Monthly Archives: February 2014

Nokia X is an Android phone with poor support for Android

Nokia has just announced their new X line of phones that run a skinned version of Android. In their announcement, Nokia boasted that 75% of existing Android apps were already compatible. However, instead of being impressed, my gut instinct was that the number seemed rather low…

NokiaXA run through the compatibility checker confirmed my fears. Of the five android apps I am currently selling through Google Play, only one had no compatibility issues. Most of the problems with the apps centered around support for in-app billing (there are also issues with supporting any mapping APIs). While the tool regards this as a minor issue, the ability to make money from apps is kind of important (and due to my use of the AIR framework also tricky to fix).

The billing API is mostly a drop-in replacement for Google’s, but I feel that it would be easier if Nokia took a page from BlackBerry’s book and allowed the apps to integrate with its store without any code changes at all. Amazon does a similar thing to Nokia in forcing developers to rework their apps, but in exchange at least promises a unique and sizable market. Meanwhile, Nokia’s X phones live under the threat of being axed by Microsoft before we even reach summer.

Android, code

Mileage Tracker updated to version 1.6

ShapeItAppThe Mileage Tracker app has been updated to version 1.6 in BlackBerry World. This update allows you to import data from previously exported .csv data, includes a redesigned menu for switching between different categories, and also includes a reduction in the overall install size of the application.

About Mileage Tracker

Mileage tracker is a free app designed to help you track the miles you drive on each trip, so that you can use this information for tax deductions, accounting, or employee reimbursements. Instead of keeping this information charted on your computer, it makes much more sense to be able to track this directly on your phone, which you normally would have with you in the car already.

Trips can be grouped into categories, and edited (or deleted) at a later date. Following a one time in-app payment, you can also export your data into an Excel compatible .csv format and a pretty (and sortable) .html format.

Links & Information

BlackBerry, BlackBerry10, Mileage Tracker

Three years of Xploding Boxes

This past weekend, Xploding Boxes celebrated its third Birthday.

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The game has grown dramatically over the past three years, from a start of 100 levels to the 420 different levels that the game has today. On BlackBerry World the game has 1886 reviews and is averaging four out of five stars. Additionally, while the original version of the game only supported BlackBerry OS, the game has since been rewritten in order to also support the BlackBerry PlayBook, BlackBerry 10, Android, Kindle, Nook, and Windows 8.

Android, BlackBerry, BlackBerry10, Nook, Windows, Xploding Boxes

Users not upgrading to Windows 8.1

Stats from netmarketshare.com and other web statistics sites are showing very low upgrade rates for Windows 8.1 with roughly two out of three users staying on OS 8.0 instead.

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With only 37.3% of users upgrading to the newest version of Windows 8, the question is why? Version 8.1 is a free upgrade, and is not subject to the carrier approvals that typically cause issues with upgrade rates. There is an understanding on why users may want to stick with Windows 7, but for those already on 8 there is no reason to not want to upgrade to 8.1 instead.

The culprit may be the manner in which Microsoft is pushing the update. Instead of making the upgrade available through Windows update (as they have traditionally done with service packs), the upgrade to 8.1 must be downloaded from the Windows app store. This process is actually very smooth, but the suspicion is that users simply are not checking the store often enough to notice the upgrade.

Statistics, Windows

United States, Canada, and UK account for 54% of BlackBerry 10 users

A look at the January downloads for the free Stuff I Need app shows that the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom together make up 53.8% of users.

January2014Countries

In total, downloads came from 138 different countries, with Germany making a surprising showing at 5.4% of the market. India also does better than expected with the 7th largest number of users despite not being a traditional BlackBerry market.

BlackBerry, BlackBerry10, Statistics

OS Distribution over the first year of BlackBerry 10

Just one year into the launch of BlackBerry 10, and users have shown themselves to be rather quick to upgrade to new versions of the OS. While the wireless carriers have interfered with BlackBerry’s ability to get out the newest versions of the operating system to everyone, even the United States seems to have gotten on-board with OS 10.2.1 so expectations are high for next month.

While the day following the launch of 10.2.1 showed 66.61% of users on the newest OS, this came too late in the month to have much of an impact on the overall numbers for January. Growth of newer OS versions was overall steady, but slow. February is expected to be much better as there are now no carriers pretending that OS 10.1 is the newest release.

2014Jan-Pixelated-BB10OSVersions

2014Jan-StuffINeed-BB10OSVersions

This data was collected by BlackBerry World for downloads of the free strategy game Pixelated and the free checklist app Stuff I Need. Data shown on the chart is from the beginning of February 2013 through the end of January 2014.

BlackBerry, BlackBerry10, Statistics

New Version of Twinkle is a share target for calendar events

Twinkle has been updated to version 5.3 in BlackBerry World for all BlackBerry 10 phones. In addition to a few optimizations, this new version also allows Twinkle to act as a share target for calendar events from other applications including the built-in calendar app.
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About Twinkle

Twinkle is an app that allows you to set and keep track of upcoming and past events. Twinkle will tell you how far away an event is, and share it with a friends through social networks. The app includes an number of options for sorting or filtering your views in order to allow you to easily be able to manage and share a large number of different events.

Sharing events from the native calendar

IMG_20140202_140921In order to send an event to Twinkle from the native calendar app, just open the event and then select the ‘Share’ option from the menu. This will give you a list of applications (including Twinkle) that you can share the event to. Twinkle will then pre-populate the fields as if you were to manually create a new event.

Links & Information

BlackBerry, BlackBerry10, Twinkle

Update for 10,000 Farkle

Z10The BlackBerry game 10,000 Farkle has been updated to version 2.3 in BlackBerry World. This new version offers a number of optimizations that makes the app faster, and also reduces the overall install size of the app by over 26 percent. Additionally, this update to the game also includes a swipe-down menu in order to give you another way to access some of the game’s advanced features.

How to Play Farkle

Farkle gives you six dice to roll and awards points for a straight, three pairs or three or more of the same number. Fewer points ares also awarded for each individual 1 and 5. Any dice that do not score can be re-rolled for additional points. If all 6 dice can be scored, then all of the dice can be re-rolled on the same turn.

The skill in this game comes from knowing how far to push your luck, and which scoring combinations to take, and when to re-roll.

The default game mode gives you 10 turns to score as many points as you can. The 10,000 point mode gives you unlimited turns to reach 10,000 points. The two competitive game modes both use the traditional format of racing to 10,000 points.

Links & Information

BlackBerry, BlackBerry10, Farkle

BBOS distribution mostly unchanged from last month

While BlackBerry 10 users have been quick to upgrade, the demographics of the older BBOS are mostly unchanged over the past month. OS 5.0 was first released in 2009, and still claims a decent percentage of the market share. With the release of OS 7.0 coming in 2011, even this version has been around for awhile, but has yet to even capture 50% of the market.

StatsJan2014

This data was collected by BlackBerry World for downloads of the free BlackBerry strategy game Pixelated. Data shown on the chart is from the beginning of January 2013 through the end of January 2014, and does not include BlackBerry 10 or PlayBook devices.

BlackBerry, Statistics