It hasn't exactly set the music-streaming world alight, so it should come as no surprise that Research in Motion is trying to push BBM Music by offering up to six months free access.

The service, first announced in August, allows BBM users to get access to up to 50 music tracks for ?4.99 a month with the facility to swap 25 of those tracks a month, every month.?

Hoping to offer something different from Spotify, which is also available on BlackBerry, BBM Music also allows users to share their musical choices with up to 500 BBM friends meaning, in theory, you could get access to 7000 tracks in total on and offline.

Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI are all on board so there are plenty of tunes to choose from - more than 10 million, in fact.

BBM Music has also seen an update to version 1.1 bringing in Facebook and Twitter contacts as possible music friends, giving you a better chance to access more music.

The free trial (six months in the UK, four months Stateside) is available to new BBM Music users only.

Tags: Phones BlackBerry RIM BlackBerry apps BBM Music

BBM Music now available free for six months originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:23:00 +0000

There are enough high-profile fans of the BlackBerry to make something like this Porsche Design special edition make sense. From celebrities to CEOs, the BlackBerry still has quite a hold on people as a great communicator, whether for business or pleasure.

And this Porsche Design P'9981 BlackBerry is something special. But does it go far enough? Will this give you a BlackBerry experience that surpasses what you'll find elsewhere? Is this the BlackBerry handset you should be aspiring to own?

Design

RIM isn't known for design variation. Tracking the family of the BlackBerry handsets, not a huge amount has changed over the past few years. The same could be said of Porsche automobiles, but both the Porsche and the BlackBerry are rather iconic in their design.

The Porsche Design BlackBerry P'9981, however, really brings some class to the tried and tested Bold formula. Where the standard Bold blends in with the rest of the BB crowd, the P'9981 is distinct and individual and really stands out in a sea of similarity.

Whether you like it, or not, will be a case of personal taste and we've come from a position of thinking it was brash and offensive, to one where we love the look and feel. You know it's special and so does everyone you show it to.

Hewn from stainless steel, it's still instantly recognisable as a BlackBerry thanks to the split face offering a full QWERTY keyboard below the display. The finish is very good in most places. The keyboard feels right, the phone looks right from every angle. Where the metal gives way for the display you have wonderful distinct clean design lines.

But as much as we love the design, it's design where this phone also suffers. The back is plastic and finished in leather, although it feels substantial enough when in place it doesn't attach especially well to the back of the phone.

Like many devices, it uses regularly placed plastic tabs to hold it on, but on our sample it was all too easy to pop the back off by accident. Grip the phone wrong and you feel the back detach. Porsche cars have a reputation for letting the back-end go so we're wondering if it is some sort of in-joke.

The second point is the positioning of the convenience key. This is a useful button, which you can program to open an application of your choice - the default is to launch the camera. It is positioned in the right edge, exactly where your hand would be if you use a two-thumbed keyboard technique. On more than one occasion we were furiously typing emails, only to find we’d launched the camera.

Aside from the overly large box that the phone arrives in, you also get a matching dock. This too is finished in steel and leather and features a soft light to guide your Porsche phone in at night for refuelling. It's a convenient bedside stand and we like it a lot.

This being a dressed-up BlackBerry Bold, the keyboard is one of the most important elements. At first we weren't sold on it, as the alternative characters are much more difficult to see than on the regular Bold. This isn't helped by the decision to move away from the tried and tested black background, but the backlighting certainly helps make things clearer once you start typing.

Although the design is sharper, and the cut across the individual keys is sharper and more defined than on the Bold, that action isn't too different. Given a couple of days with the phone, we found that using it became second nature. Despite the changes, it's only really the occasional moment when you're left looking for a colon that it causes a problem.

Hardware

Internally, there is less to talk about, especially if you've read our BlackBerry Bold 9900 review. You get a 1.2GHz processor, 768MB RAM and 8GB of internal memory. BlackBerry has been kind enough to include a 16GB microSD card too, so you should be well provisioned for storage.

The screen too, is the same as the original Bold. It is a capacitive touchscreen, with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. That sounds low in modern terms, but at only 2.8-inches, it gives you an impressive 287ppi. It will render fine detail crisply and there is punch and vibrancy to the colours, but it's let down with a flaky touch response.

We're convinced this is nothing to do with the hardware and everything to do with the software, more on which later.

Around the back of the phone you have a 5-megapixel camera, supported by an LED flash. This is lacking in modern terms, not because of the pixel count, but because it is fixed focus. This sets it behind other smartphone cameras in terms of results, which aren't as sharp as we'd like. Given good conditions you'll get snaps acceptable for sharing, but the inability to focus on close detail is irritating.

The camera also offers you HD video of the 720p variety. Again, focus is fixed so it's not as adept as some rivals, although this is less of an issue in mobile video capture. The results are average, a little noisier than you might expect, but perfectly acceptable for casual use.

The external speaker is surprisingly good and loud. It lacks bass, obviously, so isn't great for music, but plug in a pair of quality headphones and the results are good too. The external speaker is in the bottom of the device and surprisingly it isn't devastatingly muffled when you park it on the dock.

There is a set of Porsche Design headphones in the box, which offer an in-line mic, but we weren't taken by the quality of the audio they offered and were easily surpassed by the Klipsch headphones we tried instead.

The ear speaker is loud enough and we had no problems hearing callers, although that neatly designed angular top edge can be a little uncomfortable against your ear in long calls. We also found we could hear our end of the conversation being repeated through the ear speaker during a call, although this might be a problem limited to this device.

Software, apps, performance

So far the Porsche Design BlackBerry P'9981 has hit most of the right markers. The hardware looks powerful on paper, the cameras are okay, but not fantastic, and the design and keyboard are mostly without issue. But a phone hangs on the software performance, which governs the user experience.

The theme applied to the Porsche Design handset can be switched off if you don't like it, although it is nice to have something a little different. But what it loses is in the app icons. All the native app icons have been stylised and in the process it all become rather generic, so it's more difficult to spot the app you want in a flash.

But this customisation only applies to the native and preinstalled apps, not those you then download, so it does end up being something of a mishmash.

Starting with the positives, the BlackBerry 7 OS that the P'9981 sits on provides a great communication experience. BlackBerry's integrated messaging system and universal search make it easy to find what you're looking for and managing a busy email life is certainly easy. It's mostly conversant with things like Google accounts, although it will stumble with multiple calendars - Google Sync will resolve that for you though.

The combination of touch and type works to a point. You can quickly select an icon or tap a link, which is better than scrolling across the optical trackpad to make things happen. But on many occasions, like trying to press a button at the bottom of the display, the screen doesn't respond. When people are becoming familiar with a silky smooth and refined touch experiences elsewhere, BB 7 feels a little rudimentary.

We won't go into more detail of what RIM needs to do to move the OS forward, but we will stop to talk about the topic du jour: apps. They have redefined the mobile experience and the BlackBerry, while offering many and varied applications, finds itself without some of the biggest names.

There is no Skype, for example, no Netflix, no BBC iPlayer and some of the core apps, such as YouTube, merely redirect to the mobile website. The App World app itself isn't great and whenever you come to download and install new apps, everything else grinds to a halt and often begs for a restart.

The browser, although vastly better than previous BB versions, is no match for Android or iOS. Pinch zooming doesn't work well at all, scrolling can be slow and jerky, even if pages load quickly enough.

The result is that no matter how well you dress your BlackBerry, the experience is very much the same. If you spend your time working through emails sitting in the back seat of a Phaeton, then you probably won't care. The core BlackBerry services are well integrated and run without a hitch - except Maps, which is as good as useless. If you're the sort of person who whiles away time on the train with a little casual gaming, or catching up on last night's TV, this isn't the phone for you.

And finally…

The last word goes to battery life. With a 1230mAh battery, the P'9981 struggles to make it through a busy day. Like the Bold 9900, we found that the P'9981 needed to be charged every night. This is slightly out of character for a BlackBerry handset, as most of the rest of the range will easily make it through a day. At least you have that dock to park it on, so you don't need to fiddle around with cables.

Verdict:

It might sound like we've been rather harsh here, but there's no escaping the fact that the P'9981, Porsche Design or not, it still a BlackBerry at its core. Where it excels with communication features, it lacks with entertainment refinement. Whilst the app offering is there, it isn't anything like as exciting as you'll get on Apple or Android.

You couldn't say the Porsche Design BlackBerry P'9981 was good value for money, but then you couldn't say that about a Porsche either. A VW Beetle will get you from A to B comfortably and effectively, but people still go out and buy the Porsche Cayman. But this is a little like buying your Cayman with a 1.2-litre Beetle engine: it has the looks and it will get you there, but not like a Porsche should.

We can't say the P'9981 is any worse than the Bold 9900 in terms of performance. It has the same positives and the same negatives. Together they offer the best performance in the current BlackBerry portfolio, if that's the phone you're after. With a price of €1475 ?(?1234) ?it will never be deemed good value for money, but then what Porsche is?

Tags: Phones BlackBerry BlackBerry Porsche Design P9981

BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9981 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:04:00 +0000

RIM has demoed some of the updates coming to PlayBook 2.0, which is scheduled to arrive on your PlayBook in February, at the BlackBerry DevCon Europe event in Amsterdam.

Along with headline features like Runtime for Android, which will see the easy porting of Android apps on to the tablet, you'll also get an update to BlackBerry Bridge 2.0.

BlackBerry Bridge is the software that links your PlayBook to your BlackBerry smartphone and today RIM demoed the new features in action.

Bridge 2.0 will let you remote control your PlayBook, so you not only get full navigation from your device, but you'll also be able to use your smartphone keyboard to enter text on your PlayBook.?

This means you'll be able to use your PlayBook as a display, while sticking with your familiar Bold keyboard to bash out those emails. The remote control function also mean you'll be able to easily demo or share apps on your PlayBook, using the touchscreen on your handset as a controller.

RIM also touched on the updated calendar and contacts views on PlayBook 2.0, showing the integrated social networks, so you can view a meeting and see those people that you'll be hooking-up with. You'll also find that the date number grows depending on how busy you are.

BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0 should be landing on your device this month.

Tags: Tablets BlackBerry BlackBerry PlayBook RIM

BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0 demoed, Bridge 2.0 gives remote control originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:21:00 +0000

Bored of your currently BlackBerry? Want something a little more iPhone or PlayBook looking? Then you might just be in luck if a new image of the next BlackBerry 10 superphone is real.

The render, which has turned up on BlackBerry site Crackberry.com claims it to be the UK flagship of the next generation of BlackBerry phones that are promised to be with us later in the year.

Dubbed the BlackBerry London, although it doesn't look anything like the previous "London" leaks that we've seen before, the new phone will supposedly be heading to the UK according to the report and be the "Ultimate Communication Device" for those still looking to keep it BB.

The London, which incidentally isn't to be mistaken with two other models, the "Laguna" and "Lisbon" that are in development for the US market targeting AT&T, Sprint and Verizon, will also feature "rich specification - hardware and software" according to the supposedly leaked presentation slide.

Other buzz words used on the slide next to the render include "content story" and "dramatic shift in UI experience" making us believe that this is more of a designer pitched wish list than perhaps a final hardware design that we will see in the shops come Christmas. This after all is only a graphic render of a phone rather than actual hardware.

Not surprisingly, the "ooh isn't it exciting" one-pager doesn't mention any specs, however that hasn't stopped Crackberry speculating that it will be coming with a 1.5GHz dual core processor either from Qualcomm or Texas Instruments. As a benchmark the PlayBook, the company's tablet, features a 1GHz processor.

Read

Tags: Phones Mobile phones BlackBerry BlackBerry London RIM

BlackBerry 10 superphone image leaked originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:51:00 +0000

If any further proof was needed that Research in Motion is losing its grip on the professional market and aiming its handsets squarely at the "yoofs" then surely the launch of The Bold Team is it.

A bunch of cartoon superheroes, The Naff Team, sorry - The Bold Team - are "bravely stepping out of 2011 and into 2012 filled with unlimited possibilities". Exactly. We're pretty sure we can put our fingers on the context of The Bold Team's aims.

RIM has seen its share price fall by over 75 per cent in the last year following a number of underwhelming product launches and, what the Financial Times describes as, "a series of management missteps and earnings shortfalls".

We think perhaps The Bold Team represent new CEO Thorsten Heins. Or at least one of them, probably Trudy Foreal - The Authentic - who is "Not afraid to call it as she sees it".

The Bold Team are based on new year's resolutions made by New Yorkers using the #BeBold hashtag to state their aims and objectives for the new year. We're just not sure they have the super powers needed to turn the Canadian company's fortunes around though.

Read

Tags: Phones RIM Research in Motion BlackBerry

RIM hopes The Bold Team will come to BlackBerry's rescue originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:26:17 +0000

The smartphone figures for 2011 are in. Lots of them, in fact, and they don't all correlate exactly. But we'll ignore that and declare Apple the winner. Actually Samsung. Or maybe Research in Motion. Definitely not Nokia.

Let's start at the very beginning....

First up is the shipment figures from Strategy Analytics. It states that in 2011, global smartphone shipments (not sales, remember) hit 488.5 million; up from just under 300 million in 2010 and with 155 million of these occurring in the final quarter of the year.

Juniper Research says that the global shipment figure is actually slightly less; around the 470 million mark with 149 million in 2011's final three months.

In terms of manufacturers Strategy Analytics has Apple as the winner for the quarter - 37 million shipments compared to Samsung's 36.5 million - as does Juniper (Apple 25 per cent, Samsung 21.7 per cent).

But Samsung is the overall winner for the year with 97.4 million shipments compared to 93 million from its Cupertino based rival (Strategy Analytics).

"What about Nokia?" we hear you cry. Not good news on both fronts we're afraid. SA says yearly figures down from 100.1 million to 77.3 million (smartphone shipments, nothing else) and JR says the Finnish company's smartphone shipments were down 31 per cent year-on-year in the fourth quarter.

But wait a minute, despite Juniper saying that Blackberry shipments were down 0.7 per cent for Q4, RIM has stated that "the latest results from data firm?GfK show that BlackBerry was the #1 selling smartphone in the British market for the second year running...grabbing 26.3 per cent of December sales and averaging 27.7 per cent through 2011."

We know shipments and sales are two different beasts but this is clouding the water somewhat, especially given that RIM also states that its global subscriber base grew 35 per cent year-on-year in December to 75 million.

Our head hurts now and our abacus has fallen apart. We may regret saying this but we're going to need to see some more figures (preferably sales ones) before deciding who actually took the title....

Tags: Phones Apple BlackBerry Samsung Smartphones Mobile phone industry

Apple wins the 2011 smartphone battle, or perhaps Samsung, or maybe RIM... originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:43:07 +0000

T-Mobile is introducing a new mobile phone and data plan that it claims is unique to the provider. Called The Full Monty, it offers completely unlimited calls, texts and Internet access with no fair use restrictions.

The new plan will be available from 1 February (Wednesday) and starts from ?36 per month, which offers unlimited data, texts and calls to other T-Mobile customers, with 2,000 minutes worth of calls to other networks. At that price, you can also get yourself a free 8GB iPhone 4, HTC Sensation XE or Samsung Galaxy S II, or pay an extra ?99 for a 16GB iPhone 4S.

At ?41 per month, the next step-up plan also offers completely unlimited calls to other networks, a BlackBerry 9900 for free or a 16GB iPhone 4S for ?29.

?46 per month is unlimited everything, with a 16GB iPhone 4S now free, while the maximum package, at ?61 per month, offering a 32GB iPhone 4S gratis or a 64GB iPhone 4S for ?29.

When we asked Ben Fritsch, head of propositions, T-Mobile UK if unlimited, in fact, meant a large data cap he stated that it was truly unlimited."There's no fair usage cap," he told us. "And you can use it for tethering as well."

There's free, unlimited, Wi-Fi on offer too through T-Mobile's hotspots and BT's Openzone. There's even an Android app launching making it easier to get on board without having to consistently logging on. No word on an iOS app as of yet.

Existing T-Mobile users can upgrade to the new contract at any time, but without a handset thrown in.

You can find out more at?www.t-mobile.co.uk/TheFullMonty.

Tags: T-Mobile Phones Tariffs T-Mobile The Full Monty iPhone Android BlackBerry

T-Mobile to introduce The Full Monty tariff - all you can eat calls, texts and data originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:53:00 +0000

Vodafone has announced that the BlackBerry Bold 9790 is now available on its network.

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 is more an update to the BlackBerry Bold 9780 rather than just a thinner version of the Bold 9900. It features a QWERTY keyboard, optical trackpad and a 2.45-inch, 480x360 touch display.

It boasts a Marvell Tavor MG1 1GHz processor, 768MB of RAM and 8GB of onboard memory - with an expandable memory card slot that supports up to 32GB of additional storage.The OS on board is BlackBerry 7.

As with other phones from the Canadian manufacturer, the phone will come with NFC support. It also packs a 5-megapixel camera with VGA video recording, a 2x digital zoom, AF and a flash. Connectivity is Wi-Fi 2.4GHz b/g/n or 5GHz a/n, AGPS and 3G. Its measurements are 110 x 60 x 11.4mm and it weighs in at 107g.

The BlackBerry Bold 9790 is available from Vodafone for free on ?31 a month contracts that last two years. For that you'll get 600 mins, unlimited texts and 500MB of mobile data.

Tags: Phones BlackBerry RIM Vodafone BlackBerry Bold 9790

BlackBerry Bold 9790 lands on Vodafone originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:56:00 +0000

BlackBerry is in trouble. The founders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie announced they were stepping down from their CEO positions, being replaced by Thorsten Heins. Sure they might all have awesome names, but RIM's performance is far from awesome, at least when it comes to handsets.?

The company continues to release hardware that's good, but never great. The PlayBook for example, its first real attempt at doing something different since the original Storm, was beautiful to hold but lacked many of the features needed to compete with other tablets. BlackBerry OS 7 feels very much the same, as does all the hardware it is running on. Hopefully all this should change when BlackBerry 10 is demoed at Mobile World Congress.?

Until then we have handsets like the Bold 9790, which like nearly every other handset in RIM's current line-up, features a great battery, sturdy build and a lovely screen. So why have we given it such a modest score? Allow us to elaborate.?

Typing is as easy as QWERTY

The Bold features everything BlackBerry is known for. A small is screen, responsive full keyboard and trackpad sat between four menu buttons. This is classic RIM territory and it's what they do best. No one is going to argue that any other handset currently on the market can offer a typing experience like a keyboard-packing BlackBerry.?

This means from the outset, it is fun to use for prolific texters, emailers and BBM users. Just don't go broadcasting things to too many people, we might have a riot. The hardware is entirely geared towards messaging speed. Even the little silver lines that break up each row on the keyboard make it easier to bash out messages at super-speed. The nice big space bar also stops you accidentally hitting other keys and needing to go back and delete unwanted letters.?

Having a 1GHz processor inside and 768MB of RAM allows apps to switch properly and load text menus very quickly. This all contributes to the speed at which you can splurge out emails and the like to your friends and contacts.?

Hard hardware

The 9790 is built a bit like a tank. This is a phone designed to be sat at the bottom of a handbag or kept in your pocket along with a set of keys. It feels like it could take several accidental drops before giving up the ghost.?

Around the edges of the phone is a silver plastic wraparound. It feels much cheaper than BlackBerry's aluminium effort in the flagship Bold 9900 and we imagine will rapidly get scratched. The matte plastic back, with silver RIM logo, is slightly better, but why not opt for the carbon fibre style slab on the 9900??

On the front is BlackBerry's usual shiny black plastic, which has the screen rather nicely recessed into it. Sat on top is a rather strange lock key, which, whilst being a nice design touch, actually feels worse than a standard button.?

The 9790 is nicely pocketable at 110 x 60 x 11.4mm and the 2.45-inch screen isn't so small that reading websites becomes a chore.

The front of the phone has the usual multi colour notification LED as well as responsive trackpad and buttons. On the right side are the volume and mute keys as well as a customisable convenience key, that defaults to a camera button. A headset jack is on the left and charger on the bottom. It's all laid out rather logically, works well enough and didn't cause us any issues or confusion during our time with the phone.?

The battery is typical BlackBerry territory. We left the phone for two days without touching it, received plentiful emails through RIM's servers and all sorts of Facebook and Twitter fun. It made barely a dint in the amount of juice still available. This is definitely the strongest point of the 9790.?

The Last point that needs to be made about the 9790's hardware is the camera. It shoots 640 x 480 video and takes 5 megapixel stills. After months of using iPhones and Galaxy S IIs, it looks bad. The 8GB of internal memory however means you can snap away?until?the cows come home.

Put me on display

BlackBerry actually has some of the nicest screen tech currently available. Despite having phones with such small displays, everything since the PlayBook has impressed us with balanced colours and rather decent viewing angles.?

On the 9790 is a 2.45-inch screen that has a 480 x 360 resolution. This gives it a pixel density of 246ppi, which is very nice indeed for reading text and looking at the web. Like RIM's other "all-touch" phones, the 9790 has a touch sensitive screen. This is quite frankly pointless for anyone with hands bigger than an 8-year-old as nearly your entire finger will cover the display. Using the trackpad is just a better alternative although it feels counter-intuitive compared to every other smartphone we have used.?

What we don't understand is why RIM can't produce something with all of its QWERTY expertise and a big enough screen to be able to control BlackBerry OS with an implement bigger than a toothpick?

Oh OS

BlackBerry 7 OS just isn't good enough. It completely shines when it comes to things like email and Twitter. Thanks to a newly improved Facebook app, it also does very nicely there too. In fact nothing else handles push notifications like RIM and we have enjoyed every moment of managing our work emails on the 9790.?

What we haven't enjoyed, is doing just about anything else. YouTube is too small to make watching a video enjoyable. The BlackBerry App World is devoid of nearly anything we really fancied downloading and having to use a magnifying glass and trackpad to browse the Internet.?

And why does the font used in every option screen look like it has come out of WordPad? We know that its a business orientated phone, but do we really need to feel like we are flicking through pages of a boring trade magazine when using a piece of technology. It's all just slightly tired, not bad, just boring.

Verdict:

You might conclude that we don't like the 9790. But that's not it at all. In fact we are just more disappointed at the mistakes BlackBerry has made with it. Yet again we have a phone with a lovely screen, great battery life, and a superb keyboard. All in a package and small enough to fit easily in our pocket. But this is rendered pointless by a few odd design decisions and an operating system that really needs an update.?

The classic BlackBerry form factor just doesn't work anymore in the world of big screen smartphones. We need a way for the QWERTY expertise to be incorporated into something with a display larger than a matchbox.?

That aside, if you are part of the social hardcore who likes to be constantly emailing and chatting with friends. This is the best value communicator you could possibly pick up. It grants you access to RIM's speedy world of push email and BBM, whilst not being so budget that it will fall apart in your rucksack.?

BlackBerry is going to need to do something as significant as Nokia did with the Lumia 800 if it wants to see its decline reversed.

Tags: Phones Mobile phones BlackBerry BlackBerry Bold 9790

BlackBerry Bold 9790 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:40:00 +0000

The joint chief executive officers of Research in Motion, the manufacturer of the BlackBerry, have resigned from their roles with the company's former chief operating officer taking their place.

Company founder Mike Lazaridis will become vice chairman and Jim Balsillie will take a non-operational role on the board of directors, while Thorsten Heins becomes the new president and CEO. Board member?Barbara Stymiest is the new independent board chair.

The moves come as investors have been calling for a major strategy change after troubling recent times for the smartphone firm. It was publicly scapegoated in 2011 during the UK riots, with BlackBerry Messenger being (perhaps unfairly) named as a?major form of communication for rioters. It suffered a major service outage, which hugely damaged its reputation. The PlayBook didn't sell as well as RIM hoped. And share prices have been dropping rapidly, leading some to believe that the company was even going to be put up for sale.

There is currently no suggestion that either Balsillie or Lazaridis were asked to step down, with the latter releasing a statement that he felt it was time for fresh blood to lead the company he founded:

"There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognise the need to pass the baton to new leadership," he said.

"Jim and I went to the Board and told them that we thought that time was now. With BlackBerry 7 now out, PlayBook 2.0 shipping in February and BlackBerry 10 expected to ship later this year, the company is entering a new phase, and we felt it was time for a new leader to take it through that phase and beyond."

New boss Heins is equally confident about the future of RIM:

"BlackBerry 7 has been well received. We are very excited about PlayBook 2.0 and BlackBerry 10. [And] the reception of our products at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show was encouraging," he said.

Read

Tags: BlackBerry RIM Phones

CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie step down from RIM jobs originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:03:00 +0000

Nokia CEO, Stephen Elop, has told Pocket-lint that we shall soon be seeing the Nokia brand name within other devices and not just the company's own phones.

"You'll starting seeing the word 'Nokia' on a map that you get from Microsoft properties over a period of time," Elop explained to Pocket-lint in an interview behind closed doors at CES in Las Vegas. "Even if you are on a BlackBerry device, who recently said they were going to start using Bing Maps."

The news will probably come as a shock to companies involved with Bing, such as Research In Motion who makes the popular BlackBerry smartphones.

"Part of the relationship we established with Microsoft is that we are clearly placing a bet on the Windows Phone platform. [In return] they are placing a bet on our location-based platform: mapping, navigation and so forth," said Elop.

"In the time ahead, what you will see is, across all the Microsoft properties including Bing maps, more and more work will be done by Nokia."

Elop also told Pocket-lint that Nokia's deal to help Microsoft improve its navigation services is a way to protect the Finnish company and make sure the agreement wasn't as one sided as perhaps people currently perceive:

"We did that for important reasons as we had the better mapping assets so it made sense. But it also creates some balance in the relationship with Microsoft," he said.

-?Nokia CEO, Stephen Elop, talks the competition and the future

Tags: Phones Mobile phones Nokia Bing Microsoft BlackBerry RIM CES2012

Bing Maps to get Nokia branding on all devices - including rivals' originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:49:00 +0000

Despite reports to the contrary, Samsung is not interested in a buyout of struggling Research in Motion; the Canadian company that makes BlackBerry devices.

It was reported earlier this week that the Korean company was interested in a complete takeover of the Ontario-based business with a price between $12 billion and $15 billion being touted. This led to a surge in RIM's share price, closing at $17.47 on Wall Street on Tuesday; an 8 per cent increase.

However, despite Jim Balsillie, co-CEO of the BlackBerry company, apparently "going hard after Samsung" in terms of a sale, the Galaxy smartphone maker has retorted, saying it is not eyeing up a deal. "We haven't considered acquiring the firm and are not interested in (buying RIM)," Samsung spokesman James Chung told Reuters.

Earlier this month it was suggested that RIM would be open to licensing its BlackBerry software, or selling parts of the company to ease its financial woes. BlackBerry Messenger is an incredibly popular platform, for example, and could be just what a company like Samsung or HTC needs to aid their quest for Android supremacy.

But with Samsung essentially ruling itself out, more pressure will be piled on to Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, the co-chief executives. The management duo have indicated in the past that they are not looking for a sale though, and want to turn the company's fortunes around instead.

RIM has seen its share price fall by over 75 per cent in the last year following a number of underwhelming product launches and, what the Financial Times describes as, "a series of management missteps and earnings shortfalls".

Amazon, HTC and Nokia have also all been linked with a possible takeover as well.

Read

Tags: Phones Tablets Mobile phone industry BlackBerry Research in Motion RIM Amazon HTC Nokia Samsung

Samsung not interested in RIM takeover originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:01:00 +0000

There are now two BlackBerry Torch models in RIM's armoury: the 9810 we're reviewing here and the 9860 that we've previously reviewed. The 9810 is a slider phone packing a full QWERTY keyboard essentially the same design as the phone it replaces, the Torch 9800.

The 9800 was something rarity for BlackBerry when it launched, as the only other touch device on offer from RIM was from the ill-fated Storm family. Of course, the Storm has passed and we're left with two Torch models and touch across the range. But is this upgraded model a step up in experience?

Design

The 9810 is practically the spitting image of the 9800 forebear. It looks the same, feels the same and measures the same, save for some very minor changes, such as the colour of the controls under the display. It is a slider, with the display sliding upwards to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard of the tried and tested BlackBerry formula.

It's somewhat chunky by modern standards, weighing in a 161g and measuring 111 x 62 x 14.6. Given that this is a slider device, we're not too worried about the size as it slips easily enough into any pocket or bag.

What's more of a concern is one of the points that irritated us about the last edition of this phone and that's the screen lock button on the top of the phone. The action is so soft that it will easily unlock itself in your pocket. On a non-touch phone that's not much of a problem, but we've pulled the phone out to find it setting new appointments, browsing the Internet, and even having changed the language to Greek.

Given the design there aren't too many sensible locations to place the 3.5mm headphone jack. On the side it juts out, meaning that the Torch never really sits comfortably in your pocket. If anything, this device is a questionable choice for sliding into the hip pocket of your jeans, because you'll catch the headphones, unlock the device and email your ex in the process.

On our previous review sample we found that the sliding action of the screen gave us a little wobble on every tap. This didn't appear to be a problem on our 9810, but we did find the plastic back panel would creak. The 9810 won't win any prizes for build or design, but aside from the ridiculously soft lock key, we can't complain too much.

Those upgraded parts

We don't want to spend too much of this review talking about the older version of this phone, but let's just say that RIM have addressed some of the major points of concern from a hardware point of view. The screen sees its resolution bumped up to 640 x 480 pixels, a welcome step-up meaning this is a sharper Torch, but with rival platforms pushing higher definition displays, the 9810 lacks impact and sharpness.

The OS fits well on the display as the icons aren't overcomplicated so the lack of resolution doesn't really matter, but it does mean that browsing the Internet involves more zooming and images don't looks as sharp as they could.

But we find ourselves wondering if the new 1.2GHz processor and upgraded 768MB RAM make that much of a difference. Sure, you can now capture 720p video thanks to the extra power to crunch the captured data from the 5-megapixel camera, but it's not the hardware that's explicitly at fault, it's the software.

BB OS showing its age

For several years we've been remarking that BlackBerry OS needs to start stepping forwards. There are some great things, and a great heritage, behind BlackBerry, but the pace at which its rivals are evolving doesn't shine a favourable light on BlackBerry. But this isn't news. Where BB6 made a few visual tweaks, BB7 makes a few more, but not so many that you'd really notice.

We often found that we'd touch the screen to drag or scroll the tray of apps and found it wouldn't respond. Finger tracking isn't great and dragging and scrolling things like webpages isn't as smooth or successful as it should be. Too often we'd be heading off to an extraneous link, rather than scrolling. This applies in apps and menus too, so we'd often resort back to the optical trackpad, or keyboard shortcuts.

The way we use current devices now plays a part here. The fewer apps you have on your platform, the more people are going to need to use the browser to access online services. Although the browser is much better than it was prior to BB6, it still doesn't match those native browsers of iPhone or Android in daily use.

The biggest problem we had was stability; it would frequently fail or refuse to load a page and it would regularly freeze, rendering the phone unresponsive, so we had to pull the battery to get things going again. BlackBerry users are probably all-too familiar with battery pulls and upgrading the hardware in this model doesn't seem to have got round this problem.

Of course the jewel in the crown is email, and stepping into the BlackBerry world from regular Android and iPhone use reminds us of just how convenient and powerful the BB email system is. The speed, the searching the ease with which you can communicate via email is fantastic.

However, the keyboard on the Torch isn't a patch on the Bold keyboard, or even that of the Curve. It's slightly too recessed into the body of the base of the phone so it feels like a strain to use. The on-screen QWERTY keyboard is poor too. Where other on-screen keyboards will let your fingers fly, the BB keyboard seems to struggle to follow what you're trying to type, even on this relatively large screen. As such, it’s much better to use the compact keyboard in portrait, because it's relatively good at figuring out what you're trying to say.

BlackBerry Maps is rather antiquated and lacks the powerful search that Google Maps offers. Searching for a meeting location from the calendar returned no results; pasting the same details into Google Maps found the location quickly. Whilst on the subject of locations, it's also frustrating that not all synced calendar locations will be live links, depending on how you arrange your calendars.

When it comes to apps, of course, the BlackBerry isn't the best served. Most of our essentials are covered however, and you'll find your social networks present and correct, although the app design doesn't seem as impressive as other smartphones, and they lack that snap and immediacy contemporary smartphones offer. In many areas, the BlackBerry Torch doesn't stand up to its rivals, which is a shame.

Some positives

It's not all doom and gloom. If your primary interest is in communication, then the BlackBerry still does rather well. We've mentioned that the email experience is good, and it is. The universal inbox makes it easy to jump to messages and alerts, although it could do with more options. Being able to sign into your accounts and have information sync to your device is very welcomed, and even though it stumbled with multiple calendars from our Google accounts, that was easily avoided with the Google Sync app.

The connectivity is also remarkably good for servicing email, especially when re-joining a network, stepping out of the underground for example. BlackBerrys will pick up emails on the merest hint of a GPRS connection, something that not all smartphones will do.

The arrangement of the Torch does give you a sort of best-of-both worlds with its keyboard and larger screen. Smartphones with keyboards aren't as common as they were a few years ago, and this is in part testament to how good on-screen keyboards now are and how well mobile operating systems have been designed to incorporate intuitive control.

With the BlackBerry Torch you can, at least, use the phone in either mode. You can casually browse Twitter with it closed, re-tweet a message, then slide it open to use the keyboard, giving you plenty of space for text entry. Although the keyboard isn't as good as other BlackBerrys, you do get used to it after time.

You also get more screen space to enjoy media, although we can't help feeling that the other Torch, the 9860, was a better device for consuming video content.

The 5-megapixel camera on the rear is good enough. By that, we mean that it offers average performance for a smartphone. Shots in good light are reasonable quality, adequate for sharing online or sending to friends, but low light photos will be soft and noisy. Video capture is also pretty good too, with the new 720p offering noticeably better results than the 640 x 480 video of the past.

The battery life is also pretty good, perhaps because you're less likely to have so many apps looking to gobble data. We managed to get through a day easily in average use. After a day of heavy use, you will see it complaining towards the end of the day, but it out-performs many smartphones when it comes to endurance.

Verdict:

The BlackBerry Torch 9810 feels like an incremental step for RIM. The previous handset had obvious problems, some of which are addressed here, but we also feel that the 9810 is the phone the 9800 should have been. That sets this handset behind the times a little and that's certainly not helped by a user interface that lacks the consumer ease that you'll find in iOS, Android or Windows Phone 7.

That may all be set to change with the advent of BB 10, which should make an appearance at Mobile World Congress 2012. As such, we can't strongly recommend the BlackBerry Torch 9810 if you're interested in upgrading now.

If you're happy with the BlackBerry experience and value both screen space and a physical keyboard, then this style of device might be for you, but we'd suggest you bide your time and see what's coming next, before committing.

Tags: Phones BlackBerry Research in Motion RIM BlackBerry Torch 9810

BlackBerry Torch 9810 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:39:00 +0000

Research in Motion has announced BlackBerry OS 7.1 at CES in Las Vegas on Monday bringing with it a host of new features, most notably mobile Wi-Fi hotspot support.

Users who get the new update will now be able to turn their BlackBerry 7.1 OS device into a Wi-Fi router letting up to five devices connect to it.

What is unsure however is whether it will be a tethering option for the carriers and networks to charge for, or like Android smartphones just work.

RIM?has also said it has updated a number of other apps that you in the new operating system update including BBM (to version 6.1), BlackBerry Traffic, and BlackBerry Travel.

For BBM users that means you now get BlackBerry Tag integration letting you invite a friend to BBM by simply tapping your NFC enabled BlackBerry smartphones against each other. BlackBerry Tag will also let you share contacts, media and files, and invite friends to BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) through a simple touch.

Also new is Universal Search now has a new auto-suggest feature that that intelligently filters Bing search results to offer you a variety of relevant Web sites based on your search terms, Wi-Fi Calling, although this will only work if the network supports it, and finally Curve 9360 and 9380 smartphone will now get FM radio.

The BlackBerry 7.1 OS update will begin rolling out from carriers around the world beginning today and over the coming weeks.

The new OS update should see the company through till when it details BlackBerry OS 10 in February?at Mobile World Congress. The BB OS 10 roll-out is expected at the end of the year.?

Tags: Phones RIM BlackBerry BB OS 7 CES2012

BlackBerry OS 7.1 adds mobile Hotspot, NFC contact sharing originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:20:00 +0000

Research In Motion will show off its new operating system, BlackBerry OS 10, in February at Mobile World Congress.

Although the company has said that BB OS 10 devices won't be in the hands of consumers until later in 2012, it has told Pocket-lint that it will be showing the new operating system to those who attend the trade show in Barcelona.

"2012 will be the year of BlackBerry 10 so we’ll be showcasing the capabilities of our future operating system as well demonstrating the power of BlackBerry 7, with a particular focus on NFC and BBM connected apps," said a spokesman for the company. Adding:? "Research In Motion will be there in force."?

It is unclear, however, whether the company will have a new BlackBerry OS 10 powered handset at the show in Barcelona.

BlackBerry maker RIM has had a tough time over the last couple of weeks with the latest rumour being that it is trying to convince co-founders, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, to relinquish their titles as co-chairmen of the board.

Tags: Phones BlackBerry RIM BlackBerry OS 10 MWC2012 Operating Systems

BlackBerry OS 10 to get February reveal at MWC originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 05 Jan 2012 15:19:00 +0000

As the Winter begins we retreat once again to our tech filled dens. Luckily October had them filled with all sorts of nice tech treats. Everything from the Nokia Lumia 800 going on pre order, to games like Battlefield 3 and Arkham City hitting our consoles, it was a good month to be a geek.?

Year in Review:

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Tanks roll for Battlefield 3 launch

The launch of Battlefield 3 signalled the first time ever that a game came close to toppling COD's crown. The level of hype surrounding the new title, in particular its graphics and multiplayer, had gamers firing up their consoles early doors on launch day. Those who did were treated to tanks filling the streets of London in celebration of the game's launch. Read More

BlackBerry starts giving away PlayBooks

RIM launched a deal in the US and Canada where those after a new PlayBook could buy two and get one free. Obviously geared towards businesses who wanted to kit employees out with the new tablets, it didn't do that much to help the fate of the already struggling QNX powered PlayBook. Read More?

Nokia Lumia 800 goes on pre-order

The handset that Nokia hoped would turn its fate went on pre-order in October. After a lengthy leaking process and multiple hands-ons, it was finally set for release to the public. It didn't disappoint, the Lumia turned out to be the best Windows Phone 7 experience on the market, a definite good thing for the struggling Nokia. Read More

Sony buys out Ericsson

The partnership that we thought could never break, like Simon and Garfunkel, eventually split up. Sony bought out the Ericsson half of its mobile phone wing, meaning handsets would eventually have just the words Sony printed on them. The purchase came as yet another shake up within Sony and could mean a change of tack for its smartphone team. Read More

GoPro gets an upgrade in the form of the HD Hero 2

The king of the action cams got itself an upgrade in October in the form of the HD Hero 2. Capable of shooting 120fps slow motion video and super wide, 48fps 960p footage, it easily toppled its older brother from the camer top spot. Read More

Apple TV set was Steve Job's final plan?

The long rumoured Apple tv set is said to have been the last product that Apple CEO Steve Jobs was working on. Unlike Apple's current tv product, which behaves like a set top box, it is said to be a complete piece of televisual hardware, screen and all. Given Apple's design prowess, this is definitely something we would like to see in our living rooms. Read More

Poor Q3 sales from Tom Tom mean death of dedicated satnav?

The satnav continues to keep a select few non smartphone owning drivers happy, but sales have been dwindling since the launch of things like Google Maps and the iPhone. Tom Tom has itself launched a smartphone app which is cheaper and works the same as its purpose built brethren. Poor Q3 sales from the company suggested we might not be seeing the dedicated satnav much longer. Read More

Samsung Galaxy Nexus lands in our hands

The Galaxy Nexus has to be one of the most talked about smartphones this year. Packing Ice Cream Sandwich, a huge curved glass screen and NFC capability, its hardware put it at the top of the Android spectrum. We managed to grab one prior to release and give the phone a go, boy were we impressed, particularly with that sweet 720p display. Read More

BBX appears, we get ourselves snapping

BlackBerry's new QNX powered operating system, known as BBX, made an appearance in October and we were there to grab the info on it. Changes along the lines of the PlayBook were in order as RIM attempts to change the fate of its now struggling smartphone range. Changes made weren't exactly straightforward so we put together a handy roundup article to bring you up to speed. Read More

Covent Garden turns into Arkham City for game launch

October was a good month for gamers with to top tier titles releasing alongside each other. Arkham City blew us away with its open world and rich and colourful storyline. A rather nifty little launch stunt for the game saw Covent Garden transformed into Batman's favourite habit, complete with a Batsuit-clad Bruce Wayne hiding above the crowds. Read More

Nokia says smartphone sales are down 39 per cent

Nokia began posting worrying smartphone sales in the build up to their Lumia 800 launch. Windows Phone 7 couldn't come quicker for the company who was dropping close to half its entire smartphone sales in Q3 this year. Thankfully now things are better, or at least we hope they are. Read More?

Google Music to launch in November?

Like a lot of Google's new products this year, Google Music arrived in a beta and was only trickled out to a select few. Rumours of a November launch for the cloud based music service began in November, with hopes that it would arrive following an increased number of labels signing up to the setup. Read More

Transformer Prime outed by Asus CEO

We all knew that Kal-El and quad-core mobile processors were coming, we just didn't know exactly when and in what form. Thankfully Asus's CEO was there to answer our call with a cheeky leak of its new Transformer Prime tablet. We wouldn't have been as excited had the original Transformer not proven such a surprise, this time round however the hype was most definitely there. Read More?

We go hands on with the new Motorola RAZR

2011 was the year of the giant Android phone. Things like the Galaxy Nexus and RAZR had us small handed tech journalists feeling relatively sorry for ourselves. The RAZR, with its kevlar back, processor and high quality display would have been sat at the top of our handset list. It was just missing one thing; Ice Cream Sandwich. Read More

1 million condolence messages sent to Apple for the loss of Jobs

Easily the biggest story this year was of course the death of Steve Jobs. What was equally impressive was the tech communities' response to Apple's loss. Everything from flowers, to the little Apple lights in stores being switched off left us impressed. But the real amazing thing was that Apple itself received over 1 million condolence letters following Jobs's death. Read More

iPhone 4S goes on sale, shifts 4 million units in first weekend

Not bad sales figures for a piece of hardware that costs upwards of ?400. Who says we are in a recession?The mammoth queues outside Apple stores during the iPhone 4S's launch certainly don't. iOS 5, also released at launch, managed 25 million device downloads within a week. Read More?

BlackBerry's founder Mike Lazaridis posts apology for outage

Following a rather critical collapse of BlackBerry's entire service the company's very own founder Mike Lazaridis posted a video apologising for all the problems it had caused customers. Twitter filled with complaints that BBM wasn't working and businessmen the world over faced issues with email. This has now thankfully been fixed but many people's faith in BlackBerry is now shaky. Read More?

Sesame Street gets porn hacked

Sesame Street very briefly had the majority of its innocence removed when its YouTube channel was hacked and replaced with pornography. Believed to be a prank by an anonymous hacker, the entire home page and channel was changed. Since the video the pranksters own YouTube channel has been filled with comments condemning the attack. Preserve Elmo's innoscence we say. Read More

Google+ loses 60 per cent of traffic

Despite a relatively early success rate, things rapidly went downhill for Google+ as people who tried it began to return to Facebook. It wasn't so much a drop in the number of users signing up that hit in October, more that people just stopped looking at the website. Shame really as a lot of the ideas Google used were great. Read More

Steve Jobs dies

In all honesty we didn't really want to include this one. Even amongst us tech journalists, who come across hundreds of different devices and tech fans every day, Steve Jobs dying was a major event. It is hard to ignore the differences that he made to the technological landscape we live in. Definitely the saddest but most important story this year. Read More

Tags: battlefield 3 BlackBerry PlayBook BlackBerry Go Pro Go Pro HD Hero 2 Apple TV Samsung Galaxy Nexus YouTube Google Google+ Nokia Nokia Lumia 800 Features Year in Review

Year in review 2011: October originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:00:00 +0000

London's Harrods has been chosen as the exclusive stockist for the BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9981, which will be on sale shortly (before the year is out) for a mind-numbing ?1,275. Although, in comparison with what we were told by RIM a couple of months ago, that seems to be a bit of a bargain.

Pocket-lint went hands-on with the super high-end smartphone on 3 November 2011, and we were informed that it would retail at ?2,000, ?725 more expensive than it's now been tagged. Of course, you still need to have won the lottery or be a Premiership footballer to afford one, but everything's relative really.

As we also said back then, the innards of the P'9981 are essentially the same as found driving the BlackBerry Bold 9900; there's a?Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM 8655 1.2GHz processor, 768MB of RAM and the OS is BlackBerry 7.

The screen is 2.8-inch and touchscreen, with a 640x480 resolution (287dpi) and it boasts NFC capabilities, to go alongside the Wi-Fi, GPS and 3G connectivity.

There's a replaceable battery underneath a real leather back covering, and it comes with 8GB of on board storage, upgradable by the addition of a microSD card.

The wow factor comes in its chassis, though, with the body hewn from a single block of stainless steel. It's a weighty beggar, to boot.

Anybody who wants to reserve one (in the UK, at least) should contact Harrods sharpish. Pricey or not, it is expected to sell out quickly.

Read

Tags: RIM Phones BlackBerry BlackBerry Porsche Design P9981 Harrods

BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9981 exclusive at Harrods... for £1,275 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:03:19 +0000

Didn't fancy paying ?479.99 for the HTC Flyer, HTC's 7-inch pen-touting Android tablet, when it first launched in May? Well now you don't have to thanks to Dixons.

The online gadget store is selling the 16GB Wi-Fi HTC Flyer for ?199.99 as the price of the uber-expensive tablet has crashed in just 7 months.

If you've got ?50 more you'll be able to buy the 3G 32GB version. Dixons is pricing it at just ?250. When it launched it would have set you back ?599.99.

Likely to sweeten the deal even further, HTC announced that it was rolling out Honeycomb to the HTC Flyer earlier in the month. That makes it a far better offering than the cheaper alternatives from ViewSonic or Archos that run Gingerbread. ?

But the HTC Flyer isn't the only tablet the store is trying to off-load. The BlackBerry PlayBook, once ?400 is now selling at Dixons and Carphone Warehouse for just ?169.

Carphone Warehouse has also slashed the price of the Motorola Xoom from ?479.99 to ?319.99.

Meanwhile Apple's iPad remains at ?399 and still flying off the shelves.

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Tags: Tablets HTC RIM BlackBerry BlackBerry PlayBook HTC Flyer Motorola Motorola Xoom

HTC Flyer price slashed to £200, PlayBook just £169 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 27 Dec 2011 12:22:00 +0000

Will you be checking your emails over Christmas? Volkswagen, the German car maker has come up with a novel idea to ensure some of its German employees get a much needed break, by not delivering their email to their BlackBerry smartphones when they aren't on duty.

Volkswagen has confirmed on Friday that some of its workers in German don't receive emails on their?BlackBerry?when they aren't working?after complaints that life work lines became too blurred.

A spokesman for VW told the BBC: "We confirm that this agreement between VW and the company's work council exists", but would not comment further.

Under the arrangement the company has programmed its BlackBerry servers to stop routing emails 30 minutes after the end of employees' shifts, and then start again 30 minutes before they return to work.

The staff can still use their devices to make calls and the rule does not apply to senior management, but it means that those on the scheme get work free nights free from email intrusion.?

"The issue of employees using Blackberrys, computers and other devices out of working time is a growing one that needs to be addressed as it can be a source of stress," Trades Union Congress (TUC) secretary general Brendan Barber told the BBC.

Many BlackBerry users refer to the smartphone as crackberries as it sucks you into being able to get your emails all day every day even at the weekend.

That of course is the same with all smartphones now too, however individual to the RIM handset is the ability to stop and start the main mail server when required.

Nokia a couple of years ago introduced a system that allowed users to set up a work mode and weekend mode, however it failed to gain any traction, with many failing to switch between the two.?

BlackBerry users can of course have their phone automatically stop receiving emails at a set time, however many say that is a personal choice and one that their company many not agree to.?

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Tags: Phones BlackBerry Volkswagen RIM Mobile phones

Volkswagen turns off BlackBerry email after work so staff get peace away from office originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 23 Dec 2011 12:59:00 +0000

It's Christmas time, there's no need to be afraid. At Christmas time, we let in light and we banish shade. We also present a special edition of the Pocket-lint Podcast where the team looks at the top tech stories from 2011. Oh yes.

Rik Henderson, Chris Hall and Dan Sung look at the impact the late Steve Jobs had on the world of gadgets and life in general, and discuss such topics as the rise and fall of Android Honeycomb, and Google's acquisition of Motorola. Plus, BlackBerry's supposed involvement in the UK riots comes under our steely gaze, and we reveal the biggest news story of the year; it may not be what you think.

The team also look at the gadgets they'll each be using to ensure that Christmas Day goes smoothly, and what games they hope to catch up on over the festive break.

So, join the team for a big bearded podcast, that's more "that's the sound of reindeer" than "that's the sound of rain, dear".

Hear the podcast

iTunes

http://itunes.apple.com/

RSS

http://www.pocket-lint.com/podcasts/pocketlintpodcast.xml

Download podcast (right click and save)

Listen (mp3)

Listen (acc)

The Pocket-lint Podcast is brought to you by Plantronics and has been recorded using?Plantronics Blackwire C420 and Voyager Pro-M UC v2 headsets.

Tags: Pocket-lint Podcast Podcasts Online podcast Steve Jobs Google Android Honeycomb Motorola RIM BlackBerry BT Star Wars Christmas

Pocket-lint Podcast #66 - Christmas special originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:38:40 +0000

With RIM's stock at an all time low, it is no surprise that sharks look to be circling the mobile phone and tablet maker. However the interest, it seems, is coming from those you wouldn't, perhaps, expect. They're some of the biggest fish around.

According to two separate articles on Wednesday, by Reuters and the Wall Street Journal, those sharks include Amazon, Nokia and Microsoft.

Reuters is claiming that "people with knowledge of the situation" have told them that Amazon - yes, the online retailer - even fancied seeing what it could do with the ailing smartphone maker.

"Research In Motion Ltd has turned down takeover overtures from Amazon.com Inc and other potential buyers because the BlackBerry maker prefers to fix its problems on its own, according to people with knowledge of the situation," writes the news agency.

According to the article, Amazon even hired an investment bank to look into a potential merger, but an offer wasn't forthcoming.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Nokia and Microsoft looked to join forces in order to buy RIM. It claims that sources have told them that the organisations "flirted with the idea of making a joint bid for Research In Motion Ltd" and even entered into discussions with the company. However, the results of those talks are unclear.

RIM's market value has plunged 77 per cent in the last 12 months.

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Tags: Biz Microsoft Nokia Amazon Mergers BlackBerry

Nokia, Amazon and Microsoft circle RIM - is a takeover on the cards? originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Wed, 21 Dec 2011 11:40:00 +0000

BlackBerry App World 3.1 has arrived in RIM lovers' lives - bringing with it a nifty new addition whereby rather than forking out for apps using your own hard earned money, you can request that your pals buy them for you.

The "Request Gift" feature is a sure way to save pennies, whilst at the same time creating a tight persona for yourself and annoying your BBM buddies as well. The option to send a gift request shows up alongside the traditional "Buy" option - you can of course still cough up yourself using the usual methods.

BlackBerry App World 3.1 also adds the function to filter "adult" or "mature" content. We're not sure what the difference between the two is - give us a few days to do some thorough investigation and we'll let you know.

The filtering is "an industry standard content rating system which is designed to give users the ability to restrict content of specific ratings". So it's handy for parents to stop their little 'uns looking at things that they shouldn't.

Finally, the updated app centre allows Wi-Fi only app downloading - a treat Android and iOS users have always had - meaning "where there’s Wi-Fi, you can now stay connected to BlackBerry App World and grab new apps and updates any time". Woop indeed.

BlackBerry owners will be receiving an upgrade notification over the next few days. If you can’t wait, you can manually download now.

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Tags: BlackBerry BlackBerry App World BlackBerry App World 3 Software Apps BlackBerry apps

BlackBerry App World 3.1 comes bearing gifts originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:45:00 +0000

Research In Motion, the company behind the BlackBerry smartphones, has confirmed that its next generation of smartphones running the new recently announced BB10 operating system, won't be with us until the end of 2012.?

Blaming availability of the processors that it needs to power the new operating system the new phones that are based on the new QNX powered operating system already seen in the BlackBerry PlayBook, it spells the beginning of a tough 12 months ahead for the Canadian company.?

"We now expect our first BlackBerry 10 smartphone to come to market in the latter part of calendar 2012," confirmed Lazaridis.?

Research In Motion's latest results are a mixed a bag on the whole. On the one hand profits have dropped by 27 per cent and the company is forecasting that it will only sell 11 - 12 million smartphones over its usually strong Christmas period.

On the plus side though, revenue is up 24 per cent from the last quarter, subscribers are up 35 per cent year-on-year to 75 million,?and the founding duo, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, have agreed to forgo their salaries, estimated to top $1 million each per year, instead taking just $1.

During the quarter, RIM shipped approximately 14.1 million BlackBerry smartphones and approximately 150,000 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets.

Lazaridis admitted that the company was working out how RIM can recover from the most "trying" quarter in the company's history.?That trying history involved a global outage, as well as, being linked to the London riots.?

That recovery will start with making sure the BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 makes its revised February launch says the co-CEO.

Until the new BB10 smartphone become available the company's latest BB7 handsets are the only hope for the company in the next 12 months.?

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Tags: Phones Tablets RIM BlackBerry Results Biz

BB10 smartphones delayed until late 2012, RIM details tough times ahead originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:01:00 +0000