Starting with the release of version 1.2 of BlackBerry Blend it is now possible to disable the frequent connection notices that would previously appear in the Hub.
To do this you need to update Blend on both your phone and on your desktop, than on the phone you need to unselect the “Connection Notification” option.
This simple change removes the main annoyance that had previously plagued Blend.
June saw the use of 10.3.x continue to increase. 75.1% of Pixelated users, and 78.1% of Stuff I Need users were running OS 10.3.0 or higher.
There continues to be a very small number of users on 10.3.0 with most users on 10.3.1 and a few users on 10.3.2 instead.
With Verizon finally rolling out a version of 10.3 to their users in early June, these numbers should be up significantly next month. 10.3.2 currently has very few users and with very few new features it is unclear how many carriers will be pushing out this update to their users.
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 June 2014 through the end of June 2015.
The Weather Beautiful app has been updated to version 2.1 for both Android and BlackBerry users.
This 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.
New in version 2.1 is the ability to swipe right in order to advance to the next background image, or to swipe left return to previous background image. Also the overall file size of the app has been greatly reduced, with the BlackBerry version 70% smaller and the Android version 61% smaller. Additionally on BlackBerry 10 the app now shows a custom splash screen while loading.
Twinkle has been updated to version 6.0, adding new features, new colors, and Android support.
This app 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.
The biggest new feature is the added support for Android phones. Designed to conform with Google’s material design guidelines, the fully native android app has been completely rethought for the platform.
BlackBerry 10 users will get two new background colors (Brown and Teal), in addition to fixing a bug that previously prevented changes to the filters to last between app restarts. Also, the details line is now hidden when the event doesn’t have any details.
Users of traditional BBOS phones have not been left out either, as that version of Twinkle has been updated to version 4.3 to give access to the two new colors.
A look at BlackBerry 10 users in 2015, is far more international than in years past. Canada is still has the largest user base, but India and Nigeria have also now moved themselves into the top five.
In January 2014 this breakdown looked far different. At that time Canada, the United States, and the UK had combined for 53.8% of the market, but in early 2015 they only consist of 27.4% of the market. Most of the difference comes from a larger share of the market going to countries in Asia and Africa.
India has grown from 2.8% to 11.5%, Nigeria has gone from 1.1% to 5.2%, Russia has gone from 1.0% to 2.0%, and China has increased from 1.6% to 2.8%. Meanwhile Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany have seen their marketshare drop. The numbers in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia have stayed rather consistent. The end result of this, is that the BlackBerry 10 user base is more geographically diverse than ever.
These numbers are generated from downloads of the Stuff I Need checklist app from January 1st to June 9th of 2015. The data was collected by BlackBerry World when the app is downloaded.
As BlackBerry announces the upcoming release of OS 10.3.2 the previous versions of the OS continue to slowly get adopted by the market. Pixelated showed 67.7% of users on OS 10.3 last month, while the Stuff I Need app had 73.3% of downloads going to 10.3.x devices.
Adoption of 10.3 is steadily going upwards, but remains at a slower rate than either 10.1 or 10.2 where in years past.
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 May 2014 through the end of May 2015.
The 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.
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.
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.
Xploding 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.
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.
Weather 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.
The 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.
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.
The 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
