Blackberry Developer Conference: It's All about the Apps

Written by Sarah Perez / November 10, 2009 7:16 AM / 0 Comments

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At yesterday's Blackberry Developer Conference, several companies announced major updates to their applications and services designed for Blackberry smartphones. From Blackberry maker Research in Motion (RIM) came new geolocation, advertising and push services in addition to other developer tools. Meanwhile, companies like Loopt, eBay, Xobni, and others took the opportunity to show off their latest Blackberry applications as well.

RIM Woos Developers

With all the news from the event, one thing was clear: RIM desperately wants developers to build for Blackberry and is now actively enticing them with a slew of new offerings designed to win them over.

One of the biggest announcements made yesterday involved the launch of new APIs (application programming interfaces) for third-party developers. The APIs offered include a new advertising service, a payments service, location services, and the general availability of Blackberry's own Push service, which had never before been made available to outside developers. What this means is that developers now have the tools to build applications that rival those already available on many other smartphones today, most notably, the iPhone. In some cases, the Blackberry APIs even offer something the iPhone doesn't such as is the case with the payments service which allows you to pay for apps on your next mobile phone bill.

The location services include a geo-location API that will use cell tower triangulation as a backup for when GPS fails, making location-based applications more reliable. There are also services for determining your phone's location on a map and another that helps estimate travel time for driving directions. It's obvious to see how these types of services could help build new and useful mobile applications for the Blackberry.

Also revealed was the new Blackberry Advertising Service, an offering designed to help developers generate revenue from their mobile applications. Through partnerships with ad networks, developers can easily integrate mobile advertising within their apps and track the ad's effectiveness with an included analytics package. It's even possible for these ads to access the phone's core features. For example, you'll be able to initiate a phone call from an ad or add a calendar entry from an ad. That's an innovation that many other mobile handhelds are not yet offering. These types of interactions should have a clear appeal to the many business-minded corporate Blackberry users who are often more interested in getting things done than they are with playing mindless games.

That being said, the game-playing crowd isn't being ignored either. Also announced was support for OpenGL ES, a graphics API for 3D games. While this doesn't quite put the Blackberry on par with what's available for iPhone, it's a move that's designed to keep Blackberry at least somewhat competitive in the field of mobile gaming.

Other announcements included new support for mobile developers looking to build applications with the languages and tools they already know and use. Java developers will get a new GUI builder that lets them create mobile interfaces using a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) editor with drag-and-drop capabilities. Adobe developers will be able to use the company's Flash Platform technology and Adobe Creative Suite tools to build rich, mobile apps as well. This is another area where Apple falls short - Flash still doesn't work on the iPhone. Instead Flash developers have to use special Adobe software to convert apps written in Flash to a format that's iPhone-compatible. Also, designers can now use Adobe Photoshop and Dreamweaver to build both themes and widgets using the new Blackberry Theme Studio 5.0.

Apps, Apps, Apps!

In addition to the RIM-specific announcements, a number of companies also used the Developer Conference as the launching pad for new Blackberry applications and related announcements.

Ebay, for example, unveiled a brand-new mobile app that lets you search for items, view descriptions and photos, bid, watch items, and more. It will also tap into Blackberry's now open Push services API to deliver real-time alerts as to when you're outbid on an auction. Considering that the company has already generated $400 million this year using eBay's iPhone application, this new Blackberry app should be a big hit among mobile users when it launches next month.

The popular location-based social networking service called Loopt also revealed a major update for Blackberry which includes something the iPhone can't offer due to the nature of the device: it runs in the background to continually update your location in real-time. This is one of the iPhone's biggest flaws according to critics, since so many mobile applications take advantage of always-on connectivity to track your location for the benefit of specific mobile apps. In Loopt's case, the app knows where you are in order to show you nearby friends and local businesses which you can rate. It even offers mobile coupons for the retailers and restaurants in your vicinity.

Finally, Xobni, the Outlook email search plugin that discovers social connections in your inbox, revealed their new Blackberry application, too. As with the desktop software, Xobni for Blackberry will let you find contacts in your address book quickly using Xobni Rank technology which returns results ranked based on frequency and freshness of your communication. The application will be made available sometime early next year.

The Blackberry Developer Conference continues until Thursday, so stay tuned for even more news over the coming days.

Uitgevers hanteren ander prijsbeleid per app-winkel

10 november 2009 16:00 - Door Jannemiek Starkenburg   Ontwikkelaars die mobiele applicaties uitgeven, hanteren in de verschillende downloadwinkels aparte prijzen. BlackBerry-gebruikers zijn over het gemiddeld genomen duurder uit dan iPhone-bellers. Dezelfde applicaties krijgen in de BlackBerry App World een hoger prijskaartje dan in Apple's App Store. De prijzen voor de applicaties in Google's Android Market zijn minder duur dan de tegenhanger bij de BlackBerry, maar duurder dan dezelfde applicatie in de App Store. Dat blijkt uit een maandelijks onderzoeksrapport van Distimo over de mobiele downlaodmarkt. De mobiele softwareprogrammaatjes in BlackBerry's downloadwinkel moeten minimaal 2,99 dollar kosten. Toch is de hogere prijs niet alleen aan deze voorwaarde te danken. Gekeken naar verschillende voorbeelden blijkt dat dezelfde applicaties in verschillende downloadwinkels vaak andere prijzen meekrijgen. Het grootste verschil is te zien bij IM+ voor Skype van SHAPE Services. In de App Store kost deze applicatie 4,99 dollar, in de App World 29,99 dollar. De gemiddelde prijs van de 100 hoogst genoteerde applicaties per dag kwam de afgelopen maand uit op 5,33 voor de BlackBerry en 2,50 dollar voor de iPhone.  Voor Google Android was dit 3,26 dollar. De prijzen van alle applicaties in de winkel van BlackBerry zijn sinds half oktober met 9,6 procent gestegen van gemiddeld 5,11 naar 5,60 dollar. Prijzen in de downloadwinkels van Apple en Android bleven nagenoeg gelijk.

'Zakelijke markt is klaar voor digitaal lezen'

Uitgegeven:	8 november 2009 10:04
Laatst gewijzigd:	8 november 2009 10:04

AMSTERDAM - De e-reader zal een plaats krijgen in de zakelijke markt, naast boeken en online informatiebronnen. Daarvan is bestuursvoorzitter Nancy McKinstry van informatieconcern Wolters Kluwer overtuigd.

© ANP

De uitgever is er klaar voor.

''Wij willen dat onze klanten documenten op elk moment van de dag kunnen raadplegen en aanpassen via welk medium dan ook.'' Wolters Kluwer levert juridische, medische en financiële informatie.

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Daarbij verwacht de topvrouw dat de teksten deels ook driedimensionaal wordt weergegeven, zowel online als op de digitale leesplank. ''Denk daarbij aan plaatjes, die eruit springen en kunnen worden vergroot'', aldus de topvrouw in een interview met het ANP.

Energie

Wolters Kluwer stopt steeds meer energie in de ontwikkeling van elektronische boeken voor de reader. Technologisch gezien is er niet veel verschil tussen de ontwikkeling van informatie die op een e-reader kan worden gelezen en het leveren van online informatie, een markt waarin Wolters Kluwer steeds groter wordt.

''We hebben producten die op de e-reader gelezen kunnen worden en we staan klaar voor het geval onze klanten om meer vragen.''

Maar zover is het nog lang niet met de e-reader. ''Het is nog een erg kleine markt vanwege de beperkte mogelijkheden'', aldus de topvrouw. Het grootste deel van de teksten van Wolters Kluwer wordt nog op de traditionele wijze gelezen: op papier.

Kinderschoenen

Net als in veel landen staat in Nederland digitaal lezen nog in de kinderschoenen. In de zakelijke markt is dat niet anders. McKinstry heeft van Nederlandse klanten vooralsnog geen verzoeken gekregen om informatie te leveren voor gebruik op de e-reader.

Voor professionals lijkt er op dit moment niet zoveel meerwaarde aan het gebruik van een e-reader te zitten, omdat er nog allerlei nadelen kleven aan het gebruik.

Tot voor kort konden de verschillende versies van de digitale leesplank, zoals de Kindle van Amazon, de Reader van Sony en de Nederlandse Iliad, bijvoorbeeld niet op internet.

Internetgebruik

Zelfs nu is dat probleem nog niet helemaal opgelost. Zo beperkte Amazon het internetgebruik van de allernieuwste versie van de Kindle, in oktober gepresenteerd, buiten de Amerikaanse landsgrenzen omdat het te duur zou zijn.

In november brengt Sony een Reader op de markt die een internetverbinding heeft. Maar die is voorlopig alleen bedoeld voor de Amerikaanse markt.

Bovendien zijn de readers nog niet ver genoeg ontwikkeld om het lezen van de teksten die Wolters Kluwer maakt aantrekkelijk te maken. McKinstry: ''Je kunt nog geen aantekeningen maken in de tekst en niets permanent highlighten.''

Studiehulpmiddelen

Het zijn volgens de topvrouw op dit moment meer studiehulpmiddelen of een manier om snel even een tekst door te nemen. De e-reader zal volgens de topvrouw daarom de meeste invloed hebben in de onderwijssector.

Hoe groot die impact zal zijn, weet McKinstry niet. Wolters Kluwer verkocht in 2007 zijn educatietak.

© ANP

Leaked Courier Video Shows How We'll Actually Use It

Microsoft's Courier booklet was surprising, mostly because it was so far outside of what everybody now expects from a tablet. This internal video shows how Microsoft thinks we'll use Courier.

Since publishing the first leak, several more people have come forward with details on the Courier project.

This video is produced by the same firm that collaborated with Microsoft's Pioneer Studios on the previous clip, and it walks through a slightly different (and more conservative/realistic) iteration of the Courier interface. While the first video showed a handful of use cases, this one actually provides an overview of the interface and Courier's features, and more of how you would actually use it if you are not a designer.

The heart of Courier appears to what's called the "infinite journal," which is what it sounds like: A journal/scrapbook that is endless, bound only by storage constraints (presumably). Hopefully they will call it something less awkward. The journal can actually be published online, and it's shown here as able to be downloaded in three formats: a Courier file, Powerpoint or PDF. There's also a library that looks a lot like Delicious Library, where things like subscriptions, notebooks and apps, are stored.

This interface does share a few things in common with the other one: In particular, the hinge between the screens is still used as a pocket to "tuck" items you want to move from one page to another. It also still revolves almost exclusively around using the pen for input: In 4 minutes of video, there's not a virtual keyboard in sight. Fingers are still used just to navigate, through flicks, swipes and pinches.

The interface has a few more traditional elements than the first video, with more of a Microsoft feel (fonts and titles bars) and less of the entirely handwritten journal aesthetic: a smart agenda, more defined folder system, universal search and multi-page web browsing. It feels more evolved and fined, and less convoluted, suggesting it's more recent.

It also begins to bring into focus Courier's priorities, and possible limitations: Other than the brief glimpse at the library and the web browser, there is basically nothing about viewing content, like watching movies, reading books, or listening to music. Courier, in this iteration, appears to be all about creating and writing with a pen, which is vastly different from what everybody expects out of the Apple tablet.

Courier: First Details of Microsoft's Secret Tablet

It feels like the whole world is holding its breath for the Apple tablet. But maybe we've all been dreaming about the wrong device. This is Courier, Microsoft's astonishing take on the tablet.

Courier is a real device, and we've heard that it's in the "late prototype" stage of development. It's not a tablet, it's a booklet. The dual 7-inch (or so) screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers. They're connected by a hinge that holds a single iPhone-esque home button. Statuses, like wireless signal and battery life, are displayed along the rim of one of the screens. On the back cover is a camera, and it might charge through an inductive pad, like the Palm Touchstone charging dock for Pre.

Until recently, it was a skunkworks project deep inside Microsoft, only known to the few engineers and executives working on it—Microsoft's brightest, like Entertainment & Devices tech chief and user-experience wizard J. Allard, who's spearheading the project. Currently, Courier appears to be at a stage where Microsoft is developing the user experience and showing design concepts to outside agencies.

Microsoft has a history of collaborating with other firms, especially in the E&D division: Zune and Xbox have both gone through similar design processes. (And plans for the Microsoft Store leaked through a third-party agency were confirmed as genuine prototype layouts and concepts.) This video is branded Pioneer Studios, a Microsoft division within E&D that specializes in this kind of work, working with another agency that's a long-time Microsoft collaborator on confidential projects.

The Courier user experience presented here is almost the exact opposite of what everyone expects the Apple tablet to be, a kung fu eagle claw to Apple's tiger style. It's complex: Two screens, a mashup of a pen-dominated interface with several types of multitouch finger gestures, and multiple graphically complex themes, modes and applications. (Our favorite UI bit? The hinge doubles as a "pocket" to hold items you want move from one page to another.) Microsoft's tablet heritage is digital ink-oriented, and this interface, while unlike anything we've seen before, clearly draws from that, its work with the Surface touch computer and even the Zune HD.

Over the next couple days we'll be diving much, much deeper into Courier, so stay tuned.

Microsoft Courier

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my iPhone app

Wed 14 Oct 2009 @ 17:38 Hi Guys,

I have loads of cool apps on my iPhone so getting to create one of my own has been so much fun. This app of mine is going to help you shop for, prepare and cook all sorts of really tasty meals at home.

I've written 50 brand new recipes for this and each one takes about 20 minutes to get on the table. The recipes are broken into really easy stages with step-by-step photos so you really can't go wrong!

There's also over 90 minutes worth of video clips of me covering off loads of really useful kitchen skills from proper knife skills to cooking the perfect steak. So download it and get cooking!

Big Love

Jamie O xx

How The iPhone Is Blowing Everyone Else Away (In Charts)

by

Erick Schonfeld on October 21, 2009

Yesterday at the Web 2.0 Summit, Morgan Stanley Internet analyst Mary Meeker did her annual data dump slide presentation, this year focusing on the growth prospects of the mobile Web. As usual, there were 3 or 4 slides that really captured the trends she was talking about, particularly the ones around iPhone adoption and how that phone in particular is catapulting mobile Web usage into the mainstream.

You can see her full slide show below (all 68 of them), but let me pull out the three iPhone slides that helps put its growth into perspective. The first one above shows the growth of data traffic on AT&T’s mobile network. It is 50 times higher than it was just three years ago. I added two arrows to show when the first iPhone launched in June, 2007 and the iPhone 3G in July 2008.

AT&T saw massive pops in data usage following those two launches as consumers discovered the unadulterated mobile Web for the first time. And it is not just the iPhone. With the ubiquity of WiFi, the iPod Touch offers pretty much the same experience without AT&T’s monthly fees. Taken together, the adoption of the iPhone and iPod Touch is outstripping the early adoption the desktop Internet, as represented by AOL and Netscape in Meeker’s chart below. It is also outstripping the early growth of NTT Docomo’s imode, which was the most successful example of the first generation of mobile Web adoption in Japan.

The chart overlays the first 20 quarters of user growth for each product. Only eight quarters after launch, the iPhone and iPod Touch has more than twice as many users (57 million) as imode (25 million), five times as many as Netscape (11 million), and eight times as many as AOL (7 million) at a comparable points in their histories.

The iPhone/iTouch combo is also the fastest-growing consumer electronics product of all time. Its adoption ramp is even steeper than videogame consoles including the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, and Sony PSP. The original iPod and Blackberry aren’t even in the same league.

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