My first smartphone had a keyboard, and I made a point of sticking with keyboard phones for a long time. I see new designs popping up with keyboards and they stir something inside me. Yet… I still use a slab-of-glass phone. What gives?
The launch of the BlackBerry Passport today also brings BlackBerry fans an all new physical QWERTY keyboard, which the company is hyping today as "touch-enabled". What does that mean, exactly? BlackBerry has that covered with a new video and blog post just about the Passport's keyboard. BlackBerry says: The touch-enabled keyboard allows you to brush your fingers over the QWERTY...
You may be able to type faster on a touchscreen than a physical keyboard, but there's a lot more to a great typing experience than just speed.
![BlackBerry 10 gets one more demo at CES [video]](https://d-cb.jc-cdn.com/sites/crackberry.com/files/styles/w250h188crop/public/youtube/6JErtG-hzOc.jpg)
As we inch closer and closer to the BlackBerry 10 launch event this month, we're all getting anxious to just have the devices already. While RIM isn't full force with a booth at CES this year, there are plenty of heads on the ground spreading the word of BlackBerry 10. There are still plenty of features of the OS that we haven't yet seen and RIM is doing a good job of keeping some...
As we move toward January 30th, there are still plenty of hidden gems in the BlackBerry 10 OS that we have yet to see. RIM is doing a great job at keeping many of the features a secret and dropping only what they want us to see leading up to the launch. One of those features is part of the awesome BB10 predictive keyboard called space inference. Vivek Bhardwaj took some time with Inside...
<a href="http://polldaddy.com/poll/6403308/" mce_href="http://polldaddy.com/poll/6403308/">Which BlackBerry 10 device will you choose?</a> If you've been following the news regarding...
Just in case you were wondering whether or not RIM had any patents in the works for their BlackBerry 10 keyboard, that question has been answered by the weekly approval of patents by the USPTO. RIM was issued a rather broad patent for logic-based text prediction or simply put, text entry that will think ahead for you in an attempt to guess what you're really trying to say. The official...
Rewind nine months and I posted a CrackBerry Habits poll asking if you talked on your BlackBerry via a wired headset. That poll was inspired my friend Vinny, who's not so much a tech guy but is absolutely a hardcore user of his BlackBerry. When it came to his wired headset, he'd talk on his phone non-stop, even while out for breakfast with a group of people. It was BlackBerry abuse, not...
Normally you do not have those arrows on the Snooze button. With this shortcut, you will! Listen up all you 78 million BlackBerry users out there as I've got a hot BlackBerry tip you'll want to take advantage of immediately... When it comes to calendar popup reminders (as seen in the photo above), you normally have three options: Open, Dismiss and Snooze, with the Snooze time being...
If you've ever struggled with the BlackBerry keyboard either being too slow or too fast, there is a simple solution. Thankfully buried in the settings is the Key Rate option that allows you to raise or lower the speed of the keyboard. Depending on your device and/or OS, you may find that you often make typos when typing too fast and want to slow things down, or you're just a typing...
It's been said multiple times that the first BlackBerry 10 device will be full-touchscreen. This doesn't sit well with a lot of people that love their BlackBerry for the QWERTY keyboard, as many are hesitant to switch to a device without physical keys. Understanding this hesitation, Research In Motion has poured a lot of time into making the BlackBerry 10 on-screen keyboard experience...
If you saw our post on the BlackBerry Challenge Council's multitasking project but didn't click through to watch the video, you missed out. So here it is again for your viewing pleasure... a good and funny video that puts the focus on one of the biggest strengths of the traditional BlackBerry experience, the physical keyboard! For a lot of BlackBerry loyalists, the one thing more than...
The BlackBerry Mini Keyboard is an awesome setup that has me using my BlackBerry PlayBook more than ever.
A year ago we discussed the Shift + Delete command - a new (at the time) feature of the BlackBerry OS that some people loved, some hated and some didn't even know existed. When typing away in BlackBerry Messenger, if you press Shift+Delete you will find your message is deleted. Personally, I found the new feature to be annoying; as more often than not I pressed that key combination...
[ youtube video link for mobile viewing ] The new Predictive Text feature on the BlackBerry PlayBook. is one of those features that makes us wonder how we got along without it prior to the 2.0 update. It is a great approach to predictive text. Thanks to the new SwiftKey keyboard on the PlayBook 2.0 software, you have the ability to enable Predictive Text and it truly is a huge help...
We all have our own reasons for sticking with BlackBerry, and one that we hear time and again is the indispensable keyboard. A lot of converts to other platforms brush it aside, saying keyboards are overrated and out-of-style, but then a story like this pops up and reconfirms just how much we rely on those smooth QWERTY keys. Richard Lee is a professional English footballer currently...
[ youtube link for mobile viewing ] Imagine this scenario - it shouldn't be too difficult: you're using your desktop or laptop computer, typing away on your full-sized keyboard when some sort of BlackBerry communication comes through. It might be an email, a Tweet, or even a BBM. You pick up your BlackBerry Smartphone and type out a response on that great, but small keyboard....
[ youtube link for mobile viewing ] The virtual keyboard on the BlackBerry Torch 9800 is the best virtual keyboard in the smartphone market. There I said it; though I also said in on our last CrackBerry Podcast, too. I'm a firm believer in the fact that I can use the virtual keyboard better and faster than the physical one on my Torch. Yet whenever I mention that fact to others, I...
[ youtube video link for mobile viewing ] If you are one of the many people waiting anxiously for the BlackBerry Torch 9850/60, you'll want to have a look at the video above. This video takes another look at the 9860, showing off the hardware as well as running through the software a bit. You can also see the new keyboard in action, in both portrait and landscape modes. The device...
Image by UrbanGlowCam As Joseph pointed out not long ago, the virtual keyboard on the BlackBerry PlayBook is a little harder for some people to get accustomed to using, in part due to a different layout than that of the BlackBerry Torch/Storm virtual keyboard. As seen in a picture posted in the forums, the virtual keyboard of the Torch 2 9810 (and presumably the Torch 9850/60) will be...
The other day, I was helping one of my friends get better acquainted with his new BlackBerry Torch. He's no stranger to BlackBerry, he had one before I did. In fact, if you go back and look at my CrackBerry Idol audition, he's the one with the 8820 who told me to get a BlackBerry. Without that bit of advice, I never would have joined the CrackBerry Team. The other day, he asked...
How important is it that your smartphone have a physical keyboard?customer surveys With the recent announcement of the BlackBerry Torch and BlackBerry 6 last week, BlackBerry has been making headlines everywhere. In addition to the expected reviews and buzz surrounding these new products, I've noticed a common theme emerge in a lot of these stories regarding the smartphone...
If you are tired of accidentally mashing your BlackBerry keys and dialing strange numbers cause your BlackBerry is floating around in your purse or pocket, you’ll need to lock your BlackBerry keyboard. You can do it with or without a password, but either way, then number of accidental calls to complete strangers should go way down. There are multiple ways to lock the keyboard on your...