CTIA 2010 is now over and I caught the red eye home this morning from Las Vegas. It's a painful Monday - I'm taking the day to catch up on emails and recover from a weekend of debauchery. And unfortunately, my first post of the week on the blogs here may prove a little painful for all the Twitter lovers out there as well...

Last week we brought word straight from RIM's Twitter for BlackBerry booth at CTIA that March 31st would ring in public availability of the app. However, today I received the following update from RIM:

The March 31st launch date for the public beta of Twitter was prematurely shared at CTIA. The application will not leave its current limited beta in March. As of right now, the launch date hasn't been decided and the team is working to make sure the next release is feature-rich and has a great user experience before opening the app to everyone. 

So there you have it. Public availability will not be coming this week as we were initially told. I know that kind of sucks, but at the same time it's not a bad thing if the extra time is going to mean more features and an overall improved user experience. And of course there are lots of great twitter apps out there already (see our Ultimate BlackBerry Twitter Client Roundup) to make the wait easier. We'll let you know when we have more news on this one.

CTIA 2010 is taking place right now in Las Vegas and Dieter Bohn, Phil Nickinson and myself are on hand representing the Smartphone Experts crew. With the biggest news of the show already said and done, we sat down this morning to reflect upon the event. Take a listen. Show links below.

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The tip line is off the hook about the newly created BlackBerry Beta Zone. After joining you can download beta programs in progress or sign up for ones that will be available soon. During these beta testing periods you leave feedback on how these programs can be impoved as well as taking part in online discussions and surveys.  Software that are available for beta testing are the following:

• BlackBerry Messenger 5.0.1 (available for download April 1st)
• BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0.2
• BlackBerry Device Software 5.0 Maintenance Releases for the 8520/8530 - Open to members who live in Canada, will be capped at 1000 participants
• BlackBerry Beta Zone - A discussion on the Zone itself

The BlackBerry Beta Zone is open to anyone living in the US, Canada, or the United Kingdom. So head on over and sign up to be some of the first to try out RIM software before its released. Remember to leave feedback while beta testing these apps to help improve the overall experience of the product upon release.

Note: RIM's password security seems to be higher than most, so be prepared to create a password of at least 8 characters that includes letter, numbers, and symbols 

• More information and to join the BlackBerry Beta Zone>> 

Gotta love these conferences. After kneeing a giant droid in the nuts and visiting the BlackBerry booth, I headed straight to the LuxMobile/Ed Hardy exhiibit to try and top our CES 2010 video (in case you missed it, watch it here). Now while they did have some booth babes on hand again showing off the latest Ed Hardy cases, the big news from LuxMobile was the introduction of their new line of David Garibaldi accessories. Garibaldi is a well-known artist who's work is a "fusion of music, energy, street culture, urban style and graffiti."

When I hit the booth, it turned out Garibaldi himself was on hand to celebrate the launch and put on a show for the crowd, doing up some oversized "case paintings" on the spot. Crazy cool stuff. I caught the whole show and you can watch it above (we'll forgive him for painting on an iPhone canvas instead of a BlackBerry one). The new phone covers for BlackBerry MSRP for $29.99. You can keep your eyes peeled for them.

As is now the CrackBerry custom when arriving on the scene at a mobile conference, I headed down to RIM's BlackBerry booth to see what was going on. RIM seems to change up their booth designs fairly often and this one is all new yet again. Looking good!!

From a BlackBerry news standpoint, CTIA 2010 is shaping up to be the quietest show I have ever attended since my time in the space. It doesn't seem that RIM is going to be making any announcements here and even on the application side of things there hasn't been too much new getting announced. It's kind of a good thing though.... a bit of a calm before the Storm. I *think* everybody is saving their RIM news for WES coming up at the end of April. I'm definitely hoping for some excitement there.

*UPDATE- Vlingo 4.5 links are now live in BlackBerry App World*

Vlingo has a new addition to their already awesome services arriving later today. Vlingo 4.5 add the new, free Safe reader funtion that helps prevent the whole driving while texting scenario. It's getting to be a standard law these days that no wireless device functions be used while driving.

“Although Vlingo does not condone the use of a mobile device while driving, we believe SafeReader provides a safe, hands-free option for receiving must-have messages while on the go,” said Dave Grannan, chief executive officer of Vlingo. “Before getting on the road, simply press a button, speak to the device ‘Start SafeReader’, and all incoming messages will be delivered audibly, without fail. We believe that any distracted driving is dangerous, but with SafeReader we can ensure that getting incoming texts and emails when driving is no more distracting than listening to the radio. By providing our BlackBerry smartphone users with SafeReader we hope to keep the roads a little safer.”

Vlingo 4.5 with Safereader will be released through BlackBerry App World and via the Vlingo website later today. Having checked out quite a few apps that offer similar services recently, I'm excited to see what Vlingo has in store for this area of apps. Once the application goes live, we'll update the post for you all. Full press released is after that jump if ya want give it a read through.

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After the keynote this morning I rolled by the BlackBerry booth and stumbled upon the Twitter pod. After some smooth talking (just kidding, no smooth talking required), I was informed that the Official Twitter for BlackBerry client will be rolling out to the public on March 31st. Only a few weeks ago it was rolled out as an invite-only beta, but if you still haven't checked it out you won't have to wait much longer. The beta has been going strong and although the results are mixed, everyone who hasn't yet had a chance to play with RIM's own Twitter client will surely be itching to get a hold of it in just over a week. Thats all we know for now, so keep it locked here and we'll bring you more details if anything pops up.

*UPDATE - The link for BOLT ver. 2.0 is now available, download here*

Kevin is currently in Las Vegas attending CTIA 2010 and sent us all off this little piece of information from the Showstoppers event there. What you see above in the pic is an early glimpse of what is to be BOLT 2.0. Releasing early tomorrow the new BOLT browser has many other upgrades coming with it aside from just tabbed browsing. Some new features have been added and plenty of upgrades have happened server side to enhance the browsing experience for users.

“Each new version of BOLT becomes more exciting to announce,” said Anna Magliocco-Chagnon, president and CEO of Bitstream.  “We are closely listening to our end-users through our user forum, our Twitter and Facebook pages, and their comments on blog posts and articles, and they are guiding our development roadmap in important ways.  It is this close relationship we are building with our users to which we attribute our stunning growth. BOLT added 1 million new users in the last five weeks alone.”

BOLT has upped the ante here for those looking for a better browsing experience on the BlackBerry platform. As most users are awaiting the webkit browser from Research In Motion, BOLT is offering that experience in one way or another right now. I certainly cannot wait to see how this latest version looks. Hit the jump for the full list of additional features added to version 2.0 of BOLT. We'll let you all know tomorrow when the 2.0 version goes live.

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Slow news this week, but things should start picking up again very soon. We saw some more slider news as well as a few **though provoking** screenshots of what may (or may not be) OS 6.0. A few contests to keep our weekly streak going strong as well. Kevin is off to CTIA next week so we'll see if anything good comes down the line on the BlackBerry front from Vegas. If there's no big BlackBerry news, hopefully Ed Hardy will be there again so he can try and top his CES video. Hit the links below to see what you missed, and be sure to get in on the contests before the weekend is over.

What You May Have Missed:

• First Real Pics Of Upcoming BlackBerry OS 6.0?!? >> 
• How to Install the SIM Card and MicroSD Memory Card into a BlackBerry Smartphone >> 
• Official OS 5.0.0.517 For The BlackBerry Storm 2 (9550) Released By SaskTel >> 
• How Do You Use Your BlackBerry Series: Do You Use Voice Commands? >> 
• Xobni Mobile for BlackBerry Smartphones Now Available >> 
• Official OS 5.0.0.545 For The BlackBerry Bold 9700 Released By Vodafone UK >> 
• BlackBerry Slider Rumormill Continues: Final Device Model Numbers to Be 9900/9930? 9930 a Sprint Exclusive? >> 

Contest Reminders:

• Win a Trip Around the World Courtesy of Fixmo Tools >>
• BlackBerry App Roundup; Contest: 25 Copies of WordSearch to be Won! >>
• Accessory Roundup: Automobile Edition - Chance to Win a Free Car Charger! >> 
• 5BARz Road Warrior - Cell Signal Strength Booster - Win One! >> 
• Get Your Daily Horoscope on with BeHoroscope - 75 Copies to be Won! >> 
• AddOnis Updated to v1.4.8/9 - 40 Copies to be Won! >> 
• BlackBerry Theme Roundup - 25 Copies of Touch Panels to be Won! >>