A new Lumia phone from Nokia, this year's Google I/O and BlackBerry Live -- yep, it was a pretty hectic week for us, but also a good seven days for tech news. Even if Google didn't have any truly new hardware for us, it's started up its own on-demand music service, gave us more details on Google Glass, redesigned its Maps and, well, it was a very long keynote. Join us after the break for a numerical breakdown of that and the rest of the week's big news.

Filed under: Nokia, Google, Blackberry

Comments

During BlackBerry Live this week we got to speak with Vivek Bhardwaj, BlackBerry's Head of Software, about the future of BB10. In light of the the platform's first major software update rolling out to its devices, we asked about the plans for future releases. Bhardwaj told us that the plan is for them to come at a regular cadence of one major code update per year, with other, incremental updates for specific devices sprinkled in as needed. A particular focus is to do so while delivering devs fully realized hardware and to avoid fragmentation in the code base -- making it easier to create BB10 apps.

While he wouldn't dish details about features coming to BB10 in those updates, Bhardwaj did explain that he's working on making BB10 a platform particularly suited for use not only in cars, but also in the healthcare and financial services industries. That focus is a part of the mobile computing ethos espoused by CEO Thorsten Heins meant to have BB10 devices be users' personal, portable computing terminal that is simply plugged into a screen -- whether it's a desktop monitor, a car or somewhere else -- that delivers a uniform experience. When asked whether those screens would include TVs, Bhardwaj didn't rule it out, but he did say that home experiences weren't a priority because it's a crowded space and BB10 "is all about getting things done." As a result, the number one focus is building out a compelling automotive platform, with healthcare and financial services coming in a close second. So, folks thinking BB10 was BlackBerry betting on consumers instead of the enterprise, think again. The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same -- at least when the folks in Waterloo are involved.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile

Comments

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

Comments

"It's more like Tumblr." That's how one BlackBerry rep described BBM Channels to us, the company's new social networking service announced this past week at BlackBerry Live in Orlando. While Channels, alone, may initially seem like nothing new -- it's an iteration of a social communication model we've seem countless times before -- the service actually speaks more to BlackBerry's forward-facing strategy for BBM as a device-agnostic mobile solution. And, certainly, with the BBM messaging service heading to Android and iOS later this summer, BlackBerry only stands to gain from making its platform more robust, more engaging and more attractive to the big name brands, personalities and publications that draw followers.

Gallery: BBM Channels

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Software, Mobile, Blackberry

Comments

While Google presented its nearly four hours of recorded keynote glory in one giant clip, BlackBerry had the decency to split things up into four more-manageable segments. In the first installment of BlackBerry Live Keynote 2013, you can catch CEO Thorsten Heins chatting up some stats before hopping into the passenger seat of a QNX-equipped Bentley. Later during the show, we hear from Alicia Keys, the company's Global Creative Director, before taking a look at BBM Channels (which we imagine the performer already plans to use as a replacement for Twitter). You'll find all four parts of the company's keynote embedded right after the break.

Filed under: Cellphones, Blackberry

Comments

Via: MobileSyrup.com

Source: BlackBerry (YouTube)

Tablet users eager to hop on the BBM bandwagon with BlackBerry's standalone app will have to tamper down their enthusiasm. Vivek Bhardwaj, head of the BlackBerry Software Portfolio, told TrustedReviews that the company will focus exclusively on smartphones running iOS 6 and Android 4.0 or above for this summer's launch. "Smartphone is our real focus and again it comes back to what BBM is. If you look [at] BBM and the engagement and the activity, it's because it is mobile, because people are on the go," Bhardwaj said. Meaning, iPad owners will be bereft of a tablet-supported BBM app until BlackBerry sees fit to develop one. There might still be hope for BBM on larger screens at some point, though. Perhaps hinting at BlackBerry's plans for the future, Bhardwaj said, "I think when you look at things like Smart TVs and desktops, those are definitely areas for exploration."

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Software, Mobile, Blackberry

Comments

Via: SlashGear

Source: TrustedReviews

First and second place in the smartphone OS wars is a foregone conclusion with Android and iOS (respectively) strongly entrenched, but the battle for third place is now full of intrigue. BlackBerry and Microsoft have each stepped up their games with their respective BB10 and WP8 OS's of late, but so far it's Redmond prevailing, having jumped two spots from last quarter to take third place, with a 3.2 percent share over BlackBerry's 2.9 percent. While those two are fighting for third place scraps, Android kicked up its smartphone OS dominance with 75 percent of the global market, which is a huge jump from last year, while iOS fell back slightly to a 17.3 percent share. Between them, those titans owned 92.3 percent of the pie, but it's arguably Windows Phone that has raised its game the most, with a senior IDC analyst claiming that this latest ranking "validates the direction taken by Microsoft and key partner Nokia."

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Comments

Source: IDC

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

Comments

It's not the most exciting hardware launch to come from the newly reinvigorated (and rebranded) BlackBerry, but the Q5 is a device with a mission. Announced formally this morning by CEO Thorsten Heins on stage at BlackBerry Live, the Q5 is in some ways a more approachable successor to the Q10. Combining a 3.1-inch, 720 x 720 touchscreen display with BlackBerry's well-loved physical QWERTY, the Q5 is being squarely positioned at users in the developing world. And its less-than-premium build quality is a testament to that affordability. We spent some brief time getting to know this newest BB10 device, so skip past the break for our initial thoughts.

Gallery: BlackBerry Q5 hands-on

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Blackberry

Comments

Thorsten Heins just broke what has to be the biggest news out of BBLive this morning: BBM is breaking out of its walled garden. Starting this summer, users running iOS 6 and Android ICS or higher will be able to download the BBM app for free and join in the messaging experience so highly curated by BlackBerry. Initially, however, only the messaging and group features will be accessible for outside users, but throughout the year, the company hopes to add BBM voice, BBM channels, screen sharing and video capabilities. You'll have to hold tight for a more specific launch date, as Heins didn't announce any concrete timing. But if you've waited for this news for years, what's a few more months?

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Blackberry

Comments

BlackBerry Live 2013 isn't just about new phones and OS versions. CEO Thorsten Heins just announced BBM channels, a way for people, companies and brands to provide streams of content in BBM. The new service allows users to search for and subscribe to preferred channels, comment and share posts with friends and also have one-to-one chats with channel administrators. Users can create and curate their own channels as well, with metrics to track the amount of traffic they're receiving. So, it's essentially Twitter, only with a decidedly BlackBerry flavor.

Following the initial announcement, Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton appeared onstage to chat a bit more about the new platform and explained that the service will provide his F1 team the ability to communicate more directly and easily with fans. Excited to join Mr. Hamilton on the BBM channel bandwagon? Well, the beta's available for download now for BlackBerry devices running BB 5 and up, and the full release is slated to arrive later this summer.

Gallery: BBM Channels

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Blackberry

Comments

We've gotten word of a new BlackBerry smartphone today, and we now also have some news about familiar one. Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile have all confirmed that they'll soon be carrying the BlackBerry Q10, although some are being more specific with details than others. Verizon is saying that it will be available sometime in June (it has an exclusive on the white version), while Sprint will only go as far as to say "late summer," with neither offering a price. T-Mobile will also be rolling out the phone sometime in June, and has confirmed that it will cost $99.99 down with its new plan structure, or $579.99 if you want to buy it outright. All this follows business registation for the device, which began last month. We've yet to hear anything more from AT&T, but it has already committed to the device and will presumably be launching it in roughly the same timeframe as well.

Update: T-Mobile has reached out to let us know that while general T-Mobile customers have to wait until June, business customers can order the Q10 today, with delivery typically expected within a week.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, Blackberry, T-Mobile

Comments

Source: Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile

Amongst the flurry of announcements this morning at BlackBerry Live in Orlando, CEO Thorsten Heins finally made good on an app promise from this past January. Yes, Skype is now available on the Z10. Users that want to make VoIP calls will have to upgrade to the latest iteration of the platform, BB10.1, in order to download the preview from BB World. Additionally, Heins also told attendees that Moog will be bringing its synthesizer app Animoog, previously exclusive to iOS, to the BB10 platform starting today. So, slowly, but steadily BlackBerry's following through on its vision to make BB10 a robust developer-friendly OS.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Blackberry

Comments

BlackBerry Live 2013 has begun, and Thorsten Heins just revealed the first bit of good news for BlackBerry users. The latest version of BlackBerry's OS, BB 10.1 will be rolling out to the Z10 on US carriers beginning later this month. While the new software is mostly about tweaks to the OS for folks with a Q10 in their pocket, Z10 users will get an HDR camera mode, support for contact suggestions, PIN-to-PIN messaging and email with attached messages when they get the update. Additionally, notifications are improved with per-account message notifications and users will finally be able to paste phone numbers into the dialers as well. We still don't have an exact delivery date, as it'll vary by carrier, but at least you know you'll get the new software goodies in the next couple weeks.

BlackBerry's Enterprise Service is also getting bumped to version 10.1 and is available as a free download right now. Most users won't care much about the mobile-management platform, but IT pros will definitely appreciate the simplified deployment tools that can manage not just BB10 devices, but also Android and iOS handsets. There's also a shiny new dashboard that offers all sorts of data and statistics. And, really, who doesn't love piles of data?

Filed under: Software, Mobile, Blackberry

Comments

This morning at BlackBerry Live in Orlando, Thorsten Heins kicked off the company's major annual event with a brief mention of the latest BB10 device, the Q5. It's a handset Heins is convinced will be a "big hit" for its target audience. The portrait QWERTY handset follows in the footsteps of the recently unleashed Q10, merging a 3.1-inch touch screen with hardware keyboard, but has a more specific bent: it's made for emerging markets. Due to be launched in a trio of colors (i.e., black, red, white and pink), the Q5 is being positioned as a low-end device that combines affordability, BB's signature physical keyboard and, of course, BB10. It's due to rollout this July in Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia. As for pricing, the company's remaining mum on that end, but with summer fast approaching, we should know soon enough.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Blackberry

Comments

Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile

Comments

If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought hints of changes to the Droid RAZR lineup, a peek at Sense with Android 4.2 and the arrival of the Lumia 520 to Canada. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore all that's happening in the mobile world for this week of May 6th, 2013.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

Comments

Another week with Google Glass and, as I grow more accustomed to having it in my life, I find myself struggling more and more to come up with reasons to wear the thing. I'm still very happy to stop on the street and give people a demo, but if I'm being honest, I don't need that much attention from strangers in my life. Don't get me wrong, I'm still very excited about the potential here, but it's safe to say the novelty is running out.

Still, this week Glass did get a nice improvement. The XE5 update was released late Tuesday night and shipped with a series of small but important niceties, like notifications from Google+ and the ability to do a search from anywhere in the UI. Unfortunately, this update also changes things such that uploads will only occur from the headset when it's plugged in and on WiFi. That'll help battery life -- at a somewhat unfortunate cost to wireless functionality.

Filed under: Misc, Blackberry

Comments

BlackBerry isn't done with improving the BlackBerry 10 editions of LinkedIn and Twitter -- not by a long shot. The company has once more upgraded the two social apps, this time with an emphasis on search. LinkedIn now lets users import contacts to find people they already know; in Twitter, meanwhile, universal search now shows photos, profiles and tweets on a single page. There's more than just these two upgrades, of course. LinkedIn reveals more about companies and carries a slew of minor UI tweaks, while Twitter keeps content fresher with automatic caching. If the new versions are tempting, they're waiting at the source links for Q10 and Z10 owners alike.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Blackberry

Comments

Via: Inside BlackBerry, Phone Scoop

Source: BlackBerry World (1), (2)

Our initial look at the BlackBerry R10 quickly suggested that the smartphone would be a budget alternative to the Q10, but it wasn't clear just what we'd lose by penny-pinching. If DGtle is on the ball with its newly claimed specs, though, we won't sacrifice as much as we thought. Along with offering more photos of the R10, the site believes that the handset will have the same 3.1-inch screen size and 2GB of RAM as its QWERTY sibling. Instead, the sacrifices would mostly affect media hounds: the R10 reportedly steps down to a 5-megapixel camera in addition to previously hinted cutbacks in storage (to 8GB) and battery (to 1,800mAh). We may learn the full truth soon enough -- while there's no guarantees anything will happen, next week's BlackBerry Live conference is a prime opportunity for an unveiling.

Filed under: Cellphones, Blackberry

Comments

Via: MobileSyrup, N4BB

Source: DGtle (translated)

If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought a leak of the BlackBerry R-Series smartphone in red, a clever new notification system from the Paranoid Android team and quarterly earnings from Leap Wireless, the parent company of Cricket. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore all that's happening in the mobile world for this week of April 29th, 2013.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Software, Mobile

Comments

We get it, your old BlackBerry smartphone isn't getting any newer, but thanks to today's Twitter update, it'll at least be a bit more useful. Most importantly, Twitter 4.1 can now provide notifications whenever you gain new followers, or whenever someone retweets or favorites one of your tweets. The update also adds swiping panels in the bio banner and makes it easier for first time users to sign up. Naturally, the software lacks some of the niceties that you'll find in the BlackBerry 10 version, but that's no reason to pass over the improvements. Twitter 4.1 can be found in BlackBerry World, and is supported by BlackBerry 5 OS and above.

Filed under: Software, Mobile, Blackberry

Comments

Source: Inside BlackBerry

The average consumer may be able to thumb through FCC filings to get a peek at their next smartphone, but certain government employee's hopes lie in the hands of another agency: the US Department of Defense. Good news for federally employed BlackBerry fans, then -- the company just announced that BlackBerry 10 smartphones and PlayBook tablets running Enterprise Service 10 have been added to the Defense Information Systems Agency's approved product list. Finally, DoD employees can toss out that aging BB7 handset and pick up a modern OS. Check out the company's official statement after the break.

Filed under: Mobile

Comments

Via: nerdberry

Source: BlackBerry

Today marks one of the symbolically more important launches in the BlackBerry universe: the Q10, the first keyboard-equipped BB10 phone, is at last available on the company's Canadian home turf. As promised, customers with Bell, Rogers and Telus (as well as their Virgin Mobile, Fido and Koodo sub-brands) can snap up what's arguably the true Waterloo flagship for about $199 on a 3-year contract, or between $625 to $700 contract-free. Shoppers are largely buying the same phone no matter the carrier, although Rogers is hoping to lure the undecided with both LTE on an extra frequency as well as access to the white model. Just be prepared for a slightly longer wait if you plan to buy one in person -- BlackBerry warns that it's limiting Q10 supply to the Greater Toronto Area for the first day or two to accommodate demand high demand in Canada's financial capital.

Update: Although BlackBerry was emphasizing Toronto, readers in other cities have mentioned getting early access. We'd still call ahead if you're set on grabbing a Q10 at retail, however.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Blackberry

Comments

Source: Bell, Rogers, Telus

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

Comments