Twinkle has been updated in BlackBerry World to version 5.1 for BlackBerry 10 phones and version 4.2 for BBOS phones. These new version now allow you to use pink as a background color for events, and also adds calendar integration and landscape orientation support for BlackBerry 10 phones. You can now export individual events to the device’s calendar, and you can also bulk import existing calendar events.
About Twinkle
Twinkle is an app that 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 a large number of different events.
New in this version of Twinkle
Support has been added to allow this app to work in either portrait or landscape orientation on the BlackBerry Z10. Also pink has been added as a new background color option for a events. Also new in this update is to touch and hold an event to get the option to send an event to the native calendar app. The option page, now also links to an ‘Import from Calendar’ page where you can choose to import all future or past events that you already have stored in the calendar app.
Given the popularity of the free game Pixelated I have a healthy data set in order to publish statistics on the BlackBerry ecosystem which I have been lead to believe are fairly accurate. As such I have decided to use this data in order to predict BlackBerry’s sales for Q1 2014 (which ended June 1st and will be reported in the morning on June 28th).
Working on the assumption that there is a correlation between downloads of Pixelated and sales of BlackBerry 10, my model predicts that BlackBerry sold 5.09M BB10 phones in Q1.
As a disclaimer I should point out that there is a possibility that I am spectacularly wrong. Just because I have a mathematical formula doesn’t mean that my assumption are correct. Really the only way to test and verify my model is to publicly post the result and see how it does.
Runaway Trains has been updated to version 2.5 in BlackBerry World, and Google Play. This update adds ten new levels and makes some improvements to the app’s active frame on BlackBerry 10 phones. Additionally a few of the early levels have been redesigned to give an easier start to the game.
About Runaway Trains
Runaway Trains is a colorful strategy game for all ages where you must route the trains to the proper station. Each level progresses in difficulty and presents an unique puzzle which you must solve by finding a way to guide the coloured trains causing a collision or running out of track.
This is done by touching the intersections to toggle the open path of the tracks. If at any time the trains crash or end up at the wrong station, you will have lost and have to try again.
Version 2.0 of the Stuff I Need checklist app adds the ability to use multiple lists. The video below shows how to switch lists and change the name of the current list.
The Stuff I Need app gets support for multiple lists in version 2.0 of the app which in now available for download through BlackBerry World. The app also includes other improvements such as the use of more explicit keyboard shortcuts, but the ability to have multiple lists is the biggest change.
About Stuff I Need
Originally conceived as a grocery list app, this minimalistic checklist can be used to keep track of the stuff you need to get, or the stuff that you need to do. Items on the list can be edited (or deleted) by giving them a long press.
Multiple Lists
Lists can be switched by pulling down on the tab at the top of the screen. This will expose a spinner that shows all of your current lists. New lists can be added by using the “+” button on the right side of the tab. Long pressing on the list name, will allow you to rename a list. Any lists with zero items will be automatically deleted once you exit the app. By default you are limited to just two lists, but you can get unlimited lists with a $1.99 in-app purchase.
The Simple Dice app has been update to version 2.2 in BlackBerry World. This version adds direct links to my Twitter and Facebook, as well as dynamically posting the price for the in-app purchase that can be used in order to remove the advertising from the app.
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.
Xploding Boxes has been updated to version 4.5 with an additional 10 levels. This brings the total number of levels in the game up to 390. This update also brings a few other improvements to the app as well. On Android devices (including the Nook) improvements were made to the fonts used in various parts of the app. On Windows the live tile for the game was improved, while the active frame on the Q10 also got an overhaul.
About Xploding Boxes
Xploding Boxes is a strategy game for BlackBerry, Android, Nook, Windows 8, and BlackBerry 10 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 game itself, and the first 25 levels are available for free, while an in-app purchase can be used to access the rest of the levels for just $2.99 while maintaining your progress from the free levels.
Earlier this week I posted carrier distribution breakdowns for the UK, and for Canada over at BerryReview, and Gadget Masters. Both of these charts are based on data collected by BlackBerry World, as the time of download for downloads of Pixelated during April. Next month I will look at the situation in the United States as well.
Last week while in Orlando I had the opportunity to talk with Adam from CrackBerry. We talk about my history of writing BlackBerry apps, some of the new announcements made at the event, and I show off my Starbeams game.
I am presenting session JAM42 today with Brian Scheirer today at 1pm. The topic of our talk is on creating games in Cascades, where we will shows off some of the details (and code!) for a game we have created especially for this event, as well as talk about our experiences creating games like Pixelated, Visual Connection, and Starbeams.
The source code for the sample app can be found at github. An early version of the slides can be found at on my site.
I have written once or twice before about my expectations for upcoming BlackBerry events. My track record is actually fairly poor, but that isn’t going to stop me from trying again.
So here are my expectations for BlackBerry Live.
Headless apps
Probably coming as part of OS 10.2 (in late August?) this is pretty much confirmed to be a topic this week. For developers this will be by far the most important announcement. Along with the invocation framework this will give BlackBerry the best multi-tasking of any OS.
The PlayBook will be ignored
While BlackBerry has yet to say that they won’t be delivering on the previous promise of offering OS 10 on the PlayBook, don’t expect to hear too much about tablets in the coming week. In fact, I think that it will be possible to watch the entirety of the two hour keynote without realizing that BlackBerry has ever sold a tablet.
Much of the keynote will be about future fluff
For years now BlackBerry has shown off a car that users their technology without giving consumers a way to buy it, or developers a way to offer apps for it. I expect more of the same this year. Lately BlackBerry has been indicating that they will be talking a bit about their plans for 2018. Given that five years ago I didn’t even own a smartphone, this is mostly just irrelevant fluff.
The on-stage partners will be boring
Every keynote, BlackBerry is always quick to bring on some trivial partners who fail to do (or say) anything interesting at all. There is no reason to expect that to change any this year. I have never been interested in what any of these other companies have had to say.
No new phones
While there are the beginnings of rumors of a (curve-like) R10 and a (galaxy note-like) A10, I don’t actually expect to see either of these phones until October or November, and therefore have no reason to expect BlackBerry to acknowledge them next week.
The best session will be Wednesday at 1 PM
The word is that there is going to be a very interesting session on Wednesday about Game Development in Cascades. I will certainly be there, and hope to see you there as well.
The Stuff I Need checklist app has been updated to version 1.2 in BlackBerry World and the Windows Phone store. This new version includes some additional optimizations for the Q10, as well as adding the ability to delete all checked items from the options page.
About the app
Originally conceived as a grocery list app, this minimalistic checklist can be used to keep track of the stuff you need to get, or the stuff that you need to do. Items on the list can be edited (or deleted) by giving them a long press.
A year ago this week, BlackBerry (then still Research in Motion) was presenting at BlackBerry World showing off their plans for the launch of BlackBerry 10. Now that it has been a year later and BlackBerry 10 is actually on store shelves, I thought that it would be interesting to see how the announcements at last year’s BlackBerry 10 have played out.
Time-shift Camera
Not only has the time shift camera been working wonderfully on all BlackBerry 10 phones since the launch of the Dev Alpha B, all of the critics who assume that Apple and others would copied the feature before BlackBerry 10 launched proved to be wrong. A year later this remains one of the highlight features of the new BlackBerry phones.
BlackBerry Balance
This has been a well accepted feature, but due to the fact that BES 10 hasn’t yet been launched, it isn’t actually available to anyone yet. To be fair, BES 10 is widely expected to formally launch next week at BlackBerry Live, but it would have been nicer if this feature had been available on BlackBerry 10 from day one.
App Demos
During the keynote BlackBerry showed off a number of app demos including apps like Pacemaker, Galaxy on Fire, Citrix, Occipital. These apps have all since been released on BlackBerry 10. However, a year later this seems like a very odd list of apps for BlackBerry to have shown off. With the exception of the Pacemaker DJ app, none of the rest of these are exclusive to BlackBerry. Furthermore a quick visit to the websites for Galaxy on Fire and Occipital reveal that they have actually excluded the BlackBerry World store from their list of places to download their apps.
QNX in Cars
For a few years now BlackBerry takes a moment in their keynotes to put forth the possibility of having their QNX platform running apps in cars. Despite re-announcing this idea every few months BlackBerry still appears to be no closer to offering an API or app store for cars, and as such it all seems a bit irrelevant. Expect the pattern to repeat again next week at BlackBerry Live.
Alec Saunders’ First Music Video
Last year at BlackBerry World Alec Saunders preformed a (modified) rendition of Tom Petty’s “The Waiting”. Unlike the next two music video, this one never made it to YouTube and most people still don’t know about it. A year later the joke has been played out, and Saunders’ has announced that the band is done with.
Dev Alpha Program
BlackBerry World was also the start of the widely successful Dev Alpha program that gave developers actual hardware to test their apps on many months prior to the release of BlackBerry 10. This is a big part of the reason why BlackBerry 10 was able to launch with so many apps already available on day one. While (post-launch) the program is now wrapping up, BlackBerry recently offered Developers the DevAlpha C to test out apps prior to the launch of the Q10.
Trade-in program
As an add on to the Dev Alpha program, BlackBerry offered the option to turn in the developer units for actual hardware once BlackBerry 10 launched. Despite being well intentioned, this program has pretty much been a disaster. Developers were first told that instead of being able to get devices right away that they would have to wait 6-8 weeks instead. And now 14 weeks later many developers (including myself) are still waiting for BlackBerry to make good on their offer. The delay has gotten so bad that many developers would have been better off if BlackBerry had never promised anything to begin with.
$10,000 Guarantee
While at first glance this guarantee seemed as if it would benefit developers, once the program actually went into practice it seems unlikely that this offer has actually been made to more than 20 devs. Through a combination of terms and conditions, and tying the offer to the very broken Built for BlackBerry program, the number of developers to actually be helped by this guarantee is extremely minimal. Unfortunately despite the actual conditions, the stigma that BlackBerry has to pay out cash in order to get any developers still endures.
BlackBerry Keyboard
BlackBerry also used their event last year to offer a preview of the new flick typing that is possible on the BlackBerry 10 keyboard. Now that the keyboard has actually been released, it has received very positive reviews and is generally considered to be one of the better virtual keyboards available. At the time however, many noted that the keynote included no mention of a physical keyboard and felt as if a device like the Q10 would never be released. Of course that phone has now been released in almost every country (except for the one it was announced in).
Twinkle has been updated in BlackBerry World to version 5.1 for BlackBerry 10 phones and version 4.2 for BBOS phones. These new version now allow you to use pink as a background color for events, and also adds calendar integration and landscape orientation support for BlackBerry 10 phones. You can now export individual events to the device’s calendar, and you can also bulk import existing calendar events.
