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BlackBerry responds to reports of 0 percent market share with ‘fact check’ portal

Following a CIRP report claiming that BlackBerry’s smartphone market share was now zero (that is, too small to measure), the company has hit back with a ‘fact check’ portal intended to present its side of the story to what it sees as “sensationalized reports.”

To be fair to the company, the CIRP report in question measured consumer share, while BlackBerry’s strength has always been in the enterprise market, where BlackBerry says it still leads.

[In the Enterprise space] BlackBerry has the largest install base, an unparalleled global infrastructure, and the deepest understanding of how to provide secure, productive mobile collaboration and communications in the enterprise space.

Which may well be true for the moment, but the very fact that the company feels it has to work so hard to present its case is testament itself to its precarious prospects.

BlackBerry announced earlier this month that apps on the Amazon Appstore will be available to BlackBerry 10 owners from the fall.

Amazon’s Android Appstore is headed to BlackBerry 10.3 this Fall

BlackBerry continues its push to make the platform’s app ecosystem on par with Android and iOS, and a new move announced today will probably be the company’s biggest stride yet. As of the BlackBerry 10.3 update landing this Fall, the apps within the Amazon Appstore will be available to BlackBerry 10 device owners.


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BlackBerry announces upcoming BBM for Android update with easier signup and friending

BlackBerry has announced an upcoming release of its BBM client for Android devices that includes an easier signup flow and an improved process for adding new contacts.

The new simplified registration process will request only a name, password, and email address, as opposed to the current app which requires much more information. The update will also improve the process for adding new contacts. Currently users who get an invite need send their own PIN back to the other party so they can be mutual contacts. In the new version that step will be automated. Tapping the invitation link in the email will complete the entire process.

The update also adds new emoticons to the app’s existing selection. BlackBerry Messenger 2.2 will be available on the Google Play Store later tonight.

T-Mobile courting BlackBerry castaways with an upgrade to a new Samsung device and a $200 gift card

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T-Mobile recently dropped BlackBerry devices from its catalog and in an effort to motivate its customers to do the same, the magenta-hued carry is offering gift cards of up to $200 to subscribers who JUMP from the fallen platform to a new Samsung device. Now if Samsung devices aren’t your bag, T-Mobile is also offering a gift card of up to $100 when you make the switch to from BlackBerry to any other smartphone.


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Samsung sells one out of every four smartphones in the US as ownership increases

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Following the continued growth of smartphones in the US and increasing competition between Samsung and Apple, the two companies saw combined growth between 2012 and 2013 amounting to 68% of the US smartphone market. That’s according to data provided by The NPD Group which reports overall smartphone growth increased from 52% to 60% in Q4 of 2012 and 2013, respectively. NPD reports Samsung rose from 22% to 26% in Q4 2012 to 2013 among US smartphone users.
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BBM beta for Android updated with voice chat and Channels

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FwJ9QlXwVSU

After teasing the app for what seemed like years, BlackBerry finally released its BBM client to Android last October, to a somewhat surprising number of downloads. Today, the company has released a private beta of the app that includes the promised Channels feature, as well as voice chat support (via Engadget).

Channels is BlackBerry’s stab at a social network. The company describes it as something similar to Tumblr. Voice chat is exactly what it sounds like. It’s essentially Skype, but baked right in to the BBM app. Users can call each other, for free, over WiFi networks. This is something that Android users have been wanting for a while now in Google’s Hangouts app, so it’s surprising to see BlackBerry beat Google to the punch.

The update is available via the BlackBerry Beta Zone now. There’s no word on public availability, or when/if the update will come to iOS.


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Google sues Apple/Microsoft-backed consortium Rockstar, not the makers of Grand Theft Auto

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Google is making moves this week to protect its Android partners as the Apple, Microsoft-backed “Rockstar” patent group seeks to sue numerous Android partners. Google has asked a San Jose court for a declaratory judgement to rule that Google and thereby the Android ecosystem does not violate seven of Rockstar’s patents.


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LG will preload BBM on select Android phones beginning with LG G Pro Lite

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BlackBerry isn’t letting BBM go down without a fight as it strikes a deal to preinstall the application on select LG smartphones. BlackBerry’s once wildly popular Messenger application will come pre-installed on the LG G Pro Lite in “markets around the world.” The deal will allow a bundling agreement with LG involving “both the standard and virtual preloading” as well maintaining that BBM is available as a free download in Google’s Play Store.


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BlackBerry ditches its CEO as potential buyer falls through

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While Google may have been among a lengthy list of rumored suitors for BlackBerry, it appears its latest attempt to sell the company has failed. In fact, the collapse of the deal with Fairfax has led to the ousting of CEO Thorstein Heins and the raising $1 billion in convertible debt. So, you win some you lose some, eh?

The “new” BlackBerry will be led by John S. Chen who will be appointed Executive Chair of BlackBerry’s Board of Directors and is now responsible for the strategic direction, strategic relationships and organizational goals for BlackBerry. We wish John the very, very best of luck in this difficult climate.

“Today’s announcement represents a significant vote of confidence in BlackBerry and its future by this group of preeminent, long-term investors,” said Barbara Stymiest, Chair of BlackBerry’s Board. “The BlackBerry Board conducted a thorough review of strategic alternatives and pursued the course of action that it concluded is in the best interests of BlackBerry and its constituents, including its shareholders. This financing provides an immediate cash injection on terms favorable to BlackBerry, enhancing our substantial cash position. Some of the most important customers in the world rely on BlackBerry and we are implementing the changes necessary to strengthen the company and ensure we remain a strong and innovative partner for their needs.”

It’s an unfortunate day for the folks in Waterloo and while there was an inkling of hope that Google might scoop up the company formerly known as RIM, it appears they are now back at square one in their attempts to knock Android and iOS off their pedestals.

via BlackBerry

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BlackBerry announces 5 million downloads of BBM for Android and iOS only 8 hours after release

BlackBerry revealed via the official BBM Twitter account that in the first eight hours since launching BBM for Android and iPhone, the app has been downloaded over by over 5 million customers across both platforms.

That number could actually be much higher, as the 5 million applies only to the number of users whose accounts have been activated for use. BlackBerry did not specify how many more users were still waiting to be activated, if any.

[tweet https://twitter.com/BBM/statuses/392474565059686400 align=’center’]

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BlackBerry announces BBM for Android arriving on September 21

BBM-for-all

After first announcing that its popular BBM messaging service would be arriving on iOS and Android sometime during the summer, BlackBerry finally confirmed in a blog post today that the app would be released on Sept. 21 for Android followed by a release on iOS on Sept. 22.

BBM will be available as a free download for Android smartphones running Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean (Android 4.x) beginning at 7AM EDT on September 21. BBM for iPhones running iOS 6 and iOS 7 will become available for each market on the App Store schedule of 12:01 AM local time on September 22. For more information, or to download BBM for Android or iPhone, visit www.BBM.com.

BBM for iPhone and Android will initially include chat, photo and voice note sharing, multi-person chats with up to 30 people, and the ability to post status updates and personal messages. However, BlackBerry says the apps will get BBM Channels in a future updates:

BBM will continue to evolve quickly. Later this year, BBM Channels will provide a forum for active, real conversations between you and the people, brands, celebrities, artists, service providers, communities and more, that matter to you. By creating a Channel, individuals and brands can engage their friends and communities in conversations sparked by their thoughts, ideas and passions. Subscribing to a Channel will let you join conversations with people who share your interests. In addition, BBM Video calling and BBM Voice calling are planned for availability for Android and iPhone in a future version.

Smart finally beats dumb, smartphones hitting 51.8 percent of global sales in Q2

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Image: gawkerassets.com

In the circles most of us hang out, it might seem incredible that featurephones – aka dumb phones – were still outselling smartphones until recently, but that was indeed the case right up to the first quarter of this year. The latest Gartner figures show that smartphones finally broke ahead in Q2, achieving 51.8 percent of worldwide phone sales.

Smartphones accounted for 51.8 percent of mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2013, resulting in smartphone sales surpassing feature phone sales for the first time,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner. Asia/Pacific, Latin America and Eastern Europe exhibited the highest smartphone growth rates of 74.1 percent, 55.7 percent and 31.6 percent respectively, as smartphone sales grew in all regions …

There was good news for both Samsung and Google in the figures … 
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Blackberry bows to the inevitable, seeking ‘strategic alternatives’ (buyout)

Photo: itpro.co.uk

Trading in Blackberry shares was briefly suspended in the lead-up to the company’s announcement that it is exploring ‘strategic alternatives’.

The Company’s Board of Directors has formed a Special Committee to explore strategic alternatives to enhance value and increase scale in order to accelerate BlackBerry 10 deployment. These alternatives could include, among others, possible joint ventures, strategic partnerships or alliances, a sale of the Company or other possible transactions.

The company, which once dominated the enterprise market, was extremely late moving into touchscreen phones and found itself increasingly isolated by both Bring Your Own Device policies and aggressive pitching to the corporate market by both Apple and Samsung.

This tweet by Techmeme editor Mahendra Palsule perhaps says it best:

In an interesting development,  the press release notes Prem Watsa CEO Fairfax Financial has resigned from the board:

With the announcement of the Special Committee, Prem Watsa, Chairman and CEO of Fairfax Financial informed the Company that he felt it was appropriate to resign due to potential conflicts that may arise during the process. Fairfax Financial is the largest BlackBerry shareholder. Mr. Watsa said, “I continue to be a strong supporter of the Company, the Board and Management as they move forward during this process, and Fairfax Financial has no current intention of selling its shares.”

Perhaps this indicates that the Blackberry’s largest shareholder is at least considering a buyout.

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BlackBerry rolling out BBM for iOS and Android beta invites

BBM-AndroidEmail-vzm

report from BlackBerryOS.com notes that invites to BlackBerry’s upcoming BBM service for iOS and Android have now started rolling out to users on the company’s Beta Zone website. Back in May, BlackBerry announced that its popular messaging platform would finally become cross-platform and arrive on both iOS and Android devices “later this summer,” and that deadline to launch is of course quickly approaching. Not all Beta Zone members have received the invite email above, but it looks like BlackBerry is getting closer to finally launching the new apps.

We haven’t seen much of the iOS app, but BlackBerryOS also got its hands on the screenshots below of the latest Android beta:

Eric Schmidt finally gives up his Blackberry for a Motorola X

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When Dennis Woodside introduced the Moto X Phone back at the AllThingsD conference, he teased that he was carrying the device as his primary phone, but  he couldn’t show it to us. It turns out that Google chairman Eric Schmidt is also using the phone, but while at the Allen & Co. business conference, he didn’t make any attempt to hide it from the press, as Italian site Corriera.it has posted a gallery of photos of him using it (via The Verge).

Schmidt was pictured using the white model of the phone, though much like the white Nexus 4, the front remains all black. The phone appears to have a design that is thicker in the middle than around the edges, which means you won’t be able to set it on a flat surface and use it very easily. It looks like Schmidt has finally broken his habit of using a Blackberry, which he admitted was a pretty hard habit to break earlier this year.

Another leaked image of the device in black also recently appeared on Chinese site Weibo, though we can’t really tell much from it that we didn’t already know.

The X Phone is expected to be a device heavily customized by the user, so if you aren’t a fan of the white design, don’t get to worried. The release date is still up in the air, though a leaked document pointed at an August 23rd date for Verizon.

View all of the images below…


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BlackBerry launches ‘Secure Work Space’ feature for iOS & Android enterprise users

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=c0UEQXUNBto

BlackBerry already started providing enterprise management tools for iOS and Android devices through its BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 suite, but today it launched a new ‘Secure Work Space’ feature that will bring even better multi-platform device management and security to companies allowing iOS and Android devices in the workplace. The idea is to separate work apps and the user’s personal data:

Secure Work Space is a new containerization, application-wrapping and secure connectivity option that delivers a higher level of control and security to iOS and Android devices, all managed through the single BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 administration console… On a personal iOS or Android device, users with Secure Work Space get integrated email (with attachment viewing), calendar and contacts for productivity, as well as secure browser access to intranets and document editing capabilities with BlackBerry’s Documents To Go™. With corporate data separated and controlled within the Secure Work Space container, these standard apps can be deployed with confidence to any user, together with other apps chosen by the company.

BlackBerry noted that it is working with partner Box for the cloud aspect of the new service, while users interested in taking advantage will have to purchase a $99 per year, per device license to access the new Secure Work Space feature through Blackberry Enterprise Service 10. The big benefit, according to BlackBerry, is that users “no longer need to configure and manage expensive VPN infrastructures to provide mobile device access to data and apps that reside behind their corporate firewalls.”

A free trial is available here.

BlackBerry announces BBM coming to iOS and Android later this summer

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Although BlackBerry has been rumored to bring its BBM messaging platform to iOS and other devices before, today the company has made things official announcing at its event that support for both iOS and Android will be arriving in the coming months. The service, which BlackBerry says currently has about  60 million monthly active users, will come to devices running iOS 6 and Android 4.0 or above when it’s launched as a free app sometime this summer in the App Store and Google Play.

The company said that it would be bringing messaging and groups functionality to new platforms first but also has plans to introduce voice features, screen sharing, and its just announced “social engagement platform” dubbed ‘Channels’ in future releases. BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins said the company is “committed to making the BBM experience on other platforms as fully featured” as possible:
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FTC recommends Google, Apple, BlackBerry, Microsoft, & app devs improve mobile privacy disclosures

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The Federal Trade Commission released a report today that recommends how owners of mobile platforms can better inform consumers about how their data is being handled. The FTC named a number of companies in its report, including: Amazon, Apple, BlackBerry, Google, and Microsoft, as well as “application (app) developers, advertising networks and analytics companies, and app developer trade associations.”

The recommendations follow the FTC updating its online child privacy law to require parental consent before collecting data from children under the age of 13. It also came as Path agreed to pay an $800,000 settlement to the FTC over last year’s privacy controversy.

In the report, titled “Mobile Privacy Disclosures, Building Trust Through Transparency,” the FTC issued a number of recommendations. The FTC recommended that all platform owners “Provide just-in-time disclosures to consumers and obtain their affirmative express consent before allowing apps to access sensitive content like geolocation.” It recommended app developers take the same measures in addition to having “a privacy policy and make sure it is easily accessible through the app stores.” The report also suggested that companies implement a ” a one-stop “dashboard” into their operating systems so consumers can easily view how their data is being handled by specific apps.

Other recommendations the FTC asked Apple and others to implement include new icons that “depict the transmission of user data” and a “Do Not Track” option for users to easily opt out of their data being sent to third parties.

“FTC staff strongly encourages companies in the mobile ecosystem to work expeditiously to implement the recommendations in this report.  Doing so likely will result in enhancing the consumer trust that is so vital to companies operating in the mobile environment.  Moving forward, as the mobile landscape evolves, the FTC will continue to closely monitor developments in this space and consider additional ways it can help businesses effectively provide privacy information to consumers,” the report states.

A full list of the recommendations made by the FTC for mobile platform owners, advertising agencies, and app developers is below:

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DOD lays groundwork to install over 160k Android and iOS devices, capacity could hit 8 million

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In December, we heard reports that the Pentagon had officially certified an Android device and Android 2.2 for use on Defense Department networks. According to a report from The Washington Postciting a recent document posted by the Defense Department, the Pentagon is hiring contractors to securely manage a combination of at least 162,500 iOS and Android devices. The document also noted the project could expand up to 8 million mobile devices:

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Weird Al probably has to be more concerned than Google…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlsahuZ_4oM

RIM Speedwagon says:

We are going to keep loving developers at Research In Motion, all the way to BlackBerry 10 and beyond. Watch our leadership team for developer relations bring back the band: Alec Saunders, VP Developer Relations & Ecosystem, Chris Smith, VP Application Platform & Tools, and Martyn Mallick, VP Global Alliances & Business. Thank you to those devs who are working hard, and for those jumping on board every day.

via

[tweet https://twitter.com/rossspeed/status/250632398352556035]
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BlackBerry 10’s best feature is actually a third-party camera app, integrated?

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=x5KKQx04yD0&start=510]

Update: Scalado won’t confirm publicly what partners use its technology, but we’ve managed to confirm with a source close to the situation that RIM is using Scalado’s Rewind technology in BlackBerry 10.

If you happened to catch the highlights from RIM’s unveiling of BlackBerry 10 this morning, you probably noticed that slick new camera app with the ability to “rewind” time and capture the perfect expression of each person in the image. If you thought it looked familiar, it was probably because it looks almost identical to the Rewind technology from Swedish mobile imaging company Scalado.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5EcUjwLr9k]

The company has been showing off its tech on Android and other platforms from partners such as Qualcomm and Intel for over a year. A video of Scalado’s Rewind tech is above, and BlackBerry 10’s is in the video above at the 8:30 mark or below at 1:15. Scalado appears to have already partnered with at least HTC for some of its other tech and works specifically with OEMs and developers to implement its apps.

It looks like RIM may have partnered with Scalado to implement its tech, which would mean BB 10’s coolest new feature is likely headed to Android and other platforms soon. We reached out to Scalado and will update if we hear back.


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Google tosses 9 products in ‘focus is crucial’ spring cleaning

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Spring is finally here, and Google announced it wants to clean house again with the seasonal change by killing a slue of products.

“Focus is crucial if we are to improve our execution. We have so many opportunities in front of us that without hard choices we risk doing too much and not having the impact we strive for,” explained Cloud Services Director Matthias Schwab on the Official Google Blog. 

Here is a list of products being nixed:


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