Yesterday RIM released simulators for a number of new BlackBerry devices such as the Torch 9810, Curve 9360, and the 9850. When first launching the 9810 simulator you get the screen seen to the right that asks about selecting CDMA or GSM compatibility. This is an option that is traditionally only seen on CDMA devices designed for Verizon or Sprint’s networks. In fact none of the current BlackBerry’s have any CDMA support unless they were specifically aimed at one of these two networks. This would seem to imply that the Torch 2 will be available on more networks in the United States, and not be limited to AT&T.
Now, none of the other leaks in regards to this device imply that it will be available through Sprint or Verizon, so there is a chance that this is just a fluke in the simulator and will not come to anything. On the other hand, now that RIM is using Qualcomm chips in all of their high end phones there is no technical reason why this single phone couldn’t support all of these networks. So here is to hoping that RIM’s best form factor is available to everyone.
Recently RIM has suggested that icons for BlackBerry 7 devices such as the 9900 should be 92×92 pixels. A quick look at this in the simulator, however reveals that this is way to big, and a 92×92 pixel icons looks absurdly large. While using the whole 92 pixels may be appropriate if you are filling the edges with transparencys and drop shadows, a more realistic size for a normal icon is 76×76 pixels. At 76 pixels you can still get a high quality icon, but also one that doesn’t dwarf all of those around it.
The Wall Street Journal reported that analysts expect that RIM has shipped about 436,000 PlayBooks. CrackBerry is estimating sales under 200,000 units. I think the Wall Street Journal is much closer.
As of yesterday I am estimating that RIM has sold between 258,000 and 800,000 PlayBooks. My best guess is that they have sold 429,000 tablets, which is very close the the analyst guess.
This estimate is based on a lot of assumptions, and guess work but is based on the number of downloads of the free game Pixelated. However, as Pixelated has remained one of the top 10 most popular applications on the PlayBook, I feel that I have better numbers then most people to base this guess on.
Use of BlackBerry OS 6.0 is up slightly from last month to 25.9% of all users. The growth of users at OS 5.0 or higher saw slightly larger gains, and is now up to 85.8% of all BlackBerry users.
There were also some users of OS 7 in the logs, although those were left out of this chart. Besides the 9900/9930 there are also indications of devices in the Torch and Curve families running OS 7 (which is in line with leaks that have come out).
As usual this data is taken from downloads of the popular BlackBerry strategy game Pixelated. Data starts from the release of version 2.0 in April of 2010, and goes through the end of last month.
Xploding Boxes has now been updated to version 1.5 in BlackBerry AppWorld. This version adds 20 new levels to the game, bringing the total number of levels up to 180. The game also now supports the recently announced BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 as well.
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 touches, and requires a different strategy to solve. The first 25 levels are free, while the full 180 levels can be accessed by making an in-application payment and requiring no further downloads.
With OS 1.0.5 being released earlier this week for the BlackBerry PlayBook, one of the new features is “in-app payment support”. But there is a catch. Developers only have version 1.0.2 of the SDK in order to compile their code against. Without any sort of upgrade developers can not actually make use of this option, and therefore consumers will continue to not have a chance to use in-app payments either. RIM needs to keep the updates to the PlayBook coming early and often, and that means both to users and developers.
In-App payments are awesome. They have helped make Xploding Boxes a success, and will give developers more opportunities on the PlayBook. RIM just needs to complete all of the pieces to make this viable.
Now in BlackBerry AppWorld you can download the Binary Clock app for free. This app displays the time as a binary coded decimal, with the hours, minutes, and seconds of the day displayed in the colour of your choice.
How to read
A binary coded decimal can be read with each column added up with each light worth (from top to bottom) 8, 4, 2, and 1, and the column on the left being worth 40, 20, and 10. For example the time in the above image would be 16 hours, 9 minutes, and 25 seconds.
Supported Devices
This app requires a minimum OS of 4.6 and supports the 8330, 8350i, 8520, 8530, 8900, 8910, 8980, 9300, 9330, 9500, 9520, 9530, 9550, 9630, 9650, 9700, 9780, and 9800.
Since last looked at, Carrier Billing has continued to grow. As of April 2011, it accounted for 25.1% of all sales in AppWorld. For more details please see the full article at berryreview.com
This data is generated from the dollar amount of purchases of all Ebscer applications over the given month.
On this date, back in 2009 the first three copies of Pixelated Plus were sold. Not only did this kick off what is still my most successful game, but also was the first step towards allowing me to take on developing BlackBerry applications as a full time job.
The first version of Pixelated Plus only supported the BlackBerry Storm, and quite honestly wasn’t all that polished. The fact that very few people saw this application until version 2.0 was released 10 months later was probably a good thing. Still this was one of the earliest games in BlackBerry AppWorld, and is the foundation for all of the success that Ebscer has today.
Pixelated is now up to version 2.6 and supports 23 different devices including the BlackBerry PlayBook. Support for more features and more devices (9300/9330) continue to be planned.
So here is a thanks to the millions of people who have made Pixelated a success, and who continue enjoying this addictive pleasure of coloured squares.
Earlier this month RIM announced the BlackBerry Bold 9900, and 9930 but have still not released a launch date for them, and there are rumors that they may not be released until August. This is far too long a wait, and will put RIM in trouble if they take this long in order to come out.
RIM has not released anything at all since the 9780 over 6 months ago, and have not released anything of note since the Torch 9800 last August (already 9 months ago). Taking into consideration that the 9780 is hardly different then the 9700 (still lacking 802.11n even though other devices had it early in the year), that the 9670 was an odd device released on a single carrier, and never really had a chance, and that the 9300/9330 Curves were only a modest refresh to RIM’s budget brand, there has not been much new to look at in quite a while. As such it has been three-fourths of a year since any interesting BlackBerrys have been released, and RIM really needs to get going in order to catch up to the plethora of Android devices released in that time.
The situation on Verizon (still RIM’s largest carrier) is even worse. Half a year ago, I wrote that RIM needed to release a new touch screen device on Verizon, and that is even more true today. The last significant release of a BlackBerry on Verizon was the Bold 9650 which was more then a year ago (and even then at the time was considered to be a bit delayed). In terms of touchscreen devices the situation is even worse, as nothing has been released since the 9550 way back in October of 2009 (19 months ago).
RIM has some great devices lined up in the 9900/9930, 9810, and 9860, but that doesn’t matter unless they are actually offering them for sale. RIM needs to start shipping these devices sooner rather then later.
Rates of older OS 5.0 devices upgrading to OS 6.0 has finally increased beyond being just a few percent. So far the CDMA devices are leading the way with both the 9330, and 9650 seeing more then half of their users on the newer operating system.
Device
% at OS 6
91xx
5.4%
9300
11.3%
9330
69.7%
9650
61.2%
9700
15.9%
These numbers are much improved from January, but are still lower then they should be. Furthermore the overall situation is actually a bit worse because of the above devices the 9300, and the 9700 are the most popular.
According to BGR (found via BlackBerryCool), RBC is estimating that RIM has sold 250,000+ BlackBerry PlayBooks in what has now been about a month of availability. This is in line with my estimate last week at the same number.
I don’t know exactly as of what date the RBC estimate is based off of, but as of yesterday I am now estimating that RIM has sold between 238,000 and 570,000 PlayBooks. Based off of the data I have, my best guess is that have sold 272,500 tablets in the first month.
This estimate is based on a lot of assumptions, and guess work as I do not have the actual number of tablets sold. However, as Pixelated has been one of the most popular applications on the PlayBook, I do have better numbers then most people, so I figured that I would share.
In many ways this is a response to that article, but that doesn’t mean that one approach is always better. As Marco said “Every app is a special case”. And what makes sense for Instapaper does not make sense for Pixelated.
Why Pixelated is different
While Instapaper saw very few users first download the free app and then upgrade there is no reason to think that anyone purchases Pixelated Plus without first trying the free version of Pixelated. The free version has consistently gotten higher on the overall charts including recently reaching number one overall spot for the PlayBook. This visibility has always been key for Pixelated and is the foundation for the success of this game.
Also having the free version of the app available results in no direct costs for me. Unlike Instapaper there is no backend component to Pixelated so using the free version of does not result in any server costs. Additionally it shares enough of a code base with Pixelated Plus that development costs are negligible.
Where Pixelated is not different
There are some downsides to having a free version of the app. For many people the free version of the game is “good enough”. Pixelated (by design) is not limited in game play so if you are the type of user that does not need to know your stats, the number of moves left, or a variable difficulty, there is not all that much reason to upgrade to Pixelated Plus.
Also as Marco also saw the reviews for the free version are slightly lower then the reviews for the paid version of the game. A good number of these reviews are simply asking for features that are in the $2.99 Pixelated Plus. The amount of money that the free version of the game brings in through advertising is relatively small.
Overall Consensus
While the free version of Pixelated brings in only a little revenue through ad views, its true purpose is to generate awareness and sales for Pixelated Plus. In that it is doing a great job to the point where the application is better off with the free version sticking around. Historically sales of Pixelated Plus have seen little change in sales when the paid version is updated, but will see a spike in sales following an update to the free version of the app.
While Pixelated is probably well known enough at this point to not as desperately need a free version, but given the fact that this game continues to sell so well almost two years after it was first released is really not a reason to knock out the parts that of the equation that made this app a success in the first place.
BlackBerry strategy game Xploding Boxes has been updated to version 1.4 in BlackBerry AppWorld this weekend. The new version fixes some bugs and adds 10 new levels to the game.
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 full 160 levels can be accessed by making an in-application payment.
Yesterday RIM released simulators for a number of new BlackBerry devices such as the Torch 9810, Curve 9360, and the 9850. When first launching the 9810 simulator you get the screen seen to the right that asks about selecting CDMA or GSM compatibility. This is an option that is traditionally only seen on CDMA devices designed for Verizon or Sprint’s networks. In fact none of the current BlackBerry’s have any CDMA support unless they were specifically aimed at one of these two networks. This would seem to imply that the Torch 2 will be available on more networks in the United States, and not be limited to AT&T.
