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Ten Important Observations from BlackBerry Live 2013

Posted by Kevin Michaluk on 24 May 2013 6:51 pm

After BlackBerry World finished last year, I wrote a post titled 5 Important Observations from BlackBerry World 2012.  With the event now renamed to BlackBerry Live, and BlackBerry 10 phones now on the market and in our hands, I'm doubling it up this year to ten important observations.  There's a lot to cover here, so let's dive right into it. And note, these observations are not listed in any...

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118 Comments

How does the Q5 add to the BlackBerry story?

Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 24 May 2013 2:57 pm
How does the Q5 add to the BlackBerry story?

Last week during BlackBerry Live, only a few major announcements were made. We’ve already discussed the cross-platform BBM launch platforms in detail but we haven’t really talked in depth about what the other announcement means to the company. Yes folks ... I’m talking about the BlackBerry Q5. When Thorsten Heins unveiled the slick lower cost QWERTY device on stage, pretty much everyone noticed...

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60 Comments

Going cross platform could skyrocket the number of BBM Money users

Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 23 May 2013 10:03 am
Going cross platform could skyrocket the number of BBM Money users

While reading through BlackBerry-related news yesterday, I saw a post that our friend Ronen published on BerryReview pertaining to BBM Money. Here’s whats new: In the first 90 days since launching BBM Money in Indonesia, the service has in excess of 60,000 users registered.  It’s not exactly a huge number, but apparently the target is to grow this user base to 200,000 by the end of the current...

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234 Comments

BBM has a real shot at consolidating the global mobile messaging market

Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 21 May 2013 4:12 pm
BBM has a real shot at consolidating the global mobile messaging market

So BlackBerry Messenger is finally going cross platform, eh? For quite some time now most of you at CrackBerry Nation have believed this should happen. In fact during 2010 (when the stock was still around $60), CrackBerry ran a poll asking you all if the company should take BBM cross platform. Guess what?  A whopping 71% of you said yes, it should go cross platform. Our own fearless leader,...

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Talking BlackBerry 10 Product Design with Todd Wood and Don Lindsay

Posted by DJ Reyes on 21 May 2013 1:20 pm
Talking BlackBerry 10 Product Design with Todd Wood and Don Lindsay

Day two at BlackBerry Live 2013 was ripe with exclusive sessions for the Elite guys and as well as the session with Frank Boulben, BlackBerry Elite members got a chance to sit down with the product design team and learn about the ideas and inspiration for building the BlackBerry 10 platform and devices. Todd Wood, Industrial Design and Don Lindsay, User Experience gave us a look at how they came...

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Talking BlackBerry 10 marketing, Keep Moving Projects and Formula One with Frank Boulben

Posted by DJ Reyes on 20 May 2013 1:35 pm
Talking BlackBerry 10 marketing, Keep Moving Projects and Formula One with Frank Boulben

On day two of BlackBerry Live 2013, I had the privilege of sitting in an exclusive session with Frank Boulben who talked about the BlackBerry 10 marketing strategy, Keep Moving campaign and Formula One. He went through some of the changes he had done to their marketing since joining BlackBerry last year. There was also a chance for the session attendees to ask questions at the end. Frank...

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108 Comments

Keeping it in your pants: Top 10 smartphone etiquette tips for a first date

Posted by Georgia on 20 May 2013 12:40 pm

We're geeks. We get it. Our phones, be they Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, or Windows Phone, are among the most important things in our lives. We use them for everything, all the time. But in some situations our phones can get in the way, like on a first date. So, from one geek to another, I'm going to share ten basic tips on how to keep your smartphone from ruining a potentially great new...

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CrackBerry Asks: Have you experienced random reboots on your BlackBerry Z10?

Posted by Kevin Michaluk on 19 May 2013 10:08 am
CrackBerry Asks: Have you experienced random reboots on your BlackBerry Z10?

So here's the deal. Since the Z10 has been released, I have used several different Z10 units (probably 7 or 8... I lost count) across four different carriers, and I have never once experienced a random reboot on my Z10. The same goes for all of the members of the CrackBerry editorial team - there have been very few mentions of the phone randomly rebooting for no reason. However, if you jump into...

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26 Comments

CrackBerry Live: PriceCheck Mobile - Winners of the app of the year award

Posted by Bla1ze on 16 May 2013 3:56 pm

After the announcement of the BlackBerry Achievement Award winners, PriceCheck Mobile, who took home the app of the year award swung by CrackBerry Live to give us a walkthrough of their offerings. Andre W. de Wet, General Manager, PriceCheck guided us through it all and explained why their app is doing so well in South Africa, possible expansion plans and and winning the BlackBerry...

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CrackBerry Live: Talking faxes and VoIP on BlackBerry 10 with Jim Courtney

Posted by Simon Sage on 16 May 2013 3:18 pm

  As it turns out, sometimes people still need to send a fax. Luckily, there's a mobile app out there for BlackBerry 10 called PamFax which lets you handle it without all of the fuss of a bulky machine. Users can pay a subscription fee for an inbound line, or get a bucket of credit for outbound faxes, which can be pulled in from on-device images and documents.  We met up with Jim Courtney at...

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CrackBerry Live: Hands-on with Samadhi relaxation apps

Posted by Bla1ze on 16 May 2013 2:38 pm

Everyone has stress in their lives and for some folks listening to some soothing sounds helps relax situations. Stopping by CrackBerry Live was Till Adam, Services Director at KDAB, to show us some apps he's been working on with Samadhi Group and Tasia Valenza. The apps are beautifully designed and if you enjoy tuning out the world in an attempt to regain some sanity, they should do the...

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We catch up with Constable Ken Koke - a true BlackBerry fan

Posted by James Richardson on 16 May 2013 2:17 pm

You may remember last year when we were here in Orlando, BlackBerry were proudly showing off the PlayBook Police Cruiser. The car was manned by Ken Koke from the Chatham-Kent Police Service and he showed us just how great the PlayBook integration into the cruiser was making life easier for police officers on the street. Ken was here again this year, although in a slightly different capacity...

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15 Comments

CrackBerry Live: Bruce Haendel stops by to discuss the Tazzle IT printing solution for BlackBerry

Posted by Bla1ze on 16 May 2013 2:02 pm

While a lot of focus at BlackBerry Live was placed on BlackBerry 10 apps, there's still plenty of BlackBerry OS developers out there. One long standing app in the community is Tazzle IT. Bruce Haendel, CEO Tazzle It, stopped by the CrackBerry Live stage to give us a run through of what his app does, how it can be used and where people can get it. Tazzle IT offers its customers a software and...

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12 Comments

CrackBerry Live: Talking QNX and BlackBerry 10 with Sebastien Marineau

Posted by Simon Sage on 16 May 2013 2:00 pm

At BlackBerry Live 2013, we had the chance to talk with a QNX veteran and colleague to Dan Dodge, Seb Marineau. He's a senior VP of software at BlackBerry and was with QNX throughout the BlackBerry acquisition. Seb has since worked on the PlayBook and more recently, BlackBerry 10. Kevin talks with him about the transition process between companies and between platforms. They go over QNX's...

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CrackBerry Live: Chad Tetreault talks joining #TeamBlackBerry and supporting HTML5 apps

Posted by Simon Sage on 16 May 2013 10:02 am

The BlackBerry Live 2013 interview train keeps on a-rollin' with Chad Tetreault. This time last year, Chad was an indie developer at mblware, which was probably best known for their JeeoSuite Wi-Fi remote file access app. Since then, he's joined #TeamBlackBerry in a very real way as an Application Development Consultant. Basically, that means he helps HTML5 developers chew through whatever...

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37 Comments

CrackBerry Live: 10 Minutes with the one and only Vivek Bhardwaj

Posted by Kevin Michaluk on 16 May 2013 9:32 am

If you're a BlackBerry fan and have tuned into any of the BlackBerry conference keynotes the past year and a half, you will know Vivek Bhardwaj. Vivek has been doing demos for the latest and greatest BlackBerry features for years now as head of the BlackBerry Software Porfolio. Adam and I run through the show's big announcements with Vivek, get some insight to what happens behind the scenes...

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41 Comments

A quick look at the BlackBerry Elite Lounge at BlackBerry Live

Posted by James Richardson on 15 May 2013 4:39 pm

Chances are you may of heard of the BlackBerry Elite program that BlackBerry rolled out last year. The team of Elite members are hand picked developers or BlackBerry 'super fans' who BlackBerry value greatly - not just for their dedication, but also for feedback. The Elite Program was set up to identify and empower the most passionate people in the BlackBerry community with information and...

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76 Comments

CrackBerry Live: Interview with the inventor of BBM, Gary Klassen!

Posted by Kevin Michaluk on 14 May 2013 7:28 pm

On the day when BlackBerry announced that BBM is going cross platform to support both iOS and Android, we had the lucky opportunity to sit down with Gary Klassen. If you're not familiar with Gary Klassen, you should read this article we posted back in 2011, where we gave Gary the CrackBerry salute for being the Inventor of BlackBerry Messenger. That's right, Gary literally wrote version 1.0...

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6 Comments

BlackBerry Jam heading to Hong Kong and Barcelona!

Posted by Richard Devine on 14 May 2013 4:57 pm
BlackBerry Jam heading to Hong Kong and Barcelona!

BlackBerry Live is in full swing in Orlando, but looking to the future BlackBerry has announced the next two stops on the BlackBerry Jam calendar for BlackBerry Jam Asia and BlackBerry Jam Europe. For those of you who are regulars to either conference, the venues have been changed up for the next conferences. BlackBerry Jam Asia will take place this coming September 26 and 27 in beautiful Hong...

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Thorsten Heins and Nick Fry from Mercedes AMG PETRONAS team up for a chat

Posted by James Richardson on 14 May 2013 2:36 pm
Thorsten Heins and Nick Fry from Mercedes AMG PETRONAS team up for a chat

One of the sessions that took place earlier at BlackBerry Live in Orlando was where Nick Fry - the CEO of the Mercedes AMG PETRONAS team got together with BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins to discuss the relationship between the two companies since BlackBerry made the decision to sponsor the Formula 1 team. We had Lewis Hamilton on stage at the keynote this morning - although he had to make a swift...

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