With the recently launched Z30, BlackBerry has produced its second BB10 phone without a physical keyboard. So far the new devices still composes only a modest 4.4% of the overall BB10 market, but it contributes to a monthslong pattern of users choosing a bigger screen over a physical keyboard.
The Z-series devices combine for 72.9% of the overall market, with more than two non-keyboard devices being used for each one that has a full qwerty layout. BlackBerry’s keyboard may still be iconic, but it is no longer an accurate representation of how the majority of BlackBerry users view their phones.
BlackBerry is no longer actively working on their classic BBOS platform, with the newest OS 7 now being over two years old. However, the percentage of users on BBOS continues to drift towards the newer versions of the OS.
As of October 73.0% of users are on OS 6+ and 45.2% of users are on OS 7+. Both of these rates are up roughly two percentage points from September.
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 October 2012 through the end of October 2013, and does not include BlackBerry 10 or PlayBook devices.
I didn’t buy my first BlackBerry until January 2009, but the truth is that I actually started writing mobile apps way back in 2004. Back then my target was not smartphones and tablets, but rather my TI-83+ calculator. The majority of the applications that I wrote were silly little text based adventure games with the occasional ASCII graphics, however there was one program that had a more serious twist to it. In addition to all of the games, I also wrote an app that would do my physics homework for me by solving projectile motion problems. Nine years later I have decided to revisit the topic and release the app for the smartphone owning public.
Granted the new version of the Projectile Physics calculator is much improved over what I was able to hack together years ago. For instance the new version of the app dynamically performs all calculations in real time, while on my TI-83+ it used to take three seconds of computation time to solve for each variable. Also, color touchscreens. However, when looking for an alternative in the current stores I haven’t been able to find anything nearly as complete as what I wrote in 2004.
My presentation from BlackBerry Live 2013 is embedded below.
In addition to myself, this presentation also includes support from Brian Scheirer and Suavek Zajac. The slides for this presentation are available from ebscer.com/BlackBerryLive2013.pptx
My presentation from BlackBerry World in 2012 is embedded below.
At this point, the video is over a year and a half old, so some of the information is a little bit dated, but for the most part the talk discusses the importance of continuing to support and promote your app after launch and so this talk applies as much today as it ever has.
For those who are wondering why Roger’s decision to sell the BlackBerry Z30 last week is such a big deal, simply look at the chart below that shows the distribution of BlackBerry 10 users on the three largest carriers in Canada over the past seven months.
Every month Rogers has almost as many BlackBerry 10 users on their network as Bell and Telus do combined. Even with limited promotion it is entirely possible that Rogers will end up selling more Z30 BlackBerrys than any other wireless carrier.
September continued to see growth in the number of users running OS 10.1 (or higher) on their BlackBerrys. While Stuff I Need users continue to be quicker to adopt new versions than Pixelated users, both saw an increase of about five percentage points over the previous month.
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 September 2013.
BlackBerry’s traditional OS saw another month of slow growth towards newer versions of the operating system. The month of September resulted in 43.2% of users running OS 7, and 71.1% of users on OS 6 or higher.
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 September 2012 through the end of September 2013, and does not include BlackBerry 10 or PlayBook devices.
Starbeams has been expanded to 130 levels in version 1.3 and is available for download in BlackBerry World and the Windows 8 Store.
About Starbeams
The object of the game is to assign colors to each star in order to ensure that none of the stars are connected to another star of the same color. The game starts off easy, but quickly gets more complex, adding more colors and seven pointed stars that can not be changed.
New in Version 1.3
This versions adds levels 121-130 to the game. Additionally the game has been optimized so that the install size is smaller, and the app has a quicker start-up time.
Lately I have been doing some writing for The Gadget Masters, with two new posts going up in the last few weeks.
First I wrote about how BlackBerry can’t be relevant as a niche company that focused on only enterprise or keyboard smartphones. Of course two days after I published that BlackBerry announced that they would be refocusing on the enterprise and “prosumer” space. Never mind the fact that I remain convinced that prosumer should not be a real word…
Yesterday I published an article on why smart watches will never take off. That the very idea of a smart watch is going against the momentum of phones being the ultimate convergence device…
The Jack-O-Lantern app has been updated to version 2.0 in BlackBerry World in order to add support for all BlackBerry 10 phones. This app also continues to support older BlackBerry phones that have a touchscreen.
About the Jack-O-Lantern App
This application is designed to turn your BlackBerry into a virtual Jack-O-Lantern in order to help you celebrate the Halloween season on your phone. You can change the Jack-O-Lantern’s face by swiping in different designs from the left and right for the eyes, nose, and mouth. You can also change the back light colour of the design by tapping on the screen.
The Hockey Scores app has been updated for a new season. This app supports all BlackBerry phones running OS 5.0 or higher, including all BlackBerry 10 phones.
About Hockey Scores
This application provides the day’s hockey scores is an intuitive and easy to use format. It also includes additional game statistics such as start times, goal scorers, shots on net, hits, faceoff percentage, team Corsi numbers, and lists out the goal scorers.
The Simple Dice app has been updated to version 2.3 in BlackBerry World. This update greatly reduces the app’s overall instal size, and also includes some improvements in recovering in-app purchases.
About Simple Dice
This free app is exactly what it sounds like, just a virtual die that you can roll to get a random number between one and six. The app can also be downloaded from BlackBerry World for both BlackBerry 10 and older touchscreen BlackBerry phones.
When using a script (or the command line) in order to deploy apps to a device you can use the phone’s device name (which seconds as a network name) in place of the ip address. For example instead of
This shortcut is particularly helpful to use when writting scripts, so you do not have to update the file every time that the phone is assigned a new ip address.
In addition to the standard triangle grid, you can also play the game with hexagons, or a micro sized grid of triangles or hexagons after paying for a one time in-app upgrade of $2.99 USD. This single upgrade also unlocks the the full range of option in the game such as the ability to adjust the difficulty level or to change the color scheme of the game. Purchasing the upgrade also allows you to display a full range of statistics (such as win percentages), and to see the number of remaining moves that you have on the top of the main game screen.
How to Play
Starting with the shape in the upper left corner you can change the colour of this pixels in order to match that of the surrounding shapes. The color of the upper left shape is set by using the controls on the bottom of the screen. This is done repeatedly allowing the block to grow, until eventually the entire screen is a single colour. The object of the game is to get to this state in as few moves as possible. Under the default settings you must clear the screen in under 29 moves in order to win. If you wish to play until you clear the board you can adjust the ‘end game condition’ dropdown on the options page.
If you have any feedback feel free to contact me at eric@ebscer.com
