Category: BlackBerry
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BlackBerry CMO confirms BBM will hit Android and iOS in a few days

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BlackBerry’s CMO Frank Boulben has confirmed the BBM messenger for Android and iOS will be released “within days”. The client has been teased a lot in the past few months with the promise the released date is getting closer. We even saw a beta version makes it to the Apple’s AppStore, but it was quickly taken down.

Well, it seems the BBM is finally ready and its arrival is only a matter of days. Read more »

BlackBerry sends out an open letter to tell the world it is not done just yet

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In an attempt to fight off the negative coverage surrounding it lately, BlackBerry published an open letter to its customers, business partners, and fans. The troubled manufacturer told its supporters that they can still count on it.

Naturally, BlackBerry begins making its argument by pointing at its cash reserves, as well as its debt-free balance sheet. Read more »

BlackBerry Z30 stars in first promo video, boasts bigger screen and battery

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BlackBerry just jumped into the 5″ smartphone ring with the new Z30, up from the “small” Z10 with a 4.2″ screen. The BlackBerry Z30 also launches the new BlackBerry OS 10.2 with a number of new features.

The first promo video for the Z30 is out and it underlines the advantages of the Z30 and the updates that come with the new version of the OS. Read more »

BBM coming to Android and iOS as early as this week, no exclusivity

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An earlier report on Twitter from Samsung Nigeria confirmed that BlackBerry’s popular BBM messaging platform will be coming to Android and iOS quite soon.

Although it won’t be a three-month exclusive to Samsung as was initially speculated, BBM could hit Google Play and the iOS App Store as early as this Friday. Read more »

Flipboard coming to BlackBerry 10, BBM for iOS submitted for review

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Flipboard has made an odd announcement after an somewhat puzzling withdrawal of its app from the BlackBerry World.

First Flipboard released a port of its Android app in the BlackBerry World store, but then it was quickly pulled out. The following announcement was made on Twitter shortly after: Read more »

Samsung is promoting BlackBerry Messenger in Africa, “coming soon to Galaxy smartphones”

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BlackBerry Messenger was supposed to hit the Android and iOS app stores today, but there’s nothing just yet (but you can try the beta). More interesting is that Samsung has now kicked-off its promotion of BBM – earlier this month the two companies struck a deal to promote the messenger in Africa.

CrackBerry forum member PauloPlmenta spotted an ad of the Galaxy S4 running BlackBerry Messenger during a football game (Manchester United vs. Chelsea) broadcast in Mozambique. Read more »

WhatsApp prioritizes voice messaging in latest update

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WhatsApp has started rolling out a new update across the various platforms that prioritizes the voice messaging feature of the service. This move probably comes after other messaging services have started incorporating and promoting their voice messaging feature.

To be clear, this is not a new feature even for WhatsApp as the functionality was always available. The only difference is that now it is prominently placed in the UI with the latest update. Now, you’ll see a microphone button instead of the Send button when no message is being typed in the message field. Press and hold this button and your message starts getting recorded. Slide left any time to cancel the recording. Read more »

BlackBerry Messenger beta for Android and iOS now available

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The hotly anticipated BlackBerry Messenger for Android and iOS that was officially announced by BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins, back at the company’s annual Live 2013 conference is a step closer to its official release as the app is now in its beta testing stages.

The cross-platform version of the upcoming instant messenger is available to a number of developers and beta users to test the app on their Android and iOS devices. Read more »

BlackBerry Q5 battery life tests complete, here are the results

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The BlackBerry Q5 is a business phone, meaning no matter what it has to have charge left over or you could miss all sorts of important calls and messages. The BlackBerry Z10 wasn’t bad with a 46 hours endurance score (but then it only has a 1,800mAh battery), then the Q10 beat it with a 56 hours score (but it does have a bigger 2,100mAh battery and smaller screen).

The Q5 has a 2,180mAh battery, same size screen as the Q10 (but LCD instead of AMOLED) and a lower clocked chipset. How did it do? Read more »

BlackBerry Q5 stops by at HQ, we give it the camera treatment

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BlackBerry Q5 is company’s second QWERTY smartphone to run the latest generation of its new BlackBerry 10 platforms. It is supposed to bring the complete BlackBerry experience at a more affordable price point compared to the premium BlackBerry Q10.

The BlackBerry Q5 comes with a 3.1-inch 720x720px IPS LCD display and is powered by the Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset with a dual-core 1.2GHz Krait processor, Adreno 225 graphics and 2GB of RAM. Read more »

BlackBerry Messenger coming to Android and iOS in September

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BlackBerry’s CEO Thorsten Heins announced that the popular BlackBerry Messenger will be available on Android and iOS back at the BlackBerry live 2013 conference. We then had a tweet from the BlackBerry Worldwide tweeter account stating that the app will be available on June 27.

Unfortunately, the account didn’t turn out to be an official BlackkBerry affair and the BlackBerry Messenger for the Android and iOS did not make its appearance on the suggested date. However, the much-awaited BBM for the two of the most popular smartphone platforms will be available “this summer”, according to the BlackBerry India managing director. Read more »

Latest BlackBerry Q10 ad brags about cool gesture-based UI

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BlackBerry has outed a new TV advertisement for the US, promoting the touch gestures available in BlackBerry OS 10.1. The star of the show is the QWERTY-packing BlackBerry Q10, which is used to show just how much you can do in a short period of time.

The ad demonstrates that you can change your Facebook status without actually opening the social network’s app. Quickly browsing and sharing photos and other content is demoed in the TV spot as well. Read more »

U-Turn: BlackBerry PlayBook won’t get BlackBerry 10 update

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Today is certainly not a good day for the BlackBerry fans. Earlier CEO Thorsten Heins reported disappointing earnings results for the last quarter. The company did manage to increase its revenue, but it didn’t meet profit expectations, in fact its operating loss is $84 million. Because of the bad financial report the company’s stock tumbled down over 25% at time of writing.

During the financial results conference call BlackBerry delivered another portion of bad news – there will not be BlackBerry 10 update for the PlayBook slates. Read more »

Skype video messaging service now available on the desktop and mobile

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The Skype video messaging service is finally out of beta and is now available to all Skype users. It is available on the desktop in Skype for Windows desktop, Windows 8, OS X and on the mobile for Skype for iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry. The service is currently not available on Windows Phone.

For those who don’t know, Skype video messaging lets you send short video messages over Skype. Unlike your regular video calls, the recipient of these messages need not be online when you send them and can view them whenever they log into Skype. Basically, video messaging is to video calls what SMS is to voice calls. Read more »

BlackBerry Messenger to hit Android and iOS on June 27

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When BlackBeery announced that its Messenger service (BBM) was coming to iOS and Android many people, including me, got very excited, but unfortunately, the company wasn’t ready to announce a release date back then.

Now, almost a month after the Blackberry Live 2013 conference, the company has announced that its BBM service will hit Android and iOS as a standalone app on June 27. Read more »