BlackBerry

For car lovers, a Porsche-designed BlackBerry

If you can't quite afford a supercar, you might want to try the Porsche Design P'9981 BlackBerry smartphone instead.

Featuring materials as premium as those found in a Porsche sports car, the phone has a hand-wrapped leather back cover and forged stainless steel finishing. Love it or loathe it, the angular QWERTY keyboard design will definitely turn a few heads.

Under the hood, the P'9981 runs the BB 7 OS on a 1.2GHz processor and has NFC capabilities--most of its specs are similar to the Bold 9900. However, the Porsche Design handset has a bespoke UI with specially designed icons and a custom Wikitude augmented reality (AR) experience. Wikitude is an app that incorporates AR and location-based search using the phone's built-in compass.

The Porsche Design BlackBerry handset also has an exclusive PIN that starts with 2AA to help identify it to other P'9981 users on BBM. On paper, it seems a lot better than Porsche Design's previous phone. … Read more

Leaked BlackBerry videos promise big changes

Some very interesting videos from BlackBerry have appeared online that show a new kind of device with an edge-to-edge display.

The videos, which were first posted by N4BB and later picked up by Pocketnow, look like they're made for an upcoming press conference, shows everyday business folks putting their phones to everyday use.

The handset itself is just a rectangle with a large screen (there's no sight of a "crackberry" keyboard). Outside of the sleek and polished user interface that we've never seen before, the overall design looks a little too basic to be real. Perhaps it's just to get the development wheels turning. … Read more

Great QWERTY smartphones you can have right now (roundup)

Editors' note: This post was originally published October 26, 2011, and was updated December 18, 2012, with five new phones.

Touch screens may be all the rage, but for many of you, there's no substitute for a phone with a physical keyboard attached.

Though there weren't any stellar candy bar phones with onboard keyboards recently released, all the devices listed here include spacious QWERTYs that slide out from behind the screen. Here's a roundup of some of the most interesting and most useful smartphones with keyboards that you can get now.… Read more

RIM: We have 'an unprecedented track record of reliability'

Research In Motion's BlackBerry services outage earlier this month was undoubtedly a black eye for the company, but the firm's managing director for the U.K. and Ireland says it was an anomaly.

"We have an unprecedented track record of reliability," RIM's U.K. and Ireland managing director Stephen Bates told Mobile News Online in an interview published yesterday. "Our focus is on providing the best communications experience and the feedback we get from our customers is we normally deliver on that."

Bates went on to tell the publication that he estimated U.… Read more

RIM's latest misstep: Its new BBX name is already taken

Research in Motion's new BBX operating system isn't even out yet, and it's already facing a bit of legal heat. A small Albuquerque, N.M.-based software provider, Basis International, claims "BBx" is the name of a software platform that it has already trademarked.

RIM unveiled the BBX platform--which combines elements of its older BlackBerry operating system with its next-generation QNX software--at the company's developer conference on Tuesday. The company is hoping that BBX and its advanced capabilities can vault it back into the smartphone game, putting it on a more equal footing … Read more

BlackBerry BBX OS: What it really is

This morning when RIM announced BBX, the next-generation operating system that will power BlackBerry smartphones and tablets, the BlackBerry-maker offered few details about what the OS does, how it will propel RIM forward, and when we can expect to see it on working devices.

It's been known almost since RIM first announced the QNX-based PlayBook last year that the platform RIM bought would power smartphones, too. So isn't BBX just QNX repackaged to be more familiar to BlackBerry users? Turns out, there's more to it than that.

Instead, it's a joining of native BlackBerry capabilities with … Read more

RIM blew it: No BlackBerry PlayBook, phones today

RIM blew a chance to re-energize developers and BlackBerry consumers by announcing new smartphones and tablets at its annual BlackBerry Developers Conference today in San Francisco.

RIM's founder, president, and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis proudly unveiled BBX--the next-generation marriage of its QNX-plus-BlackBerry OS operating system for future devices--but failed to connect vague descriptions of the forthcoming platform with real-life devices.

There was a smattering of demos, some technical details, and a lot of hot air when it came to describing the benefits of BBX, but none of the concrete details, like release dates or a glimpse of a tangible … Read more

RIM to Android developers: C'mon in, the water's fine

Struggling BlackBerry maker RIM knows it has to change if it's to hold the interest of developers--and that means making the new operating system, BBX, a friendlier place for Android developers to play.

That's the subtext at the BlackBerry Developer Conference in San Francisco today, which played out in live demos of Android games that have been ported over to the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. The real message, however, is evident in the new PlayBook OS 2.0 beta software for developers.

RIM stressed in a press release that the PlayBook 2.0 beta includes the BlackBerry Runtime for … Read more

BlackBerry Messenger vs. Apple's iMessage

One of iOS 5's most anticipated features is iMessage, an Apple instant-messaging service that can be used only among iOS devices. This is essentially Apple's answer to BlackBerry Messenger, RIM's own internal messaging system. The idea behind both messaging services is that they don't cost anything extra and won't deduct from your text messaging plan.

The catch, of course, is that both exist only in either the iOS or the BlackBerry ecosystem. Here, we take the opportunity to compare both messaging services. … Read more

RIM co-CEO issues video apology to BlackBerry users

Research In Motion's BlackBerry service outages have prompted the company's co-CEO Mike Lazaridis to issue a video apology to customers.

"Since launching BlackBerry in 1999, it's been my goal to provide reliable real-time communications around the world," Lazaridis said in a video posted on his company's Web site today. "We did not deliver on that goal this week--not even close. I apologize for the service outages this week. We've let many of you down."

The trouble for RIM started earlier this week when the company's e-mail, messaging, and Web service … Read more