At the moment, Blackberry’s two main focus seems to be on the Blackberry Z10 and the QWERTY-powered Blackberry Q10. What does the company’s future hold though? According to a new patent, we could soon be seeing a BB10 device that features a sliding keyboard and looks like it could be a new BB10 member of the Blackberry Torch series.

The USPTO document was filed back in December of 2011 and doesn’t actually give out any details outside the lock. Instead it shows a phone that looks rather similar to the Blackberry Z10, save for the sliding keyboard. This could be perfect for those BB10 fans that want a physical keyboard but at the same time want to have a big enough screen to enjoy the much-improved touch features found with the latest Blackberry OS.

What do you think of the above Torch-like Blackberry device? Would you be interested in such a phone?

[ source ]

The post Blackberry Patent Shows Off What Could Be A BB10 Torch appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

It seems that the Blackberry Q10 is on its way to Canada on April 30th, landing on Rogers and perhaps a few other carriers the same day.

At the moment, Rogers has the only confirmed launch date for the keyboard-equipped BB10 handset. For those that need a reminder of what the Q10 brings to the table, the phone obviously uses its more traditional QWERTY design as its biggest call to fame. Beyond that, it has a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, 2GB RAM, a 3.1-inch AMOLED 720×720 pixel display, 16GB storage, microSD and both front and rear cameras. For the front you get a 2MP cam, the back gets an 8MP.

Unfortunately, no word on exactly how much the phone will set you back when it lands later this month. Still, if you love traditional Blackberry handsets but want the power of BB10, this could be the perfect phone for you?

What do you think of Blackberry’s latest efforts with the Z10 and Q10? Excited for what the future holds or do you feel it just isn’t enough to compete with its rivals at Microsoft, Google and Apple?

The post Blackberry Q10 Coming to Canada on April 30th appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Remember when Blackberry announced they would have around 100,000 apps around launch of the Blackberry 10? It looks like they have now got there and have decided to celebrate by adding a few new higher-profile apps to the mix.

Blackberry 10 users now will find themselves having access to the Kindle, OpenTable and Wall Street Journal apps and eBay, Skype, Soundhound and Viber are preparing to launch in the next few weeks.

Although 100,000 isn’t much compared to iOS or Android, it isn’t half bad and does put it closer to Windows Phone’s app count. This is certainly a number worth celebrating, of course it also seems pretty crazy to think that Blackberry was able to pull off this number so quickly.

The truth is that they got there two different ways. First, there are some good Blackberry apps, but there are also quite a few awful ones as well. Second, the vast majority of the apps aren’t natively designed from the ground-up for Blackberry and instead are Android ports.

That said, no matter how you look at it, 100,000 apps (native or not) is a good start. If Blackberry wants to be more successful in the long-haul they need to attract more A+++ apps from iOS and Andriod as well as get more native apps, but you have to start somewhere.

What do you think of Blackberry 10 and their app selection, impressed or not?

The post Blackberry 10 Hits 100,000 App Milestone appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

As a quick refresher, the BlackBerry Z10 features a 4.2-inch 768 x 1280 pixel display, a dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon Krait 1.5GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage and a microSD slot for additional storage. There’s an 8MP camera on the back with LED flash and a 2MP camera on the front for video calls. Naturally, it comes with the usual assortment of LTE, WiFi, Bluetooth and NFC radios in tow.

As far as the contents of the box, there aren’t too many surprises. Aside from the phone itself, you get a stereo headset, USB cable, wall adapter, and documentation. The elongated battery looks a little different than most and boasts a capacity of 1800mAh. The rubbery textured back is similar to what we’ve seen in previous Berries, but it does feel a little extra rubbery this time around. The phone did feel lighter than expected, even after I put the battery in, but it still felt quite solid in the hands.

My initial impressions are mostly positive, but the 4.2-inch display feels comparatively small in a market flooded with 4.7+ inch Android devices. There’s also a definite bezel around the display, since BlackBerry 10 requires those gestures to originate from beyond the screen. I’ll be putting the Z10 though its paces for the next while and the full review will follow shortly thereafter.

The post Video: Unboxing the BlackBerry Z10 Smartphone appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

This comes by way of BlackBerry European MD Stephen Bates. He says that BlackBerry wants to be seen as a “high-end” company first and foremost, so it will only be launching flagship devices like the Z10 and the upcoming Q10. However, they are going to “evolve that portfolio to enter the mid-tier” at some point. They won’t, though, get “to the entry level tier for some time, certainly not this year.”

Given that a substantial part of BlackBerry’s current market share comes in the form of cheap prepaid phones on cheap prepaid plans, they’re not giving up on the entry level just yet. That said, that end of the market is just going to be stuck with a BB7 Curve for the foreseeable future. Indeed, “it was important for us to show that we’re not giving up on BB7…. we launched BBM voice and it connects into the BB10 world where we’ve added video and screen sharing.”

BB10 will get to the entry level market eventually, assuming that BlackBerry is still around to see it. Just know that if you want some BB10 action this year, it’s at the higher end with the Q10 and Z10.

[Source]

The post No Budget BlackBerry 10 Smartphones Planned for 2013 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The whole idea of making a celebrity the “creative director” of a company is a bit silly to me, but hey I don’t run a company so what would I know. Still, If I did own a company, I’d probably be pretty ticked if I found out my Creative Director was using a competitor product over our own. That’s exactly what’s going on at Blackberry.

For those that don’t know, the company recently dropped the name “RIM” from the equation and picked up Alicia Keys as their Creative Director. Since then, Alicia has indicated several times that she would be using Blackberry 10 as her smartphone exclusively.

Interestingly enough, the latest tweet from Alicia Keys reads, “Started from the bottom now were here!”, so what’s so strange about that? It was sent using the official Twitter app for the iPhone. Of course Alicia Keys defends the tweet by claiming it wasn’t here.

She says that a hacker broke into her account out that message from an iPhone. Yah, because if I were a hacker sending a tweet from an iPhone as sabotage would be the first thing I would do. Sounds like Keys was caught betraying the Blackberry early on and was trying to cover it up as damage control, though the lame excuse probably hurts more than helps.

It is hard to say how Blackberry will react. It certainly doesn’t instill much confidence in BB10 towards the public when their Creative Director is secretly using the iPhone instead. That would be like if we found out that Tim Cook was rocking a Lumia 920 in private. What do you think, should Alicia be canned from this mostly “do nothing” position or not?

[ source ]

The post Blackberry 10 “Creative Director” Alicia Keys Caught Using iPhone appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The Blackberry Z10 has now arrived to Canada through Bell, Telus, and Rogers. So how much will they set you back? If you sign a three-year contract with Bell expect to pay $139.95. At Telus, its $149 with contract. Finally, Rogers is selling the phone for $139.99 on 3-year contract.

For those that are wondering what kind of specs the Z10 packs, the phone features a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB storage, microSD, NFC, micro-HDMI, and HSPA/4G speeds. While the specs are far from “impressive”, they aren’t exactly weak either.

The biggest reason to get a Blackberry is of course the new OS. BB10 is a massive improvement over older versions of the OS, though whether or not its better than Android or iOS probably comes down to personal opinion. What do you think of the Blackberry Z10, interested or not?

[ source ]

The post Blackberry Z10 Now Available In Canada Through Rogers, Telus and Bell appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

While we heard some non-specific rumblings about the BlackBerry Z10 making its way to the United States “in a couple months,” now we have some harder evidence saying it’ll debut with T-Mobile on March 27. That doesn’t necessarily mean that T-Mobile will be the first American carrier to offer the new BlackBerry, but that is the first “solid” date that we’ve heard. This comes by way of a leaked image from what appears to be some internal documentation, along with some information about a few upcoming Samsungs and an LTE mobile hotspot.

It’s quite possible that other American carriers, like Verizon or AT&T, will be launching the BlackBerry Z10 around the same time. It’s also quite possible that the QWERTY-packing BlackBerry Q10 will be ready by that time too, so perhaps that’s why they’re waiting out. As a quick refresher, the BlackBerry Z10 has a dual core 1.5GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, microSD slot, 8MP main camera, and 2MP front camera. Given that Canadian providers are selling the BlackBerry Z10 for as low as $140 on a three-year, I imagine standard US pricing will be about $199 on a two-year contract.

[Source]

The post T-Mobile USA Getting BlackBerry Z10 on March 27 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The argument about the apps has been heard many times before. Right now, iOS and Android are absolutely dominating in that regard with each of their respective app stores boasting nearly one million apps. By contrast, BlackBerry 10 will launch with “just” 70,000 apps. Even Windows Phone, which is slowly making some headway, is only in the neighborhood of 150,000 apps in its store. The problem is that BlackBerry 10 doesn’t really have any killer app that’s exclusive to its platform; it just has apps that iOS and Android already have like Facebook, Twitter, and Skype. However, it’s missing other important ones like YouTube, Hulu, Netflix and Instagram.

While I’m not completely confident about BlackBerry’s chances in today’s market, I think the app argument doesn’t really work. You might remember when the same argument was used against Android (as compared to iOS) and look at where Google’s platform is now. I’m not saying that BB10 will balloon into being as big as Android, but its inability to do that is not because of the apps per se.

Parr also uses the “children” argument. He says that if you were to find a focus group of 10-year-olds and ask if they want an iPhone, Android, Windows Phone or BlackBerry, they’re very unlikely to choose the BlackBerry. The problem with that is that children have never been the target market for BlackBerry, nor should they be. I understand BlackBerry’s need to go mass market, but looking to children who can’t even buy their own phones isn’t really the way to best test that market.

No, I don’t think that BlackBerry 10 is going to fail because of the apps or because of the lack of support from children. I think that it will struggle because it really does little to differentiate itself from the pack in a good way. Yes, BlackBerry Balance seems interesting, but it’s not enough of a killer reason for someone to make the switch from iOS, Android or even Windows Phone. At this point, BlackBerry 10 is just playing catch-up to stay par for the course. It might be enough to retain some existing diehard BlackBerry fans, but it probably won’t be enough to attract new ones.

[Source]

The post Lack of Apps Is Still Going to Kill BlackBerry 10 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

As you already probably know, today is the day of the BB10 unveiling event– in fact it is going on right now. RIM has already revealed a pretty big piece of news. The name RIM is no more.

In order to better focus on their future efforts in mobile and to make it clear about the importance of the Blackberry brand to the company, RIM will now simply be called Blackberry. Keep an eye out at Mobile Magazine for more information about Blackberry’s handset and feature announcements in the coming hours.

What do you think of Blackberry ditching the RIM name? A good move or not?

The post RIM No More: Changes Its Company Name to Blackberry appeared first on Mobile Magazine.