All posts by Eric at Ebscer

Weather Beautiful app updated

Q10cropThe Weather Beautiful app has been updated to version 2.0 in BlackBerry World. This new version adds a large number of improvements to the app.

By far the most requested feature for the app was added support for showing temperatures in degrees Celsius, and that is now an option that users can select from the options panel. Additionally, the main screen is now also displaying the current date, and now includes a small icon demonstrating the current weather.

In addition to the improvements in weather reporting, the app has also expanded the pool of pictures that it is pulling from. As before the app brings in stunning photography of your current location, but now there are even more images available to show a greater variety of backgrounds.

Links & Information

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BlackBerry, BlackBerry10, Weather Beautiful

OS 10.3 adoption rate slows down

While the percentage of BlackBerry 10 users on the newest OS continued to increase in April, the adoption rate has slowed down significantly as a number of carriers continue to drag their heels on the rollout. 59.9% of Pixelated users, and 70.5% of Stuff I Need users were running OS 10.3 in the past month. So far this has been the slowest rollout for a new BlackBerry operating system since the launch of OS 7 in 2011.

2015Apr-Pixelated-BB10OSVersions

2015Apr-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 April 2014 through the end of April 2015.

BlackBerry, BlackBerry10, Statistics

Xploding Boxes reaches 500 levels

Z10Xploding Boxes has been expanded to a total of 500 levels. Version 5.4 in now available in BlackBerry World, Google Play, the Amazon app store, the Nook app store, the Windows 8 app store, and the Windows Phone app store. In addition to the new levels, this update also improves the touch sensitivity on BlackBerry 10 phones, and adds additional menu options to the game play screen on Windows Phone.

About Xploding Boxes

Xploding Boxes is a strategy game where the goal is to start a chain reaction that will explode all of the boxes on the screen. Each level presents a different look and number of touches, requiring a different strategy to solve.

The game itself, and the first 25 levels are available for free, while a one time in-app purchase can be used to access the rest of the levels for just $2.99 while still maintaining your progress from the free levels.

Links & Information

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

Weather Beautiful is a new app for BlackBerry 10

IMG_20150421_160343Weather Beautiful is a simple weather app that displays stunning photography of your surrounding area. In addition to the current temperature and weather conditions, the app also allows you to scroll down for a full weekly forecast.

The background images for the app feature landscapes taken in the area surrounding your current location. These pictures update every fifteen seconds in order to show you more views.

The app can be downloaded for free from BlackBerry World for all BlackBerry 10 phones.

IMG_20150421_160656

Links & Information

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BlackBerry, BlackBerry10, Weather Beautiful

Classic Camera app updated to version 1.1

IMG_20150308_122951.cropThe Classic Camera app has been updated to version 1.1 in BlackBerry World. This new version of the app gives phones with physical keyboards the ability to also capture pictures by using the spacebar. Additionally, users now also have the option to give the camera an audible shutter noise. By default this is turned off, but users can activate it through the options screen that can be accessed from the swipe down menu.

About Classic Camera

On the newest versions of BlackBerry 10, the default camera app no longer allows you to capture a picture by simply allowing you to tap anywhere on the screen. So the Classic Camera is a third party camera that restores this behavior. Additionally there are options on the bottom of the screen to quickly toggle the flash, camera, and image ratio. After capturing an image a preview will appear in the lower left corner that can be tapped to preview or edit the most recently taken photo.

Links & Information

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BlackBerry, BlackBerry10, Classic Camera

Head Words updated to version 1.2

ShapeItAppThe Head Words game has been updated to version 1.2 in BlackBerry AppWorld. This new version adds the Candy category, and made some adjustments to the tilt sensitivity of the game.

About Head Words

Head Words is a native (Built for BlackBerry approved) multi-player guessing game similar to Celebrity, Hedbanz, and Heads Up. After selecting a category, one player places the phone on their forehead while the other players give clues. With one minute to guess as many words as possible, the player can tilt the phone down for each correct answer, or tilt the phone up to pass. At the end of round a word list will show what was guessed right and wrong. The swipe down menu provides an option to turn the sound on or off.

The game includes five categories for free, and the option to purchase access to nine additional categories for a dollar each.

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BlackBerry, BlackBerry10, Head Words

Use of 10.3 exceeds 50%

With OS 10.3.1 rolled out for most users over the course of an entire month the majority of users have upgraded to the newest version of BlackBerry 10. 54.3% of Pixelated users, and 67.2% of Stuff I Need users were running a version of OS 10.3 in the month of March.

While much better than BBOS, this is actually a bit slower than the roll out of OS 10.2.0 and 10.2.1 was a year ago. Holding BlackBerry back is the fact that a good number of carriers have still not rolled out the update. For developers, the need to maintain support for OS 10.2.1 isn’t yet gone.

2015Mar-Pixelated-BB10OSVersions
2015Mar-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 March 2014 through the end of March 2015.

BlackBerry, BlackBerry10, Statistics

OS Statistics for the traditional BBOS

Use of BlackBerry 7 now accounts for 56.5% of the traditional BBOS marketshare. This small increase mostly came at the expense of OS 6.

StatsMarch2015

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 March 2014 through the end of March 2015, and does not include BlackBerry 10 or PlayBook devices.

BlackBerry, Statistics

Xploding Boxes updated with Windows Phone support

wp_ss_20150324_0002Xploding Boxes has been updated to version 5.3 in BlackBerry World, Google Play, the Amazon app store, the Nook app store, the Windows 8 app store, and the Windows Phone app store. This update adds 10 new levels to the game, and also adds support for Windows Phones for the first time.

About Xploding Boxes

Xploding Boxes is a strategy game where the goal is to start a chain reaction that will explode all of the boxes on the screen. Each level presents a different look and number of touches, requiring a different strategy to solve.

The game itself, and the first 25 levels are available for free, while a one time in-app purchase can be used to access the rest of the levels for just $2.99 while still maintaining your progress from the free levels.

Links & Information

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

Amazon now allowing for fine grained control of BlackBerry app Support

With the Amazon app store coming pre-installed on new BlackBerry 10 phones, Amazon is continuing to improve the support given to developers. Last month Amazon began explicitly adding BlackBerry phones to their testing procedures, and now they are giving developers the option to individually select support for various BlackBerry phones.

amazon

Previously all BlackBerry phones were just included under the generic “all other Android devices” category while a specific per device breakdown like what is now offered was only available for the Amazon Fire line of products.

Android, BlackBerry, BlackBerry10, code

How to invoke the Classic Camera app

The Classic Camera app can be invoked using the following code…


InvokeManager mInvokeManager = new InvokeManager(this);
connect(mInvokeManager,
      SIGNAL(childCardDone(const
      bb::system::CardDoneMessage&)), this,
      SLOT(childCardDone(const
      bb::system::CardDoneMessage&)));
InvokeRequest request;
request.setAction("bb.action.CAPTURE");
request.setTarget("com.ebscer.classiccamera.card");
request.setMimeType("image/jpeg");
mInvokeManager->invoke(request);

The response data contains the file name of the captured image.

BlackBerry, BlackBerry10, Classic Camera, code

Thoughts on BlackBerry Cascades from 2011

Flipping through an old notebook, I came across my notes on BlackBerry Cascades from BlackBerry DevCon 2011. This was half a year before the framework was released, and a good year and a half before the launch of BlackBerry 10. Since then I have become an expert at Cascades, but it is interesting to see some of my earlier thoughts.IMG_20150311_233508_crop

  • 2D and 3D
  • 90% of UI could be lists
  • QML declarative UI from Qt
  • Asynchronous to help rendering rate
  • Signals to handle events
  • List Types – (SQL,XML,JSON)
  • Uses BBX IDE
  • QML looks nicer than C++
  • Beta in fall (November)
  • Everything in BBX is Qt

Somethings I got right, and with some others I look a little silly. For example Cascades has no support for 3D. In fact Cascades is actively bad at working in three dimensions and doesn’t even support giving z-values to elements. Also the beta wasn’t launched in November (at the time only a month away), but instead the next May. The emphasis on lists was a bit overblown. Creating 90% of an app out of lists can be true for pretty much any framework, and somewhat ironically I don’t actually use a ListView for creating the lists in most of my apps anyhow. The one thing that was apparent to me from the very beginning is that QML is far nicer than C/C++ ever was…

BlackBerry, BlackBerry10, code

My annoyance with the 10.3 camera

With OS 10.3 BlackBerry has added many great features such as app folders with an unlimited size, apps with theme colors, and advanced interaction’s like “Lift to Wake” feature. Despite all of this the newest version of the operating system took a step back with the new version of the camera. Unlike previous versions of the BlackBerry 10 camera app that allowed you to tap anywhere on the screen to take a picture the new version of the app requires you to use a small button on the bottom of the screen. Not only is this the loss of a feature, but it also sometimes makes it tricky to hold the phone when taking a picture.

IMG_20150309_130646_editGranted this is a minor annoyance, but I decided to fixed it anyways. So I created a new camera app.

The Classic Camera app can be purchased from BlackBerry World for $1. This camera makes it easy to take a picture by simply allowing you to tap anywhere on the screen. Also, there are options on the bottom of the screen to quickly toggle the flash, camera, and image ratio. After capturing an image a preview will appear in the lower left corner that can be tapped to preview or edit the most recently taken photo.

Links & Information

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BlackBerry, BlackBerry10, Classic Camera