Tag archive: BlackBerry

More woes for BlackBerry maker Research In Motion. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced this week that it would be handing out iPhones and iPads to its employees in May, replacing the BlackBerry devices currently used. According to a Bloomberg report, the government agency, which carries out research into weather, oceans and fisheries, currently has about 3,000 of its 20,000 full-time workers and contractors using RIM… Read More

With over 500,000 apps available through Apple’s App Store, it can be daunting for developers to get their apps noticed — let alone downloaded. Enter a recent thread on app developer site Touch Arcade, in which a poster who was recently shopping around for ways to get his app more exposure was contacted by a “marketing” company that promised it could break apps into the top 25 rankings in exchange for a lump sum payment — in this case $5,000.… Read More

According to a new study out of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, the desire to check a social network like Twitter or Facebook is stronger than the need to smoke a cigarette or have an alcoholic beverage. As reported by The Guardian, test subjects between the ages of 18 to 85 were armed with BlackBerry smartphones and asked to send messages seven times a day related to recent desires. Splitting the messages up over 14 hours a… Read More

Research in Motion is finding good uses for its stockpile of unsold BlackBerry PlayBook tablets. Yesterday, Alec Saunders, the company's VP of developer relations, announced on Twitter that any Android developer that submits an app by Feb. 13 will get a free BlackBerry PlayBook. This comes as RIM once again slashes the price of the PlayBook to help re-ignite interest in the tablet now that its new BlackBerry Tablet OS 2.0 update is about… Read More

It may not be the kind of burning issue that keeps you awake at night, but the findings of a recent survey carried out by dating website Match.com may raise a smile nevertheless. The survey looked at the dating habits of Canadians and how they corresponded with the type of smartphone they own. The results showed that Android owners were more likely to have sex on a first date compared to owners of Apple’s iPhone or those with BlackBerry devices.… Read More

A leaked image of what appears to show Research In Motion’s first next-generation Blackberry 10 phone has been posted online. BlackBerry site CrackBerry.com has come into possession of the information, with the phone, named London, looking like a radical departure from the usual BlackBerry look. According to the photo, the device sports a super-slim, dark design and, as CrackBerry says in its report, “looks much more like a phonified BlackBerry… Read More

It's been a bumpy week for RIM. On Sunday, the Canadian smartphone maker's co-CEOs tried their best to quietly resign and hand over the CEO position to their former Chief Operating Officer, Thorsten Heins. For months, investors and journalists have been calling for Research in Motion's co-CEOs, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis — who have each taken turns running the company since it was founded in 1991 — to step… Read More

After a miserable 2011 in which Research In Motion (RIM) struggled with a myriad of issues, the company’s co-CEOs and co-chairmen, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, have stepped down. In a statement released Sunday evening, Thorsten Heins was named as the new president and chief executive officer. Heins joined the Waterloo, Ontario-based company in 2007. In the statement, Lazaridis said, “There comes a time in the growth of every successful… Read More

A roadmap of Research in Motion's plans for new hardware during 2012 has been leaked. Surprisingly, rather than concentrating on BlackBerry 10 handsets, it features not one but two new BlackBerry PlayBook tablets. Yes, it seems one tablet not selling very well isn't enough, as information given to N4bb.com shows a new 7-inch BlackBerry PlayBook will be coming in April, with a 10-inch model to follow at the end of the year in… Read More

Occurring on Tuesday night during a performance of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony by the New York Philharmonic, a man's iPhone erupted in the familiar marimba ring tone during the closing moments of the performance. Seated in the first row of Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, the man with the ringing iPhone watched as conductor Alan Gilbert halted the orchestra, turned toward the direction of the ringing and asked audience… Read More

RIM has been promising the PlayBook 2.0 upgrade since the summer of 2011, and today we finally got our first look at a PlayBook tablet with native email, a calendar app, and and a number of other upgrades. While it's hard to say why it took so long and it may very well be too little, too late for the PlayBook, RIM isn't ready to give up just yet. PlayBook 2.0 enhancements we noticed Email: When the PlayBook shipped in April 2011, it… Read More

Oh dear, RIM may be trying to get us all excited about BlackBerry OS 10, but when reports appear that the company is canceling smartphones set to run it, it doesn't exactly fill us with confidence regarding an expedited arrival. The news comes via BGR.com, who says that not only has the Colt been canned, but the Milan has too. In case you don't recall either of these devices, here's a reminder: The Colt was all set to be the… Read More

A new report in the Financial Post claims that Canada's Research in Motion is getting ready to shuffle its corporate structure, potentially stripping its co-CEO's of their de-facto roles as chairmen of the company board and installing an independent director as chair. And the leading candidate appears to be Barbara Stymiest, a current independent director on RIM's board. Stymiest recently retired as chief operating officer and… Read More

In an attempt to drain its tumorous stock of unsold BlackBerry PlayBook tablets, Research In Motion has slashed the price of all models to $299 on its official BlackBerry store website. That means the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB model all cost $299. While $299 is obviously still more expensive than the $199 price (for a refurbished 16GB PlayBook) that we saw during the holiday buying season, this is quite obviously a good deal — if saving money is… Read More

In what should come as a surprise to no one at all, Apple's iOS finished 2011 with a dominant share of the mobile web-browsing market, and will begin 2012 as the operating system of choice for more than half of mobile tech consumers. Net Market Share has a month-by-month breakdown of the mobile and tablet computer operating systems used for web browsing, and the final figures for December 2011 show Apple's iOS leading the study with… Read More