BlackBerry Jams are live events for application developers to get direct support from BlackBerry employees. BlackBerry Jam sessions happen all over the world, and often take place alongside larger conferences. BlackBerry Jam Americas, BlackBerry Jam Europe, and BlackBerry Jam Asia are the established regional events so far. Previously, BlackBerry had held DevCon events geared towards programmers, but they have since been rebranded.
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BlackBerry 10.3 virtual jam being held on June 24th
If you're a BlackBerry developer looking to learn more about BlackBerry 10.3 and how it can make your apps better, BlackBerry is hosting a BlackBerry Jam Direct Virtual event on June 24th at 11:00 - 12:30pm EST. There's several items on the agenda for the event, which we've outlined below. Learn how you can integrate BlackBerry 10.3 features into your app to provide your users with...
BlackBerry Jam Direct Enterprise virtual conference being held Feb. 26th
If you're looking to learn more about building cross-platform Enterprise apps, a new BlackBerry Jam Direct virtual conference is set to take place on February 26th. This virtual conference is designed to help you understand how easy it is to develop cross-platform apps for enterprise with BlackBerry. A special live video broadcast format will let you learn, explore and interact as if...
BlackBerry Startup Jam helps entrepreneurs and developers on their way to success
BlackBerry has been trotting the globe looking for new ways to help developers get started on the platform, but thanks to Startup Jam, they also lent a hand to prospective entrepreneurs looking to get a foot in the door. The first event opened as over 200 developers and entrepreneurs spent two days engaging with 20 top mentors on their ideas that they hope to come BlackBerry apps or...
Update to Translator app for BlackBerry 10 to include geolocated Wikipedia articles
An incoming update to MMMOOO's Translator app will include quick reference to geolocated Wikipedia articles thanks to some fresh BlackBerry Maps integration. The idea here is that folks using a translator are already traveling somewhere foreign, so more information about nearby spots is clearly useful. As always, Translator also lets you translate text between 50 languages with one of...
FlockMe for BlackBerry 10 helps you find events with like-minded people
One interesting app I found at BlackBerry Jam Asia was FlockMe. These guys are trying to make something of a social event matchmaking service on BlackBerry 10. Users connect their Facebook account, and based on their interests, are presented with events happening around them so they can meet like-minded people. The goal here isn't so much dating (though that use case is still pretty...
Pastry Push to offer simple, cute puzzles to BlackBerry 10
The guys from ARKick were at BlackBerry Jam Asia 2013 showing off a distinctly different kind of app than their augmented reality browser. Pastry Push is a deceptively simple puzzle game where players have to slide a cupcake into a monster's mouth through a series of teacup. Players are scored out of three stars based on how many swipes they make, and are challenged to pick up bonus...
BlackBerry Sweden's tilt UI demo lets you glance at information in table reflection
This is by far the coolest thing that I saw at BlackBerry Jam Asia 2013. Our good friend Gary Klassen, inventor of BBM, had a session on Tilt UI, a part of Cascades that's available now and allows developers to use device orientation to show useful information. This hearkens back to something the old TAT crew made years ago called Horizon. In one demo app, users can keep tabs on...
BlackBerry's Chris Smith gives us deep dive with BBM and SMS for PC
BlackBerry's Chris Smith gave gave us a closer look at Jam Asia's BBM on PC tech demo, except this time they had it up and running for SMS, and he indicated they could have done it with any number of their apps. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us shoot video, but check out the keynote video below in action. Basically it projects the mobile app onto Windows securely through Link's...
Epicue for BlackBerry 10 to help users figure out restaurant wait times
Epicue is an interesting check-in app that aims to make sure the restaurants you go to don't have a massive wait time, and we got a sneak peak at BlackBerry Jam Asia 2013. Users check in to establishments with the app and give the place a red, yellow, or green wait time rating. They can also check into Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter, and BBM at the same time, as well as upload a picture...
BlackBerry's Alec Saunders: "We're definitely not going away"
We caught up with Alec Saunders, VP of Developer Relations, at BlackBerry Jam Asia to gauge the sentiment of local developers and figure out how BlackBerry's developer strategy is evolving. If you watched the keynote, you'll certainly notice that the overall angle was new. OS 10.2 has been in the hands of developers for awhile, so Jam Asia wasn't so much about launching new tools, but...
BlackBerry's Marty Mallick talks about Instagram and other big players on BB10
The most persistent question I've been getting about BlackBerry Jam Asia has been "How's the mood?" There's certainly a cloud of non-developer news looming over this developer conference, but surprisingly few people are getting wet from the rain, though they certainly aren't oblivious to the weather. Marty Mallick heads up alliances with major developers to get them on BlackBerry 10,...
Hands-on the white BlackBerry Z30!
We've had our initial unboxing of the BlackBerry Z30, but here at Jam Asia 2013, we've spotted a rare specimen indeed - the white model! The rear of the device isn't finalized, but as you can tell, it's looking fantastic already. There's not a lot of information on availability, but apparently most places that have the black one will have it in white too. Jam Asia has also been my first...
Checking out Sina Weibo's official BlackBerry 10 app
Sina Weibo was announced at BlackBerry Jam Asia 2013, and we got to talk with one of the developers to see what's up. For those unfamiliar, Weibo is China's biggest social network. Its closest analogue would be Twitter, but you've also got a Facebook-style "Like" mechanism in place. Running through the app, everything is smooth, responsive, and laid out sensibly, which are all things...
Talking with inventor of BBM about PC, iOS, and Android rollouts
Talking with Gary Klassen is always so refreshing. He has this child-like glee that sparkles in his eye at least once every conversation. Even at hard times like this for BlackBerry, he manages to keep this spirit alive. In fact, I bet he secretly relishes the challenge of a dramatic (and some say impossible) turnaround. As you might expect, most of my questions with Gary revolved...
Thinking big with the world's most prolific app developer, S4BB
Last month there was a big stink about a single developer accounting for about 47,000 apps in BlackBerry World - roughly a third of the total catalog count at last tally. Lots of press painted a picture of a manufacturer that encouraged low-quality, spammy developers to beef up their numbers and ultimately project an inflated sense of health in the app ecosystem. Even outside of the...