We were starting to wonder when the BlackBerry Beta Zone would start rolling out new betas. But wonder no more as a new BlackBerry App World beta has just been released. Getting bumped up to v3.1.1.15, it's noted to have the following changes:
Alternate billing options shown in purchase confirmation screen
Submitting Apps has new, easier-to-use confirmation screen
OS 7.1 Support
Various Bug Fixes
If you're a member of the BlackBerry Beta Zone, you can log in right now and grab the latest release from there.
Every once in a while a great free app comes along that is so choc-full of features it's just awesome. Browsing through App World I came across Advance OS and LED, and I have to say, it totally fits the bill. This free app offers customization of your BlackBerry LED, offers popup notifications, extra phone call features and much more. It's not often that you'll find this many different features packed into one app, but this time it's for real. I've been using the app for the last week or so and I really don't have any complaints. The UI isn't really the greatest (it's pretty far from it actually), but free is free. You can customize your LED color for SMS, email, phone calls, BBM, contacts and more. Add vibration alerts to your calls, turn on popup notifications for emails and SMS, backup/restore your settings within the app ... the list goes on and on. This is really an awesome app to have as it adds plenty of fun tweaks to your BlackBerry. Advance OS and LED is 100% free and as the developer notes, all future updates will be free as well. Drop by BlackBerry App World for more.
The BlackBerry Mobile Conferencing app from RIM has seen a small update to version 3.0 today. It still has all of the standard stuff, like pulling bridge numbers and access codes from meeting requests so you can join in one click when the calendar reminder pops up. New in this version is the ability to share the app through a bunch of different channels, including BBM, e-mail, and various social networks. The app also comes with help videos, so users can figure out what they're doing wrong without being too late for their conference call. You can access both of those through the dedicated icon. As always, if you lose coverage mid-call, the app provides you with a pop-up to reconnect. The app also adds a ton of options in the native calendar app for setting up conference call meetings, including moderator passcodes.
While BlackBerry Mobile Conferencing certainly isn't flashy, it's definitely useful for people who deal with conference calls regularly. Take a look at the demo video after the jump for a full tour, and be sure to check out our review for the deep dive. To get started with the update, hit up the App World link below; unfortunately, the latest version is currently only available in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K., but I'm sure other regions of the world will get access soon enough.
Fitness month at Mobile Nations and CrackBerry has gotten many into a get fit frenzy. I’m feeling a renewed drive to start my journey back up and reach my weight loss goal. One of my biggest problems is that I tend to forget to keep an eye on my caloric intake. Is what I’m eating healthy enough? Do I really know if I’m taking in enough calories? Can I afford to have the pretzels that I’m thinking about as I’m writing this? Probably not. It isn’t easy for everyone to remember how many calories you need or eat, or know the nutritional values for food from restaurants. A guide is all that some need to stick to the plan and drop the pounds. A guide like TrackNSlim will do just that.
This application is an effective way to set goals yourself and see how well you’re sticking to them. To set up, you enter in your weight, diet and the thresholds (calories, fats, sodium, sugar, etc) you want to work with. Now here’s what I like; TrackNSlim has a huge list of food and their nutritional values. So all you need to do is select and quantify. I’m a visual learner – I need to see how I am doing and view charts, like pie charts, to learn where I can improve (mmmm, pie charts). A daily progress screen will indicate how close you are to reaching your thresholds and will also show you when you are over them (otherwise known as being in the red).
Honestly, I don’t have the diet part completely down. I basically know what’s healthy and what’s not. It’s portion control and balance that I really struggle with. In my opinion, TracknSlim is one of the best ways to get a handle on eating before your eating gets out of hand. Nutritional information, breakdown of your intake and goal management, TrackNSlim is a great application to start to use during fitness month and beyond. You can get TrackNSlim for $2.99 from BlackBerry App World.
The time of year has come where I am once again commuting regularly. So with hour long journeys I need to find something to do during that time. There's a whole of list of things I could do - read a book, watch a show/movie on my BlackBerry, listening to music, sleep ... I could go on but I shant instead I'll tell you what I do first, I check out the news. Instead of picking up the free papers from the station and get my hands stained with ink, I take out my BlackBerry and open up the Sky News app. It's a great way to catch up with the news throughout the day too.
Win 1 of 30 free copies of Photo Studio Pro! Keep reading to see how.
Just in time for Valentine's Day, KVADGroup has released an update for Photo Studio that includes an all new Valentine's frame pack, new effects in the art category, and a new feature called PicFrames, which allows you to combine multiple photos into awesome looking frames. If you enjoy taking pictures with your BlackBerry, and adding fun effects and frames to them, Photo Studio is a must have.
A few other fixes and updates include:
Problem 'Can't Browse' is fixed (found in v.0.9.8.23)
Add localization to Spanish, French and Russian
BBM Connected (OS5-OS6)
Fixes, algorithms optimization etc.
Photo Studio is a great app with a ton of features packed into it. The free version is great, but you'll want to upgrade to the Pro version to unlock the full potential of the application. Photo Studio Pro is just $3.99 and you can find out all the detais on both versions in BlackBerry App World at the links below.
Contest: We have 30 copies of Photo Studio Pro to pass on to you guys, courtesy of KVADGroup! To enter, leave a comment below letting us know what you like to take pictures of and how this app will help you out. One entry per person, please!
Calling all hockey fans! If you're looking for app that contains a wealth of information concerning all things relating to this great winter sport then look no further than The Liam Maguire Ultimate Hockey Experience by AGS Advanced Software, Inc. Liam Maguire is Canada's foremost hockey trivia expert and this free application combines news, trivia, chat, video and Wayne Gretzky Authentic Sponsored memorabilia prizes to help you stay on top of all the action as it happens. If you answer correctly the trivia question of the day (for only $.99 per try) you'll get 2 entries into the monthly signed memorabilia draw.
Hockey fans will be able to speak directly to Liam Maguire using the Ask The Expert and built-in chat system. I must warn you there is a fee (determined by which response time is selected) for asking Liam any NHL related question. Good news is the chat system is absolutely free and is cross platform so you can speak with other hockey fans around the globe whether they're using a BlackBerry, iPhone, or Android device including Liam himself. Once a week he'll provide his insights on past games and future matchups and anything hockey related.
Again, while there are charges to join the daily trivia challenge and ask the expert it's perfect for staying on top of all hockey related news items with their free RSS feed, chat room, and Liam's weekly video wrap ups and interviews. You can check it out in BlackBerry App World and it's compatible with most BlackBerry devices running OS5 and higher.
The guys at Smarter Apps let us know that they are celebrating the one-year anniversary of their hit Angry Farm with an update and sale. The update brings 50 new levels to conquer as well as the addition of dynamite for those tough to beat levels.
Angry Farm was released a year ago this month and Smarter Apps isgoing to celebrate with a new version of Angry Farm for the BlackBerry Nation! First off we are putting it ON-SALE for a limited time at $2.99. Secondly, we have added 50 NEW and challenging levels for a total of 250 levels of Angry Farm fun. Finally, for any of those levels that the foxes are making it difficult or tricky to get through, we have now added a bundle of "DYNAMITE" which can be purchased to blow up the barn! You can purchase the dynamite via in-app purchase but it can only be used once per hour. All upgrades are free to existing customers for life and Smarter Apps is working on more levels for the future!
Angry Farm is on sale now for just $2.99, so if you haven't tried it before you should grab it while the gettin' is good. Current users can find the update in BlackBerry App World.
For anyone who has a BlackBerry 7 device this news may not be that big of a deal seeing how the Music Store app came pre-loaded on your device, whether you saw the icon or not it was there and installed. For those without a BlackBerry 7 device though, the Music Store app has been in the BlackBerry Beta Zone for a while and now has moved on to being publicly available for download through BlackBerry App World.
Despite it being preloaded on BlackBerry 7 devices, those of you who tried out the app may have found that it was either not supported in your country (This app, only has support for Canada and Australia) or even got an error message stating it was disabled by your administrator. If you fit into that area, then the newly released version is the one you'll want to get your hands on. You see, Amazon MP3 powered the old version where the new version is essentially a front-end for the 7Digital music store but it's much more then that when you consider a few things.
For a while now, I griped about the inconsistency of a music market place on the PlayBook and BlackBerry 7 smartphones due to the fact the PlayBooks music store was powered by 7Digital but BlackBerry 7 devices were powered by Amazon MP3. As such, any music you purchased on your PlayBook wasn't easily retrieved on your BlackBerry smartphone. You could get it, but it was through the 7Digital app, which has a totally different icon and is a totally different download. Some folks, may not have ever even known there was a 7Digital app or site and went on thinking their purchased music was stuck on their PlayBook.
With the BlackBerry Music store now available as a separate download, being powered by 7Digital (like the PlayBooks music store) RIM finally has some convergence happening and almost a complete music ecosystem. Files bought on your PlayBook can be retrieved on your smarphone and vice-versa as they are both on the same system now. BBM Music is of course the last remaining piece of the puzzle since; music you purchase there cannot be accessed outside of BBM Music easily without some digging around (It uses Amazon MP3 still). But that leaves the door open for RIM to port BBM Music over to the PlayBook at some point ideally or come up with a different solution for moving the music about easily.
When we came up with the idea of a Mobile Nations Fitness Challenge while at CES this year, I instantly started thinking about how I could best use my mobile devices to help reach my goal. Ultimately I am aiming to lose weight on what I'm calling my "no more fat kid" diet. While there are plenty of fitness and health oriented apps out there for BlackBerry, I really wanted to just keep track of things on my own. I don't need fancy graphs or reports to tell me what I'm doing right or wrong, I just want to see my progress how I lay it down. Evernote couldn't be a better solution for this. I already told you how I use Evernote and why I love it and now for the course of my diet I can keep track of my meals, my weight, my workouts (or lack there of) and whatever else I need. Keep reading and we'll take a look at just how easy it is to use Evernote to keep track of your goals.
Since the release of BBM Music we've not really heard a whole lot from RIM on how the uptake of the service has gone but they're still moving forward with promotions to get it out to a wider audience it seems. A new promotion for the service is happening right now for current Rogers customers where if you download BBM Music from February 1st up until March 30th, you'll get 6 months of the service for free.
A few caveats to keep in mind, the promo is for new and existing users but only if you're still under your trial term -- if you're beyond that, it won't work. Basically, you're just extending the trial. With that cleared up, if you've yet to try out BBM Music and are on Rogers, now is a great time to give it a go. Thanks, John!
It seems as though voice controlled assistant applications are all the rage these days. BlackBerry 7 has its universal search voice prompt and we’ve also seen voice dialing for years. To date, the closest thing to Siri that BlackBerry users have seen is the popular application Vlingo. This past month, another application has appeared and has claimed that they are well on their way to being a top contender. SayIt is a voice recognition/assistant application for BlackBerry smartphones running OS 5 and higher that says it can answer any question you throw at it.
When it comes to gaming on any portable electronic device, my preferences are a bit odd and I find it rather difficult to find games that meet what I am looking for. I would much rather a game that I could pick up and put down at any point in time without having to worry about hitting a save point, or being in the middle of a mission that I won't finish anytime soon. SnowBomber for the BlackBerry PlayBook allows me to do just this, and while the concept is very simple, and you could wonder just how much fun can be had throwing snowballs at snowmen -- the answer is a lot.
Once you launch the game you are presented with a pretty simple landing page, you can start the game play, view high scores or jump into the story mode. From here you can also toggle the sounds and you have the option to share with Twitter and Facebook as well. After jumping into the game play you have your controls on the left hand side to pause the game or to duck behind the wall, in the center is the sling to shoot the snowballs at the opponents, and on the right hand side is a table which builds up with various extras and perks to help beat the snowmen.
The snowmen pop up from the ground and the idea is to throw your snowball at them and knock them down, but the tricky part is they also throw them back at you. Luckily you can slice their snowballs and gain a few points for doing so, but be careful because careless swipes will also knock out your own snowballs. There are a few different size snowmen, each of them requiring a different amount of snowballs to knock them out, and as they grow bigger they also throw more snowballs at you each time.
Whether you have a few minutes or a few hours to pass by you won't want to miss out on trying this free game. Hit the link below for some additional information and to download SnowBomber for your PlayBook.
When popular titles from other platforms make their way onto BlackBerry we tend to get rather excited, and for me that was definitely the case when Backbreaker 2 Vengeance arrived in BlackBerry AppWorld for the BlackBerry PlayBook. For those unfamiliar with this title it is a football game but with its very own style, you aren't playing team verse team but instead it is a 1 on 1 style game play. You can chose whether to take an offensive stance in which you need to avoid getting tackled and make it through some obstacles to score a touchdown or you can go for the defensive approach and prevent the computer from being able to score on you.
The game utilizes both on screen controlls as well as the gyroscope of the device so you will have to tilt the device from side to side to control where your player goes. With the on screen controls you can juke left and right as well as spins in each direction, and if you are feeling really good about passing the defenders you can showboat a little as well for some extra points.
What I like most about the game is that you aren't playing a four quarter full length game here, but instead quick little matches so if you want to pick it up for a few minutes and then put it back down you are able to do so. For only $2.99 you can have yourself a game with amazing graphics, interactive game play and hours of fun. Hit the link below for full details and to grab a copy for yourself.
You wouldn't mind driving an extra couple of minutes in order to get gas for say, 10 cents cheaper a gallon, would you? How many times have you filled up your car only to drive up the road and notice the lower pricing, and then calculate how much it would have saved you. GasBuddy, a popular BlackBerry application that allows you to find the best prices in your area, has just received an update bumping it up to version 2.6.3. This update brings a few warmly welcomed changes.
Better GPS tracking, more updates and quicker finding capabilities including the addition of Geolocation locating abilities.
Added approximate driving travel time from current location to station.
Added integration in the BlackBerry Maps App, "Gas Stations Nearby" in context menu.
Fixed freezing issues.
UI updates including cleaner icons and adjusted spacing.
Whether you are a current GasBuddy user or someone looking to try it out for the first time, be sure to grab this free download from the link below. A free application that helps you keep a couple extra bucks in your pocket when filling up your vehicle, how could you go wrong?
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