A week ago we reported the news that Mike Kirkup, RIM's Sr. Director of Developer Relations, tendered his resignation at Research In Motion. It definitely was sad news for us to hear, as over the years Mike has been a huge promoter of the BlackBerry Platform and a great spokesperson for the company. He was also one of those guys at RIM who understood the role sites like CrackBerry play in the ecosystem, and really valued our contributions - we loved having him on CrackBerry podcasts and in videos at different mobile conferences.

While Mike's departure leaves behind some big shoes to fill at RIM, if the rumors I've heard pan out to be true, I'm super confident that RIM's new Director of Developer Relations will comfortably step into this role and get the job done. To say I was stoked when I caught word that Neil Sainsbury may take on this role would be an understatement.

Longtime CrackBerry readers will be familiar with Neil, as before he joined RIM he was one of the most active, successful and outspoken BlackBerry developers in the community. Neil was the brains behind BBSmart, which was the company that brought HTML Email Viewing to BlackBerry back in 2007 via their BBSmart Email Viewer app, long before RIM ever built it into the native OS (BBSmart AlarmsPro was another of their must-have apps). Neil was always active in our CrackBerry forums as eZainny, even wrote a couple blog posts for CrackBerry, and ran his own blog which was dedicated to BlackBerry app development. This website was well known and read by RIM, and on more than one occasion Neil took to task BlackBerry developer platform shortcomings. Ultimately Neil joined Research In Motion to help better the life of BlackBerry developers and quality of apps.

In the role of Director of Developer Relations, Neil would now be in a position within RIM where he can really make an impact on the organization and get things done, which should mean great things for BlackBerry developers and for us end consumers (in terms of awesome apps!). I've personally spoken to Neil on a couple of occasions at BlackBerry DevCon events (and watched his presentations, which kicked ass!), and definitely think RIM is making a smart decision here. Neil is a straight shooter - he calls things as he sees them, and that's exactly what RIM needs right now. Find the problems, and fix them!

I hope this is true - I'll be looking forward to see what Neil can do. Now Neil, if you're reading this, you'd better brush up on your podcasting and video skills and get ready to join us for a CrackBerry Podcast at DevCon next month!

With all the recent BlackBerry network outages, I thought it might be a good time to sit back and reflect on how reliable the BlackBerry actually is, what a reasonable expectation of reliability should be, and also to address the criticism some people have that RIM isn’t doing enough to notify people of outages.

The first statement to be made when discussing reliability of modern day technology is an obvious one, but it needs to be said: “Nothing is 100% reliable.” Later I’ll be discussing in more detail why this is the case and also how this is exactly the trade-off that the market has had to make to bring you what you want at a price you can afford. For now however, it’s important to keep this little tidbit of information always in the back of your mind.

Continue reading article

Morning Class! We're now into Week 2 of the Smartphone Round Robin and thus it's also the second week in a row of Guest Professors in our BlackBerry 101 Lecture series (it's kind of hard for me to teach when I'm not allowed to use my Blackberry for a month!).

One of the things that has become very apparent to all of the Community Editors participating in the Round Robin is that once you have a good understanding of a phone, it's the third party software applications you install on it that take things to the next level and allow you to get the most out of the features and functionality your smartphone device has to offer. It only makes sense then that today's topic covers everything you need to know about installing and managing third party applications on your BlackBerry.

You're in for a real treat this lecture! Today's Guest Professor is none other than BBSmart's Neil Sainsbury. Neil is the brains behind the Best-Selling BBSmart Email Viewer, so it's safe to say he knows a thing or two about 3rd party applications for the BlackBerry. Back in August we conducted an exclusive interview with Neil and today it's nice to have him back on the site as a Professor... Welcome to BlackBerry 101 Neil! Get Crack'n!

Continue reading article

It's not everyday that a new BlackBerry application becomes available for download and immediately becomes a best seller, but in the case of BBSmart's Email Viewer that is exactly what happened. More than that, BBSmart's Email Viewer has remained at the top of the best sellers list for weeks, and I have the feeling it's going to stay that way for a while!

Neil Sainsbury (NS) is the brain behind BBSmart and the company's Email Viewer. I first talked to Neil a few months ago, when he was still in the beta testing phase of his yet-to-be named email application. And even now, in the current state of busyness Neil is experiencing (that's what happens when your first BlackBerry application is a huge success), he was kind enough to take some time to talk to CrackBerry.com (CB) and answer a few questions...

CB:  How long have you been a berry user?
NS:  I've been using the BlackBerry now for about 2 years.

CB:  What was your first BlackBerry? What device are you currently running?
NS:  My first one was an old chunky 7230 and I'm currently using the 8700. I still have the 7230 sitting around actually and even pull it out on occasion - they really got the keypad right with that model!

CB:  Where are you based out of?
NS:  We're based out of sunny Brisbane, Australia. Beautiful location but with all the great weather not exactly the most conductive to sitting inside and programming!

CB:  I understand BBSmart Email Viewer is your first Blackberry Application.  How did you get turned onto developing for BlackBerry, and how did you identify the opportunity of making BlackBerry's plain old email application look great?
NS:  Yep, this is BBSmart's first application. I actually started out developing for the BlackBerry through my work. I was a software engineer working in the finance sector and developed an application to deliver quotes, news, emails, etc. to traders on the go (they ALL have BlackBerries). I really enjoyed this work and must have shown a real knack for it as well - the feedback we received from traders was amazing and now the user base for that application just keeps growing and growing. Right now some of the biggest financial companies in the world are using this application religiously. After this, I just knew the BlackBerry was for me. Prior to getting into the BlackBerry also, I'd done quite a bit of development work with other "mobile" devices. I say "mobile" because I'm talking here about EFTPOS terminals, the things you use to swipe your debit or credit card in stores. Try though I might, I could never come up with an elaborate money rounding/siphoning scheme!

Continue reading article