just that for the business mobile SmartPhone manufacturer. Working initially with Hyundai, but now with Cadillac, Chevrolet, Buick and GMC, allowing access to features such as remote start, unlocking your doors, activating lights and your horn.

All sounds a bit futuristic, but this technology has been around from Clifford for over 20 years, the fact it has taken this long to become available as an aftermarket app, is no doubt down to the speed at which the car industry moves, which typically is slow.

What is really cool is some of the advanced features that this app brings with it; such as finding an address in your contacts or calender then sending it directly to your OnStar Turn-by-Turn navigation system.  Also whilst not driving, view real time fuel info, including range, mpg and what’s left in the tank.  Odometer, oil levels, tyre pressure and service records are all going to be delivered to the users business mobile device, giving an unprecedented level of connectivity never seen before.

Needless to say at present some of the above features mentioned are only available with an OnStar subscription and available with the above mentioned cars in the US.  But with BlackBerry 10 around the corner and the fierce competition in the motor industry, no doubt this will kick start some of the sleeping giants into action.

With the QNX software already being in manufacturers such as Mercedes, Porsche, BMW and Jaguar, no doubt BlackBerry themselves will be speaking with these to develop their own offering.  So with NFC and the ability to access your car, home and office from your business mobile device, these micro computers are becoming more and more integrated into our lives.

This article is copyright © 2012 Mike Bowers.

After you’ve given in and presented a BlackBerry SmartPhone to the kids, what now!

How do you make sure they are using their new BlackBerry SmartPhone safely and appropriately for their age?  By using the built in parental controls of course, so read on and discover how you can set limits on what features or services your child has access to.

 In the latest OS 7.1, compatible with the BlacKberry Curve 9320 & 9220, parental controls give you some great integrated features, that allow parents to protect this kids.  Next month a free download will be out for the Blackberry SmartPhone s with OS 6 & OS 7.

A couple examples of the restrictions you can set by going to Options -> Security -> Parental Controls are:

• Camera – A control to disable use of the camera for both still pictures and video. Upon attempting to launch the Camera application, the user would be provided with the message “Camera has been blocked.”
• Phone – Limit the phone to receive calls only from phone numbers that exist in the Contacts application. This feature will block incoming phone calls from unknown callers.

To turn on Parental Controls:

1. On the home screen or in a folder, click the Options icon.
2. Click Security > Parental Controls.
3. Select the Enable checkbox to turn on Parental Controls.
4. Select one or more of the following options to allow or limit the use of the feature:
   • To allow phone calls, select the Phone checkbox. To limit incoming calls to stored contacts, select the Limit incoming calls to contacts checkbox.
   • To allow text messages, select the Text Messages checkbox.
   • To allow the exchange of files over a Bluetooth connection, select the Bluetooth checkbox.
   • To allow the use of location services, like GPS, select the Location services checkbox.
   • To allow Internet access, select the Browser checkbox.
   • To allow the uploading of files to the YouTube website, select the YouTube Uploader checkbox. This restriction does not limit access to the YouTube website.
   • To allow the installation of third party applications, select the Application installations checkbox.
   • To allow the addition of new email accounts, select the Email account setup checkbox.
   • To allow access to Facebook, click the Facebook checkbox. The Facebook option and the Twitter option work together. You must either allow or restrict access to both applications. If you select or clear the checkbox for one option, the setting is automatically applied to the other option.
   • To allow access to Twitter, select the Twitter checkbox.
   • To allow picture taking, select the Camera checkbox.
   • To allow access to BlackBerry Messenger, select the BlackBerry Messenger checkbox.
5. Press the key > Options.
6. Press the key > Save.
7. Enter a four-digit PIN. Click OK.
8. Confirm the PIN. Click OK.

This article is copyright © 2012 Mike Bowers.

With lots of clients asking us about bring your device to work schemes, it is clear this consumerization or BYOD is in the spotlight.

Most of the discussions are all around the benefits and how the employees are all asking for it, fueled by Andorid and iPhone SmartPhones, as most companies using BlackBerry SmartPhones have more than enough control, if running BES or BESX.

What is very interesting is the people that are going to have to manage and support these devices are the strongest objectors.  There are reasons for this and they can be quite alarming when company leaders sit back and think them through.

1. Security of the business sensitive data

With personal devices accessing the corporate networks, how do you control how this data is kept secure, will passwords be controlled by a corporate mobile device management platform, or will you rely on the individuals to keep these devices secure.

2. Who is going to take care of support issues

Most help-desk or support staff will be familiar with the devices used across the company, however who could possible be familiar and this able to support effectively any and every brand of device in the market.  So expect longer delays on support issues and along with some overworked back office staff, trying to deal with these problems. Also what happens in terms of warranty and in warranty replacements?  With o2 business plans users get 24 replacements on their business mobile devices, look into what the repair times are for a consumer device and you will get  a shock.

3. What happens to the company data if an emplyee leaves

Something which will plague bring your device to work scheme’s will be allowing users access to corporate networks, without adequate or professionally managed protocols.  Thus you could have a sales person leave the organisation, who keeps the corporate data, CRM info and such on their device, instead of being able to remote wipe, once you part company.  This could be even worse if your organisation uses simple passwords, as this user has the server details and can log on, then access another users account and continue to access confidential info.

4. Access restrictions when roaming or during a working day

We are not talking about having to go to the levels of the BlackBerry Enterprise Software (BES) and have over 400 IT policies available to deploy to the business mobile users.  But you need to have the ability to roll out policies to cover simple things such as roaming, apps, browsing and downloads, or else the data usage is going to cost the company a fortune.

5. Control of the costs

With personal SmartPhones we see a significant jump in users costs, why do you think most SmartPhones are offered free to consumers, when they are in fact a £400 micro computer.  Quite simply because they will spend more than double this over their contract and be glad to do so, as they pull more and more content into the device.  So the individual cost of running the device from the company point of view will rise, along with the loss of business work time, as individuals access their apps and content especially if they are going to use more of the cloud.

All sounds like a recipe for a huge hike in costs by allowing employees to bring their devices to work (BYOD) and indeed we see it quite simply as that, there are some mobile device management solutions out there which can help.  Solutions such as BlackBerry Mobile Fusion and SaaS360 MDM, which companies can roll out in an effort to control some of the points above.  However think very carefully of the impact this kind of scheme will have on your business before jumping in and getting burnt.

This article is copyright © 2012 Mike Bowers.

Business mobile experts Cellular Solutions are engaged on a mission.

A team of business mobile, landline and ICT specialists are signed up for the Sunshine Run along the Newcastle Quayside next month.  Their mission to raise much needed funds for disabled and dissadvantaged children in the North East.

Mike Bowers, team captain from Cellular Solutions, talked about the immediate impact the money raised has, on children’s lives.

“With as little as £480 enables us to provide a girl aged 13 with an adapted trike, the girl has down syndrome and has learning difficulties. The girl is at an age where he would like to be more independent and wants to be out and about playing with friends, but due to her mobility she struggles, she is unable to ride an ordinary bike due to her muscle tone and weight. This piece of equipment would allow her to play and have fun while maintaining her level of fitness.

Another £540 will allow us to buy a 7 year old girl with sensory equipment, she has cerebral palsy and severe learning difficulties. The girl currently has access to this equipment at school and has made great progress in her development, her family would like this equipment for the home so they can help her further and continue with her therapy. Sensory equipment is proven to help children with coordination, social skills and creates a very calming atmosphere, you can engage with colours, shapes and music that will stimulate you in a safe environment.

A futher £540 will provide a boy aged 4 with a special jogger pushchair, the little boy has ASD and has difficulty in communicating. The boy has out grown a normal sized buggy and the family need a special pushchair so they can be mobile as a family, the little boy has limited awareness of safety and needs to be harnessed. This piece of equipment will allow the family to be mobile while having the safety that he needs while out and about.

In 2009, customer insight told us that we needed to make a difference with young people. As a powerful local brand, we felt we had more to offer, but we didn’t have the expertise to make our ambitions a reality. We therefore developed a partnership with the Sunshine Fund and other Community Focused Companies, to enable young people to make a difference and develop important skills.   This year, it gives us great pleasure to jointly sponsor the Sunshine Run with IT Professional Services along with the Sunflower Ball later this year.

As we’ve seen firsthand, there are many business benefits to be had through working with charities and voluntary organizations. The primary impact of course is the difference this makes to young people’s lives. But there are many business benefits too, such as staff motivation and development or a sense of giving something back to the local community – the benefits are tangible.

And I’d encourage other businesses to do the same,. It’s about working together and using our collective clout for a common goal.

As a leading communications company, specialising in business mobile, business landline, cloud and other ICT services in a digital world, we feel responsible for setting the agenda: to harness a digitally skilled workforce that is fit for the future. We’re just at the start of our journey, but by opening our doors to other businesses, the youth sector and young people, I genuinely believe we can build a lasting partnership that will make a difference.

This article is copyright © 2012 Mike Bowers.

O2 have launched a new ‘all in’ package aimed at business mobile users, giving them mobile, landline and broadband for a fixed price.

A move seen to reduce the complexity for business mobile users and promote more value for money to their existing clients, who take multiple products.  Along with the flexibility to join the package during a 9 month period, giving customers a managed service offering, which from customer insights is just what the doctor ordered.

The new ‘All in’ package offers business mobile users unlimited UK calls, unlimited texts, plus 1GB of data, an analogue landline and Business Broadband for £49.99 rrp per month.

When a customer signs up for all three services, they receive a £10 credit for each service, each month that their Fixed and Broadband are not connected.  The aim of ‘all in’, is to take away the complexity of managing business communications, giving you one bill and one contract.

There are added benefits too, with o2 Open discounts for five friends and family, Priority Moments, McAfee security for up to 2 pc’s, o2 Group conferencing, 24 hour handset replacement, along with a 30 day ‘Happiness Guarantee’.

This article is copyright © 2012 Mike Bowers.

BlackBerry Screen Reader is an accessibility solution for the visually impaired and speaks volumes of RIM’s commitment to social responsibility.

You could have forgiven BlackBerry for concentrating on the bottom line and making sure they concentrate on bouncing back from the slump they are in.  But to see them actively working and delivering a solution to assist the visually impaired tells you a lot about the company behind the BlackBerry Business SmartPhones.

The application which is a free download from BlackBerry App World, which is compatible with the Curve 9350, 9360 and 9370 devices, is designed to provide an audio output of the information displayed on the screen; allowing SmartPhone users with visual impairments be able to better operate their BlackBerry SmartPhones.

Take advantage of the following features with BlackBerry Screen Reader:

Support for core applications – Easily access core BlackBerry applications including email, calendar, phone calls, SMS and more

Speech settings – Customize the text-to-speech settings (volume, pitch and speech rate) and preferences for punctuation, verbosity and password security

Keyboard shortcuts – Set speech and audio preferences quickly and easily through (physical) keyboard shortcuts

Accessible documentation – User Guide available in accessible HTML through a desktop web browser

Clarity Theme

With a simplified interface and large text icons in high contrast, navigating your BlackBerry smartphone is made easier with the Clarity Theme for BlackBerry smartphones. Your home screen can be viewed as large, text-only icons with your choice of light on dark or dark on light display. Download for free at BlackBerry App World.

Tips and Tricks

For customers using the BlackBerry Screen Reader for the first time, I recommend a few quick tips and tricks:

Become familiar with the shortcut keys. They help provide information quickly and easily.

Set the Right Convenience Key to “Do Nothing.” Users can still use the Right Convenience Key for shortcuts and the Key Describer Mode, but setting it to “Do Nothing” will avoid invoking multiple actions that can become confusing. BlackBerry Screen Reader will prompt the user to customize their Right Convenience Key with the initial setup.

Become familiar with the default settings. They are designed to help users become comfortable with their device quickly.

Only download the BlackBerry Screen Reader language support in the language you require (as opposed to all languages) to conserve device memory.

Visit the Quick Tips menu in the BlackBerry Screen Reader settings screen. It provides more useful tips to help get the most out of BlackBerry Screen Reader.

This article is copyright © 2012 Mike Bowers.

With the launch of the Samsung Galaxy SIII has the business mobile bar just been raised and will the others be able to catch up.

As a business mobile device the Samsung Galaxy SIII packs as you would expect quite a punch, weighing in with the new Exynos 4 Quad chipset, featuring four cores, clocked at 1.4GHz with 1GB of RAM. 

Specs are one thing, but the pre launch devices are testing as the highest in class, proving that this thoroughbred of a device really does have the performance in the bag.  In the Java department, it yet again beat all commers hands down, showing that Samsung must have been doing a lot of fine tuning on this business mobile JavaScript engines.

Broswers wise running the HTML5 test, it litterally let the competition behind, making it a clear favourite, with the likes of the apple iPhone 5 and BlackBerry 10 devices not due out till Quarter 4, it looks very much like the Samsung Galaxy SIII will be the one to beat, the question is how can they!

The specs which Samsung released are a quad-core 1.4GHz Cortex A9 processor, running Android 4.0.4 ICS, with 1GB Ram, a 4.8″ Super AMOLED capactive touchscreen, with Gorilla glass, there are 16/32 & 64 GB options with a microSD card slot.  The camera is 8MP with a zero shutter lag, along with a 1.9MP front facing camera for video calls, the camera boast the ability to take 3.3 photos per second, then suggest the best one!

Well I have ordered one, as the quality of the Samsung brand, along with the increasing convergence of their business systems with their mobile devices, they are the clear real unified communications supplier.

This article is copyright © 2012 Mike Bowers.

Having been invited by BlackBerry several times to attend these world conferences, our highlights give you our view on how things are going.

Tuesday seen Thorsten Heins CEO of BlackBerry take to the stage and not quite deliver on a personal level, but then the BlackBerry 10 platform and demo spoke for itself with its ‘flow & agility’, check out our twitter feed at http://twitter.com/cellsolNE for more detailed info on the conference.

Examples of the kind of cool stuff app developers can do with this OS quickly followed which were in their own right quite impressive.  The Porsche QNX concept car was raised onto the stage and shows the future of in car media.  Then came Chris Fleck VP off Enterprise, delivering some killer business apps and integration for the business environment and mobile workforce.  Including a quick demo of the virtual keyboard and gesturing for speed, a move towards making the best in class virtual along with physical keyboard.

The Dev Super session, kicked off with a music video, staring some of the senior guys and set the right mood, with some great insights being shared into what BlackBerry were launching to the development community and how their SDK and support services, along with revenue guarantees for ‘BlackBerry certified’, ‘Quality Apps’; were going to encourage quality and not quantity in the apps store.  One of the games demonstrated was simply console quality and gave a great demonstration of the capability of the device and Blackberry 10.

Questions still remained as like a lot of the Dev community we were given a BlackBerry Dev Alpha device, not a finished product like the PlayBook last year, but a prototype device to enable developers to test their app on a real device and not just some emulation software.

The BlackBerry Party was again at Universal Studios, showing they still have plenty in the war chest, a great venue and the Martinez Bro’s were on the sets, not sure who picked these guys as they just giggles and hugged each other all time they were on, perhaps laughing at how they got the gig and their fee, but otherwise the entertainment and demo of the new ‘pacemaker’ mobile DJ software was first rate, see below.

One of the most significant changes was on Wednesday morning when Thorsten invited all the press to attend a briefing in private, marking a huge change in how RIM engages and communicates with the press and let’s face it, the old way had not done them any favors.

Thorsten hit the ball out of the park today. He said all the right things, and he made people in the room like him and RIM. The importance of this can’t be understated. With all of the media bashing that has been happening, even people who don’t use smartphones have started to adopt the belief that RIM is dying. The only way to stop this is to have the media actually like your company and want to write nicer stuff.  Perhaps RIM will even look to offer what Apple were doing and simply offering ‘press discounts’, getting them to adopt their product and thus talk about it positively.

We have seen many good ideas and changes promised during this show, a lot is also changing in the UK in terms of BlackBerry partner channels and support, as this sleeping giant has awoken and realized it has to get its game face back on.

Busy charging up my BlackBerry Dev Alpha ready to give it a whirl, then try out some of our apps, as its form factor is a scaled down PlayBook, quality feel and a great screen, but will the flow and agility it gives tempt people back to RIM?

Thursday is the final day and is often the chill out and gives a great chance to get some face time with the movers and shakers at RIM, the general mood has been very positive with attendees along with RIM employees being very upbeat about the new BlackBerry 10.

This article is copyright © 2012 Mike Bowers.