It seems like we're hitting a patent a week from RIM as of late, and the newest to hit the wire does not disappoint. Simply titled Pressure Password for a Touchscreen Device, the patent is a pretty sweet one. According to the description, the technology would allow for a pressure-sensitive password of sorts. The device -- equipped with force sensors -- would recognize patterns based on pressure and be able to unlock based on a chose pattern. So think a simple pattern unlock feature but instead of sliding or drawing you would apply pressure to certain areas of the screen. A pretty sweet idea although there's no knowing if it will show up in BlackBerry 10 devices at all.

What do you think? Is this something you'd like to see come to BlackBerry? Let us know in the comments!

Source: USPTO  Via: Engadget

I had a meeting yesterday morning with Everything Everywhere, the owners of T-Mobile and Orange in the UK. I wasn't initially going to post the details here on CrackBerry, but the more I think about it, the more the discussions I had may well be to RIM's advantage.

The meeting was about Everything Everywhere's plan to hopefully roll out 4G finally in Great Britain. (We are lagging way behind our American friends over the pond). I say hopefully as they are still waiting for the go-ahead from Ofcom and without the clearance we will stay on 3G. However, Everything Everywhere are confident that things will move positively and in the meantime they are preparing their current cell sites for 4G so a switch to the new technology will be swift once the green light is given.

So where does RIM come in you may ask? Well, we know that the first BlackBerry 10 device is scheduled for release in Q4 this year and of course for the U.S. market it will support LTE. Everything Everywhere have stated today that they 'hope' to have the HSPA+42 network in place late this year "subject to Ofcom spectrum liberalisation", so I presume the UK variants of the BB10 handsets will also have the same LTE capabilities. To cut a long story short, if Everything Everywhere are to support BlackBerry 10 devices from the offset they potentially could be some of the first 4G smartphones to launch in the UK giving RIM UK an extra selling tool.

With Everything Everywhere being the UK's biggest network, it maybe time for them to grow even more as they are the only carrier that are working towards rolling out 4G ASAP.

May be great timing for RIM? Or fate. Or their destiny!

Don't be sad... it'll be more fun to upgrade to a new BlackBerry 10 phone anyway!

In the past 24 hours I've literally received three emails and twice as many tweets from readers asking me if they'll be able to upgrade their BlackBerry 7 phone to BlackBerry 10 when it comes out later this year. 

The answer is still no. Seriously. This isn't news. There should be no surprise here. It's been *crystal clear* since Research In Motion unveiled the BlackBerry PlayBook on September 27th, 2010 at BlackBerry DevCon that devices on the existing BlackBerry OS would not be upgradeable to the new QNX-based platform. It is a new platform. A fresh start. Period.

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We've had a hunch for a long time now that the first BlackBerry 10 phone to hit the market later this year will feature a full touchscreen design, lacking the physical keyboard that BlackBerry is traditionally known for. This was confirmed earlier this month at BlackBerry World, when we got our first preview of BlackBerry 10, running on a full touchscreen Dev Alpha device.

Some media outlets took the BlackBerry 10 touchscreen typing demonstration to mean that Research In Motion would be abandoning the physical keyboard on future phones.  CEO Thorsten Heins quickly squashed that misinformation the next day, when he confirmed during a press session that there would definitely be phones in the BlackBerry 10 portfolio that offer a physical keyboard.

Phew. This confirmation led to a big *sigh* of relief from CrackBerry Nation, including your's truly. Despite this good news, however, I've observed a lot of comments and discussions in the forums among users arguing that it's a mistake for BlackBerry 10 to launch with a full touchscreen device. For many BlackBerry users, it's precisely the love for the physical keyboard that has kept them from defecting to the competition, and it's these users who have been waiting the longest for a major operating system revamp to BlackBerry phones.

As of now we're not sure how long it will be after the launch of the first BlackBerry 10 phone before a variant with a physical keyboard will be released. For the sake of the BlackBerry faithful who want it, I hope that the wait will be a short one. But I will reason that RIM is absolutely making the right decision to launch a full touchscreen BlackBerry 10 phone first. Keep reading for my reasons why.

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Here's the deal. When BlackBerry 10 launches later this year, it's critically important that there is no major app gap on the platform. We don't need 500,000 apps (of which 400,000 are crapps), but we do need to have all the major ones there in good functioning order.

Two of the biggies that we still do not have confirmation on are Netflix and Skype. CrackBerry Nation has been very vocal in wanting these two services on the PlayBook/BB10. Heck, we've even done an email petition campaign to the CEO of Skype.

There are lots of good theories as to why Skype and Netflix are not committed to BB10 yet (will save those for another post), but a few days ago RIM's VP of Developer Relations Alec Saunders took to twitter in addressing a question which clarified that it's not RIM holding up the Netflix train. If Netflix asked... RIM would have a team of BlackBerry developers at Netflix's door within 24 hours to get the app built. I'm sure the same would hold true for Skype.

So Netflix... and Skype... let's get with it here and confirm you're coming to BlackBerry 10. Just do it.. or else I'm going to have to start getting desperate and sacrifice myself for the cause . And that's blood (and bad PR) that you don't want on your hands. CrackBerry Kevin to go on a Hunger Strike for Skype and Netflix?? You know I would do it. Don't make me.

* Update:  As was quickly pointed out by the CrackBerry community... it looked like the Windows Phone 7 on PlayBook fun was being done through the web browser. Ding, ding. It was. The original prankster posted an update video above. Lol. Lame... but ya know, still kinda cool while it lasted. *

*Update #2: Looks like he has now made the above video private. Sorry folks! (it's still a fake, hahaha)*

A video demo of Windows Phone 7 running in the PlayBook web browser? That's what it seems to be. We wouldn't doubt that it's doable to run WP on the QNX platform, afterall, we've seen Android running on the PlayBook in an emulator, but somehow this one doesn't come across as the real deal to the CrackBerry community. Whether fake or legit, it's kind of neat to see. Though does anybody care about Windows Phone? BlackBerry 10 FTW! Sound off in the comments on this one...

For all you lucky developers out there with a BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha in your hands, RIM has now confirmed via the @BlackBerryDev Twitter account that an update for the device is nearing. The device, which was given out to developers during the recent BlackBerry 10 Jam has, as of yet, never received an update so it will be interesting to see what RIM adds in.

We're getting the update for BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha ready - make sure your requests are in the issue tracker - http://bbry.lv/m9szVj  ^AK

As we saw recently, RIM has been showing off aspects of BlackBerry 10 OS using the device though, it's assumed they'll not add too much of that on the Dev Alpha but rather, just include the basics for developers to work with.

If you're a developer who doesn't yet have a Dev Alpha to test on, you'll want to check out the BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour dates as the devices will be handed out at those events in limited supply.

Gaming has never really been something that BlackBerry was known for. We've had the old-standby Brickbreaker since the start as well as a few good games here and there, but we never had the "latest and greatest". When the BlackBerry PlayBook was released, BlackBerry fans everywhere were overjoyed and gaming on the BlackBerry platform changed forever. With the new hardware, we could now have our share of great games as well. Things have come a long way in the last year, and moving forward to BlackBerry 10, it looks like they won't be slowing down.

At BlackBerry World 2012 this year there was a huge BlackBerry 10 vibe, but more so there was a great buzz about gaming. Plenty of big game companies like Marmalade and Gameloft were showing their support and excitement for the BlackBerry 10 platform, and that itself is truly something to look forward to.

As BlackBerry 10 approaches, more and more game companies are getting on board and either making new games for the platform, or porting existing titles over since RIM has been making it so easy to do so. Keep reading and we'll take a quick look at what we can expect for gaming on BlackBerry 10.

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During BlackBerry World 2012 and BlackBerry 10 Jam there was a lot of information released for BlackBerry developers. The highlight of the event was of course the BlackBerry 10 Native SDK with Cascades which, allows developers to create graphically rich, high performance native applications in C/C++ or Qt but in that mix, was the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK which allows developers to create native-like applications using common web programming technologies.

During BlackBerry 10 Jam, Tim Neil took the stage to demo a lot of this in action but unless you attended the event, you may have missed some of the examples of bbUI.js that were shown off. Perhaps, one of the more interesting take-aways is the fact that it supports older devices in some cases considering there has been a lot of attention given to the fact that previous BlackBerry devices for example: the BlackBerry Bold 9900 will not be upgraded to BlackBerry 10. The power of bbUI.js allows for some design influences from BlackBerry 10 to make their way to older BlackBerry devices and that's a good thing. It also explains why a lot of attention to HTML5 was given to BlackBerry 7 previously as well.

Many of the examples were available for preview ahead of BlackBerry 10 Jam but with that event now wrapped up, you can have a look at what was shown off there and have glimpse of what will be coming to future BlackBerry devices. All in all, bbUI.js is yet-another great option for developers to build apps for BlackBerry devices and quite frankly, add some new polish to older ones, which will still be supported for quite a while yet. Jump below for a closer look at some of the bbUI.js design elements and hit the source link below to learn more about bbUI.js.

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The app tray - swipe right to get back to open apps

Vivek Bhardwaj wowed us on stage at BlackBerry World when he provided our first glance of BlackBerry 10 alongside RIM CEO Thorsten Heins. Today it appears that Vivek is following up his on stage demos with some more personal press briefings, as we're seeing some new photos and BlackBerry 10 preview stories pop up on the net (CNet Crave, KnowYourMobile).

For the most part the demos appear to be the same as what we saw at BlackBerry World, showing off the flow experience and new keyboard, but looking at the stories we have gained some additional intelligence as to exactly the homescreen layout will work.

The big question that wasn't addressed at BlackBerry World was the app icon tray. The traditional homescreen view that has the dump of all the application shortcuts installed on the device. At BBWorld we saw the multitasking view, which has the "minimized" version of running apps, but we never saw a way to access the application tray.

But now we know. From the title/glance view, you only need to swipe left to enter the app icon tray, from which you can launch closed apps. Beautiful. You can grab a gander below at a couple more BB10 homescreen photos. I am especially in love with the ability to swipe into the message inbox from within any app with the hooking gesture (swipe up from the bottom right corner to get a notification preview, then over to the left to slide into messages). 

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During the keynote presentation at BlackBerry World 2012, RIM gave us a sneak peek of some of the cool new features coming to BlackBerry 10 phones. One of the features shown off that got us salivating was the touchscreen keyboard, which takes an extremely innovative approach to predictive text. Instead of placing suggested words above the keyboard, which diverts your attention from the keyboard keys while typing, the BlackBerry 10 keyboard layers its suggestions on the frets between the rows, above the key you're about to tap for your next word. From there you can easily swipe a word up or ignore it. Watching the demonstration at BlackBerry World, it really is brilliant. We're **excited** for it.

What we're less excited about is the youtube video that popped up today showing off an iPhone version of the BlackBerry 10 Keyboard. Dubbed the Octopus keyboard and available as early as next week to iPhone users that have jailbroken their device, the Octopus keyboard is a pretty clear iRIPOFF of the BB10 keyboard. Check out the video above to see it in action. The implementation isn't quite as clean as the BlackBerry version, but the premise is there.

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Research In Motion and MyCityWay have launched MyCityWay on the BlackBerry PlayBook, an application to help you get around and have a little fun at the same time. If you are looking around town for that new hotspot, directions to a hotel, or to get tickets for that new blockbuster movie, you may just want to check out this new app for the BlackBerry PlayBook.

Be the urban legend you always wanted to be:

• Have the first app that offers a personalized all-access snapshot of the city, instantly connecting you to all the up-to-the-minute usable information you crave. Know all the city’s hotspots and restaurants
• Keep up-to date with local news and the latest deals
• Stream live traffic cameras and avoid those bottlenecks Find the cheapest gas prices, the hottest sales, or upcoming events and concerts in your neighborhood

MyCityWay on the PlayBook gives you access to local weather, news, dining, and even movie times. There are some current limitations, and the service is only available to those in NYC, L.A., San Francisco, London, and India. Hopefully development will continue to include more cities from around the globe in the near future. MyCityWay is now available and can be downloaded from BlackBerry App World for the PlayBook for free with BlackBerry 10 support coming later this year. You can continue reading for the full press release.

Download MyCityWay for the BlackBerry PlayBook
Learn more about MyCityWay

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Now that BlackBerry 10 Jam and BlackBerry World 2012 are history, many developers have returned home from sunny Orlando, Florida with a BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device in their hands. Some have been quietly working on their apps, some have been digging through the device to see how exactly it all works and some are just adoring their new exclusive phone.

RIM has always made developer devices available to folks though not really in this fashion, so the interest in the device itself is quite high. That said; many folks who have checked the device out found some interesting things hidden beneath the covers. Join me as we take a look at some of the goodies found within.

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When Thorsten Heins introduced the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha on stage at BlackBerry World, many folks got a quick look at the BlackBerry 10 homescreen. Previous to that, we showed off some leaked images of what RIM was working toward which ultimately turned out to be accurate in terms of visual styling and now, we're getting a better understanding of what was happening in those images. Rather then the homescreen being "widget" based, you can think of it as more of frequently used app task manager.

The main screen will house your four (maybe more?) most recently used applications, though you should also have the ability to stick them there should you wish. To the right, you have all your current open application notifications. Where the messaging system itself never shuts down, all those items are only a quick swipe away which allows for easy access and quick glancing. On the left, is essentially your apps screen where you can access all of your installed apps. If it's not running, you can swipe over to it, tap and then run from there.

Though it's not entirely possible to be shown here in the images, it has already been confirmed that access to all these items will be gesture based. To get to them, you'll be swiping back and forth across the screen in specific ways, where each way will cause a different reaction. We'll have to see how intuitive that all turns out to be but until then we'll just enjoy the view of these concept images from RIM themselves.

Discuss in the CrackBerry Forums

Welcome to the first edition of our new weekly feature, From the Editor's Desk. What is From the Editor's Desk you ask? Think of it this way... if CrackBerry were a magazine, this would be the Letter from the Editor at the start of each issue. It'll be a weekly dialog between me and you. Some weeks I'll get long and ranty. Other weeks I'll keep it short and sweet. What will we talk about? EVERYTHING.  I'll reflect upon the BlackBerry news of the week and make predictions of what we'll see in the future. Beyond that I'll sound off on other items of interest in the world of mobile and tech. I'll keep you up to date about what's going on behind the scenes to make CrackBerry and our other Mobile Nations communities even more awesome. I'll remind you of contests that are going on (yes, the contest to win my Porsche Design BlackBerry is still on!) and I may even get a little personal from time to time. Like I said, EVERYTHING.

Props go to our EiC Phil Nickinson over at Android Central for this one. He started this series there a few months back and has been bugging me to get it going on CrackBerry. With BlackBerry World 2012 now behind us there is a lot of excitement and a lot to talk about, so the timing felt right to kick it off. Let's get to it!

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