Rabu, 31 Agustus 2011

BerryReview.com Giving Back to the BlackBerry Community

BerryReview.com Giving Back to the BlackBerry Community


BlackBerry Messenger v6.0.1.15 Released in Beta Zone

Posted: 31 Aug 2011 01:25 AM PDT

BBM Update

RIM has gone ahead and updated the version of BlackBerry Messenger available in the Beta Zone this week. This update brings us to v6.0.1.15 though it comes with a big caveat. They are asking users of BBM Music to NOT upgrade to this version. My guess is that is because of incompatibilities which is not promising. This is what RIM had to say about the update:


BBM Development teams have focused on fixing file and picture transfer issues. Additionally, this latest BBM beta release includes subscription payment support for platform-enabled applications.

You can pick up this latest beta of BlackBerry Messenger in the Beta Zone. Let us know what you find.

If you liked this article, you might find these interesting:


Posted by Ronen Halevy for ©BerryReview, August 31, 2011, 4:25 am. | BlackBerry Messenger v6.0.1.15 Released in Beta Zone | Leave a comment |


Reminder: 30 Hours Left to Win a BlackBerry 7 Smartphone in Our August Rewards Contest!

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 03:00 PM PDT

Circle of BlackBerrys

This month we have been running one of the sweetest contests we have ever had. We are giving away a BlackBerry 7 smartphone of your choice and there are only 30 hours left to win! If you were looking for a way to win one of these BlackBerry 7 devices then this is your chance. You can win the BlackBerry 7 of your choice (When available) or a $500 Amazon/PayPal gift certificate! That includes the BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930, BlackBerry Torch 9810, or the BlackBerry Torch 9850/9860. Read on for the details!

All you have to do to enter the BerryReview Rewards Contest for August is simply leave a comment, forum post, and/or tip submission during the month of August 2011. We are also including all "Retweets" of BerryReview articles on Twitter as extra entries to win! The selection process involves us choosing a finalist from each of the categories (comments, forum posts, tips, Retweets) and then having our judge select the winner out of those four. Every comment, forum post, Retweet, and/or tip submission counts as another entry so get cracking!

You must be registered and logged in to BerryReview when leaving comments for them to be included in the contest and the winner will be chosen by the BerryReview staff in the beginning of September 2011. You can check out all the details and official rules in the announcement post. If you have any questions comments leave a comment on that post.

Start a New Forum Discussion Visit the forums

So what are you waiting for? Get cracking!

If you liked this article, you might find these interesting:


Posted by the BerryReview Team for ©BerryReview, August 30, 2011, 6:00 pm. | Reminder: 30 Hours Left to Win a BlackBerry 7 Smartphone in Our August Rewards Contest! | 25 comments |


Mike Kirkup Resigns As Sr. Director of Developer Relations

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 01:16 PM PDT

This came as a big surprise for us who have had the pleasure of meeting Mike Kirkup at different events over the past few years. He is usually one of the familiar faces we get to chat with during conferences. Today we learned that he is resigning as Sr. Director of Developer Relations at RIM. Mike posted his announcement over at his Blog.

Kevin from CB reached out to him about the reasons for the resignation. From his words he is not leaving for another company but simply taking a break to plan his next move, and spend time with family. To read the full interview head over to CB at this LINK

Here at Berryreview we wish him the best, and am sure we will be hearing about him in the future.

If you liked this article, you might find these interesting:


Posted by Luis Merlos for ©BerryReview, August 30, 2011, 4:16 pm. | Mike Kirkup Resigns As Sr. Director of Developer Relations | 3 comments |


Boxtone Adds Support for BlackBerry 7 Devices

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 10:43 AM PDT

 Boxtone Wagon Wheel

The popular BoxTone Enterprise Mobility Management solution has announced this week that they now support the latest BlackBerry 7 devices.  That includes the BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 and Torch 9810/9850/9860. No word on the just announced and soon available BlackBerry Curve 9350/9360/9370. Still it is nice to see that RIM's main 3rd party enterprise vendors are jumping at the opportunity to support the latest BlackBerry devices. Check out the details in the release below:

BoxTone Supports BlackBerry 7 and Five New BlackBerry Handsets

COLUMBIA, MD – August 29, 2011 – BoxTone, the leader in Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM), today announced support for the BlackBerry® 7 operating system (OS), now running on new mobile devices including the BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 and 9930 with touch display and keyboard, BlackBerry® Torch™ 9810 with touch display and slide-out keyboard, and the all-touch BlackBerry® Torch™ 9850 and 9860.

Across these new devices, key capabilities for the enterprise user include the faster processors, increased memory, sharper high resolution display, faster WebKit browser with HTML5, and pre-loaded Documents To Go®, across a variety of form factors to meet the need and preferences of enterprise users. The launch across 255 carriers and partners ensures global availability often required by the enterprise.

"This next-generation BlackBerry 7 OS and these new smartphones are exciting additions into the market, with enhanced performance and functionality that make BlackBerry an even more attractive platform to mobilize the enterprise," said Alan Snyder, CEO, BoxTone. "These latest devices leverage the best of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server in the enterprise and BoxTone's Enterprise Mobility Management platform. We're proud to support BlackBerry in its latest upgrade, and we look forward to helping enterprises mobilize their business with the latest BlackBerry OS and smartphones."

BoxTone is the only EMM solution that delivers full lifecycle mobility management across all mobile devices, tablets and applications. From a single unified management platform, BoxTone enables mobile security, IT operations, support and business management to deliver the highest quality of service and security at the lowest cost and risk to the organization. Today 40 of the Fortune® 100, four of the five largest U.S. Banks, five of the top six U.S. Federal agencies and all of the major managed service providers (MSPs) rely on BoxTone to secure, manage, monitor and support more than 900,000 corporate-owned and employee-owned mobile devices running thousands of applications.

If you liked this article, you might find these interesting:


Posted by Ronen Halevy for ©BerryReview, August 30, 2011, 1:43 pm. | Boxtone Adds Support for BlackBerry 7 Devices | One comment |


Review: BlackBerry Playbook Ballistic Tough Jacket Series Case

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 09:30 AM PDT

Pricing: $69.99

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars

BlackBerry Playbook Ballistic Tough Jacket Series Case provides excellent protection for your Playbook. However, the protection comes with a sacrifice – the weight. The case provides three layers of protection.

  • Layer 1 – Inner silicone layer absorbs shock
  • Layer 2 – Impact resistant hard plastic protects the BlackBerry PlayBook
  • Layer 3 – Shock Absorbent polymer layer

Also the case has thicker Ballistic Corners for drop protection and a removable cover that can also be used on the back as a kickstand.

First you wrap your Playbook with the silicone layer, once it is in there, the hard plastic part snaps onto the silicone all around the unit. This combination provides a very tough protection. Let’s take a look at couple of pictures.

The Empty Unit, without the front cover:

With the Playbook inserted:

Back of the unit:

The front cover easily snaps onto the front, completing the protection (your Playbook will feel like a tank, literally thanks to weight). I liked the design of the front cover though, as it can be quickly removed and attached to the back of the unit. There you can push out the kickstand and voila. This will be a great way to interact with your Playbook on your desktop, for example to read news or watch movies. There is only one angle available with the kickstand. Also, unlike the Otterbox Defender, there is no screen protector included. To me, this is better, as I prefer to use my own screen protector, instead of being forced to use what comes with the case.

The ports on the device are accessible easily both on the top and bottom. The silicone covering the power/volume keys makes it easier to push these buttons, especially the power button. I wish there was a L shaped MicroUSB cable/adapter. This would definitely come handy when you are working on it extensively and using the kickstand. The kickstand was initially a bit hard to open, it secures itself pretty tight. However, after a week or two, I managed to open it without any need for a tool.

Overall I like the design and the protection the case provides. My biggest gripe is the added weight, as I love my Playbook being so lightweight. It feels like a feather compared to my Android 10″ G-tablet from Viewsonic. The case nearly doubles the weight of the Playbook (15 oz. Playbook vs 11 oz. case). However, if I am traveling I will most definitely store my Playbook in this case.

Pros:

  • Excellent protection
  • Kickstand

Cons:

  • Heavy
  • Kickstand is very hard to open
  • Expensive

 

 

 

If you liked this article, you might find these interesting:


Posted by Remzi Turer for ©BerryReview, August 30, 2011, 12:30 pm. | Review: BlackBerry Playbook Ballistic Tough Jacket Series Case | Leave a comment |


Perfecto Mobile Offering 2 Hours of Testing for Devs on BlackBerry 7 Devices

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 08:52 AM PDT

perfecto-mobilecloud

Perfecto Mobile has put up a new offer for BlackBerry devs giving them 2 hours of free access to their MobileCloud platform. While not as much as the 30 free hours they offered previously this lets developers test their apps on real BlackBerrys which are live on mobile networks around the world. Devs can then use the device as if they were holding it through the MobileCloud. This new offer comes just when Perfecto has added the lineup of BlackBerry 7 devices to the Mobile Cloud including the 9900, 9810, and 9850.

Devs can sign up for the free trial giving them 2 hours after which each hour is discounted at $4. Check out the details at this link on Perfecto's website or on the RIM Blog.

If you liked this article, you might find these interesting:


Posted by Ronen Halevy for ©BerryReview, August 30, 2011, 11:52 am. | Perfecto Mobile Offering 2 Hours of Testing for Devs on BlackBerry 7 Devices | One comment |


Google Apps Connector for BES v4.0 Released

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 08:08 AM PDT

Google Apps Connector

I am not sure how many companies are using the Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server but it just got an update this month. MiBlackBerry spotted the news on Google's website along with a change log. It really just adds support for the latest version of BES along with:

  • Support for BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 5.0.3
  • Read-Receipt functionality
  • Free/Busy functionality

Here is a breakdown of the features:

Support for BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 5.0.3

Release 4.0 of the Google Apps Connect includes support for BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 5.0.3. BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 5.0.2 is still supported as well.

Read-Receipt functionality

When the BlackBerry device gets a message that requests a read receipt, the device will prompt whether to send a read receipt, and whether to remember this setting. This feature is disabled by default. To enable this feature, set the following registry key:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Google Apps Sync] "ReadReceiptEnabled"=dword:00000001
This setting will take effect the next time you restart the Dispatcher and agents. If a user previously had set a BlackBerry device to deliver a read receipt by default, when you enable this feature the BlackBerry device will deliver a read receipt without prompting the user.

Free-Busy

When scheduling a meeting on the BlackBerry device, users can view free/busy information for other meeting attendees. This information may be cached up to 15 minutes. This feature is disabled by default. To enable this feature, set the following registry key:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Google Apps Sync] "FreeBusyEnabled"=dword:00000001
This setting will take effect the next time you restart the Dispatcher and agents. If this feature is enabled, free/busy will be visible for all users who share their free/busy settings with the Google Apps Connector user, whether or not those users share their free/busy with an individual user. As a result, users may see free/busy schedules in BlackBerry that they would not have permission to see in the Google Apps web browser, and vice versa.

You can pick up Google Apps Connector here

If you liked this article, you might find these interesting:


Posted by Ronen Halevy for ©BerryReview, August 30, 2011, 11:08 am. | Google Apps Connector for BES v4.0 Released | One comment |


Free Weather App From The Weather Network – Replaces WeatherEye?

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 06:57 AM PDT

368793 368792

The Weather Network used to call their BlackBerry App WeatherEye for years and still seems to on App World. On the other hand Don let us know that they have released a new app that is very similar called "The Weather Network" which has been updated to v2.5 compared to WeatherEye which is sitting at 2.4.6. Both were updated in August which further confuses things.

Either way you can pick up the free Weather Network app in App World with these features:

  • Detailed weather conditions, Short term, hourly and Long Term forecast
  • Severe Weather alerts (Canada and USA)
  • Sat/Radar Maps
  • Data in Celsius or Fahrenheit, Metric or Imperial\
  • City auto-locate using GPS coordinates (OS 6 only)
  • Set home screen icon to auto-locate (OS 6 only) or Saved city (any OS)

If you liked this article, you might find these interesting:


Posted by Ronen Halevy for ©BerryReview, August 30, 2011, 9:57 am. | Free Weather App From The Weather Network – Replaces WeatherEye? | 9 comments |


Connect 4 Gets Social With BBM Integration

Posted: 30 Aug 2011 05:36 AM PDT

 screenshot_1 screenshot_4

For years I have been waiting for developers to tie into BBM and PIN messages to create multiplayer versions of classic games like Chess and Checkers. Now we have developers doing just that with the power of the BBM 6 SDK. The latest is Bach Khoa University which has released a BBM 6 powered version of Connect 4 spotted by PocketBerry. Its the classic game many of us grew up with and now you can easily play with friends.

screenshot_2 screenshot_3

Features include

  • Play the game versus your BBM existed contacts or friends.
  • Start offline game, two players can play against each other in a single device
  • In-game chatting. That means, you can chat with your opponent right in the game
  • Send invitation to download game!
  • Send file to your friends
  • Send popup message to your friends
  • Start an BBM chat with your opponent or your BBM contacts
  • Host public game
  • Join public game

The developers have made the Connect 4 game nice and affordable at $0.99 in the store. They also have a trial of the game that lets you play 10 games. Check it out and let us know what you think!

If you liked this article, you might find these interesting:


Posted by Ronen Halevy for ©BerryReview, August 30, 2011, 8:36 am. | Connect 4 Gets Social With BBM Integration | One comment |