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A happy ending to this Made in Manhattan BlackBerry Z10 story

Posted by Kevin Michaluk on 10 Apr 2013 10:39 am

Bye bye annoying tie straps; Hello awesome BlackBerry Z10 demos! In case you missed Part 1 of this real life story, go back and read it. The quick recap? I was pleasantly surprised when I walked into the Best Buy at 43rd and 5th in Manhattan on Monday night and was greeted by a prominent BlackBerry Z10 display. The happy tale quickly turned into a BlackBerry horror story of sorts when I...

76 Comments

Looking at BlackBerry’s Q4 gross margin spike

Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 9 Apr 2013 3:49 pm

When BlackBerry announced its Q4 results on March 28 we celebrated a Street-beating earnings result. Even if you ignore the tax benefit that the company recorded, BlackBerry delivered much better financial results than expected. A big part of that beat came from the gross margin line, which came in at 40% versus the low 30's estimates. In the financial press release, the company said the...

28 Comments

UK EE BlackBerry 10 customers to get a 4G boost

Posted by James Richardson on 9 Apr 2013 5:28 am

Here in the UK we are still new to LTE. In fact, as things currently stand we still only have one network that offers 4G and that's EE (formerly Everything Everywhere). Things are stepping up a notch however as the mobile network has announced that they are to double 4G speeds as well as doubling the 4G network capacity to meet the needs of customers in the future. If you are one of the cool...

145 Comments

Opportunity squandered and saved - Another BlackBerry 10 story made in Manhattan

Posted by Kevin Michaluk on 8 Apr 2013 6:53 pm

The tale I'm about to tell you is real and occurred literally just minutes ago. Like the real life Made in SoHo BlackBerry 10 story I relayed here on CrackBerry the other week, this one also shows much opportunity for BlackBerry and challenges to overcome. The triple A batteries in my headphones died this afternoon, so I walked to the nearest Best Buy on 43th and 5th in Manhattan to pick up...

130 Comments

From the Editor's Desk - Ain't no party like a CrackBerry party!

Posted by Kevin Michaluk on 7 Apr 2013 12:51 pm

Seriously. We are going to have to figure out a way to take these CrackBerry Meetups to more cities around the world. Talk about a great time and great success! CrackBerry and BlackBerry fans simply are THE BEST! When we announced we were holding our NYC CrackBerry Meetup, we figured it would take at least a few days for us to max out our RSVPs. Instead, it took a few hours. Event planners told...

186 Comments

What does Facebook Home mean to the future of BlackBerry?

Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 5 Apr 2013 12:04 pm

In the event that you could care less about Facebook, or just haven’t been following the news, yesterday was a significant day for the social media giant run by Mark Zuckerberg. They rolled out a new Android app, for lack of a better word, that takes over the home screen of Android and deeply integrates with the OS. The "app" is called Facebook Home. There is no Facebook phone. There’s a very...

44 Comments

EDC helping Telefonica finance BlackBerry purchases

Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 4 Apr 2013 2:06 pm

Canada’s Export Development Corporation (EDC), a crown corporation, is providing Telefonica with a 200 million euro loan to buy BlackBerry products. That works out to about $255 million US dollars, and if we assume it’s for BlackBerry 10 products, it suggests Telefonica is buying somewhere between 500,000 and 700,000 devices depending on the price assumptions you make. Remember that BlackBerry...

50 Comments

Looking at bull and bear views on BlackBerry

Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 3 Apr 2013 3:17 pm

Now that we’re one week beyond the latest BlackBerry earnings report, I thought I’d take a look at what some analysts are saying, and chime in with my own thoughts. On the bullish front, we have Richard Tse from Cormark, who reflected on the earnings over the long weekend. Here is a summary on Tse’s comments from CanTech Letter. It seems Tse believes that the quarterly results show BlackBerry...

328 Comments

Why I don't use a password on my BlackBerry Z10

Posted by Adam Zeis on 2 Apr 2013 3:02 pm

I have always been a big believer in the security offered up by BlackBerry. For arguments sake, I don't work in a crazy-big corporate environment where the data on my phone is at risk. If anyone got access to my phone, they'd see a bunch of BBM's to my wife, my non-private contact list and the handful of emails I get through the course of the day. I don't have any secrets hiding on my BlackBerry...

27 Comments

BlackBerry at GDC 2013

Posted by Simon Sage on 1 Apr 2013 4:26 pm

BlackBerry's primary goal at GDC 2013 was to show off the Unity engine running on BB10 and remind devs about the platform's full Bluetooth hardware controller support. The stock Unity demo game, Angry Robots, ran on the Z10 especially well, and I think will really highlight how well it can handle games. By comparison, the Qualcomm benchmark app I saw on the HTC One at GDC wasn't hitting...

41 Comments

From the Editor's Desk: BBM Stress Test Reminder & NYC CrackBerry Meetup Update!

Posted by Kevin Michaluk on 31 Mar 2013 10:56 pm

It's been a busy ten days here on CrackBerry covering the AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon BlackBerry Z10 launches. By the end of it, I was pretty exhausted and managed to pick up a cold, so this weekend I took it easy. There's no time to be sick as we have another busy week ahead of us with our much-anticipated BBM Stress Test on Monday and NYC CrackBerry Meetup on Thursday! BBM Stress Test -...

60 Comments

'BB10 on the Z10 is making me a BlackBerry fan again'

Posted by Adam Zeis on 29 Mar 2013 2:37 pm

Matt Miller is becoming a BlackBerry fan again thanks to BlackBerry 10 on the Z10. Matt has a long history with Mobile Nations as the former EIC of our Nokia Experts site (now covered by WP Central) and very well respected when it comes to the mobile space. At any given time he has plenty of devices in his arsenal and often switches between them daily. He uses everything from the Nokia N9 to...

181 Comments

Thorsten Heins brings BlackBerry back in black

Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 28 Mar 2013 12:20 pm

In celebration of a highly respectable earnings report from BlackBerry, I’ve got the AC/DC cranked up playing “Back in Black”. It has speed, energy, and in that classic rock sort of way it represents the return to profitability that we’re seeing from our friends in Waterloo. This morning BlackBerry reported Q4 results and held their usual conference call. We listened. We live blogged. Now I’...

151 Comments

BlackBerry Reports Fourth Quarter and Year-End Results for Fiscal 2013

Posted by Kevin Michaluk on 28 Mar 2013 7:12 am

Ok CrackBerry Nation, the numbers for Q4 are in. You can read the press release below or click here to see the full release on Market Wire. 6 million BlackBerry Smartphones were shipped last quarter, with approximately 1 million of those devices being BlackBerry 10 handsets (remember, that's about a month's worth of UK sales and three weeks in Canada). Also of note, former RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis...

113 Comments

Are we heading into a Good Friday for BlackBerry?

Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 27 Mar 2013 3:36 pm

Tomorrow morning is the big day. BlackBerry will announce its financial results for Q4. Normally the call happens after market close, but the next day is Good Friday. It’s bad practice to have a conference call on the afternoon before the end of the work week, so they moved the call to the morning. That’s all there is to it. So what’s going to happen and how will the stock market react to...

128 Comments

A BlackBerry 10 story made in SoHo

Posted by Kevin Michaluk on 27 Mar 2013 10:40 am

Earlier this week, between recording our CrackBerry Vodcast and Big Brother-style CB NYC HQ show, I took Adam and Bla1ze out for dinner to my favorite Italian restaurant in SoHo, Osteria Morini. The food here is amazing - I can't recommend it enough. The service is always excellent and on this night it was also informative as our friendly table captain -- let's call him Mike -- turned into a...

196 Comments

Brainstorming BB10: I just realized I never swipe up to see more Active Frames

Posted by Kevin Michaluk on 26 Mar 2013 6:22 pm

I had a startling revelation yesterday. I realized that not once in my two months of regular BlackBerry Z10 use have I actually swiped up to see or open Active Frames beyond the most recent four displayed. Not. Even. Once. BlackBerry 10 allows you to run up to eight apps at once. When minimized but left running, these apps are displayed on the BlackBerry 10 homescreen as Active Frames, and...

59 Comments

The bull case for BlackBerry shares

Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 26 Mar 2013 5:13 pm

One of the most bullish analysts on the Street with respect to BlackBerry is Gus Papageorgiou from Scotiabank (formerly called Scotia Capital). He recently outlined the reason for his near-term optimism in a Q4 earnings preview report, and I had a read through it. He makes a good case. For Q4 (which will be reported Thursday morning), he’s expecting 1.0 million Z10 shipments, improved gross...

135 Comments

T-Mobile BlackBerry Z10 launch day photos and observations

Posted by Kevin Michaluk on 26 Mar 2013 4:23 pm

We came. We saw. We left with a BlackBerry Z10 in hand. It was a good morning for the BlackBerry faithful that turned up at NYC's T-Mobile store located at 34th and 6th and all T-Mobile subscribers that have been waiting patiently impatiently for the Z10. Beyond today's Z10 launch, it was a big day for T-Mobile USA in other news. Separately, the company held a press conference today officially...

126 Comments

Here’s the thinking behind Goldman’s BlackBerry downgrade

Posted by Chris Umiastowski on 25 Mar 2013 7:44 pm

Following a week of largely positive BlackBerry news, this week has started off with a major analyst downgrade. Goldman Sachs analyst Simona Jankowski has downgraded from a buy to a hold recommendation, cutting her target price to $17 (previously $19). I got a copy of the report (thanks, sender) and had a chance to go over it this afternoon. In a nutshell, Goldman has two main reasons for the...

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