For quite a while now there have been varying reports that the battery life on the BlackBerry PlayBook was going to be disappointing. I have been quick to claim otherwise starting just days after it was announced, and continuing even when some analysts felt the need to say otherwise. So now that the PlayBook reviews are finally coming out how does the PlayBook’s battery actually do?
With the release of the BlackBerry PlayBook next week, a good amount of time has been spent coding in ActionScript rather then Java. One of the main differences between ActionScript and most other object oriented languages is that ActionScript does not support threads.
Instead ActionScript is an event driven language. Instead of worrying about a main thread, or which one of many threads are running you instead just respond to events as they happen. Languages like Java are like this in some respects, such as reacting to key presses, but not to the point where you get rid of threads. As such in ActionScript methods doing complex work are never blocking, and you don’t have to create temporary threads for doing things like editing the main UI. Furthermore using the flash.utils.Timer class is a much cleaner way to periodically preform an action then any separate thread and loop system that you would otherwise have to do.
While the lack of threads may be limiting for the few uses that actually need them, for the most part ActionScript instead gives you an alternative for the instances where you were only using threads for lack of a more efficient option. The end result is that ActionScript can result in cleaner and more efficient code that is better for both the developer and the user.
Since last looked at the usage of carrier billing has continued to rise in the first two months of 2011. Carrier billing now is responsible for 20.1% of all sales on BlackBerry AppWorld. The use of in-application payments will most likely continue to rise as it is being offered on more carriers. These carriers see their users twice as likely to upgrade to paid versions of applications as they otherwise would be.
In time for the launch of the BlackBerry PlayBook we are releasing the game Black Out. This is a strategy game in which the goal is to black out all of the tiles. This is complicated because whenever you tap to flip a tile, it also flips all of the tiles surrounding it.
How to Play
Black Out is played by touching any of the squares in the grid to switch its colour. This also switches the colours of the surrounding tiles as well. Eventually the goal is to do this enough times in order to ‘black out’ the whole screen.
Options
The game give the option to set the grid size from anywhere from 3×3 tiles to 10×10 tiles. Additionally there are options for changing the colours and showing hints on how to solve the puzzles in case you get stuck. The game also offers achievements and high scores for each grid size.
The question of course is why. The answer being that it allows RIM to get away from the perception that there is a lot of fragmentation in developing for BlackBerry, and that it allows BlackBerry applications to look nicer. Given that BlackBerry has been around a lot longer then iOS or Android many developers view working for BlackBerry as a larger task because of the need to support these legacy devices. RIM in turn is simply telling developers not to bother with the older devices, and figuring that well over a year after release, anyone not going to update to OS 5.0 or higher probably isn’t going to download any applications anyhow. Additionally this can help make BlackBerry applications look nicer as developers will be less afraid of using the newer APIs. If instead a developer decided that they needed to support a lowest common denominator of OS 4.5 they wouldn’t even have the decor APIs available to them, and would look awful.
RIM themselves has been holding true to this minimum of OS 5.0 by requiring this for things like the newest version of BBM, and the upcoming BlackBerry Bridge. Like all other developers RIM too can get more done if they only have to support OS 5.0 and newer devices.
The launch of Twinkle last summer was the first Ebscer application to require a minimum OS of 5.0 and since then Liar’s Dice and Xploiding Boxes have had the same requirement. Meanwhile others like the Call-A-Human application support OS 4.6.0 and higher but work much better when integrated with Universal Search on OS 6.0 devices.
The final message is that if you haven’t updated to OS 5.0 yet you are already missing out. If you haven’t updated to OS 6.0 yet you soon will be.
RIM has updated their OS usage statistics using February data. Unlike last time they broke out the number of users on OS 6. These official numbers look very close to what I reported for February. For OS 6.0 RIM reports 20% while I saw 19.6%. For OS 5.0+ RIM reports 81%, while I see 80.6%. Additionally we both see almost no users on OS 4.7.0 and 4.7.1.
Tomorrow RIM is hosting a BlackBerry Developer Day in Toronto, and I will be there. For anyone else going please come by and say hello, I would love to talk.
Last week when looking at the increasing popularity of carrier billing I noticed that the percent of purchases made through carrier billing was larger then the percent of customers who had access to carrier billing. A quick look at the number for December then showed that users of AT&T were more then twice as likely to upgrade from Pixelated to Pixelated Plus then users from Verizon, Sprint, and T-mobile.
I attributed this difference to having the option of carrier billing, but AT&T is also the only one of these carriers to offer RIM’s flagship BlackBerry Torch. In order to double check these assumptions I looked at the three largest Canadian carriers who all offer the Torch, and only one (Telus) offers carrier billing through AppWorld.
In the interest of not actually reveling upgrade rates, the below chart instead shows rates normalized to the rate at Verizon, such that Verizon is always 1.0 and carriers with a higher upgrade rate show values higher then one. Additionally this is not a true measure of upgrade rates but a value of paid downloads over free downloads which is good enough to normalize the amount of purchases over the relative size of the carriers. This data is from the month of January.
As the chart shows the two wireless providers that offer carrier billing through AppWorld have roughly double the percentage of customers who are willing to spend money on an upgrade. As such one of the best things that RIM can do to help developers is to get more providers on board with carrier billing.
The Hockey Scores BlackBerry Application has been updated to version 2.5 this weekend. This version fixes a bug so you can once again see the goal scorers in the game, and also includes improvements to some of the team logo graphics.
In-Application Payments
You can still make an optional in-application payment to remove the advertising from this application. This application’s use of this feature was recently highlighted on the official Inside BlackBerry Blog.
The Call-A-Human application has been updated to version 1.2 with expanded listings, and updates to some current ones. This application allows you to easily call straight to a customer service person at hundreds of companies without having to go through the hassle of going through a phone tree. The application also includes a built in search field, and for BlackBerry devices running OS 6.0 or higher it integrates with universal search so you can just start typing without even opening the application.
Efficiency Improvements
Using this application is far faster then manually going through the phone menus or even just pounding zero. The first three columns in the chart shows the time (in seconds) it takes to get to an actual human by using the menu, by just hitting zero, and by using the Call-A-Human application. The final two columns show the percent increase in efficiency that the application provides.
Glad to see we finally have a date, but not making deadlines is pretty detrimental to attracting developers. Fact is I could probably start working on an application today and still get it completed in time for launch. Instead based on RIM’s original guidance I was wasting my time on this stuff way back in December.
Carrier billing has increased from account for just 3.5% of sales in August, to 17.5% of sales in December. This method of buying applications so far is proving to be very popular, and will only continue to increase in popularity as the option becomes available through more wireless carriers.
During this time frame carrier billing was available only to customers of AT&T which has made these BlackBerry users more likely to purchase applications. In December 2010 the upgrade rate from the free version of Pixelated to Pixelated Plus among customers on AT&T’s network were over twice the rate of customers of Verizon, and T-Mobile (USA), and over three times the rate of customers on Sprint network. As such RIM adding more partners for carrier billing is great news for developers.
Pixelated Plus has now been updated to version 2.5 and is available for download through BlackBerry AppWorld.
As previously announced, this new version of Pixelated Plus adds support for the upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook. Additionally improvements were made to navigating the application on trackpad devices, as well as some other minor improvements and bug fixes.
Improved trackpad navigation
For users navigating Pixelated Plus with a trackpad or trackball rather then a touchscreen, version 2.5 adds a number of navigation improvements. First you can now scroll up and down on the trackpad to move the colour selector in the game. While at first this may not seems as intuitive as scrolling left and right, many users feel scrolling up and down is a more natural motion. Additionally after a game is over you can now use keyboard shortcuts to decide between replaying the same game or starting a new game.
BlackBerry PlayBook
In Version 2.5 of Pixelated Plus support has also been added for RIM’s upcoming tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook.
Customers who have already bought Pixelated Plus on their BlackBerry will be able to download the application to their PlayBooks without having to repurchase the game.
About Pixelated
Pixelated is currently the second most popular game in BlackBerry AppWorld, and is an addicting puzzle based strategy game that requires a mixture of skill and luck in order to accomplish.
The object of the game is to change the colour of the squares until the entire screen is a single solid colour. Starting with the square in the upper left corner you can change the colour of the blocks in order to match that of the surrounding squares. This is done repeatedly until the entire screen is a single colour.
The object of the game is to clear the screen in as few moves as possible. Under the default settings you must do so in under 22 moves in order to win.
This weekend Xploding Boxes has been updated to version 1.2 adding 10 new levels to the game, bringing the total number of levels up to 130.
About Xploding Boxes
Xploding Boxes (also known as Exploding Boxes) is a strategy game for BlackBerry where the goal of the game is to start a chain reaction that will explode all of the boxes on the screen. Each level gives you a different number of clicks, and requires a different strategy to solve. The first 25 levels are free, while the rest of the levels can be accessed by making an in-application payment.
