Thursday, August 29, 2013

Documents To Go for BES 10 now available on Android and iOS

If your work environment is making use of the BlackBerry Secure Work Spaces portion of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 and you're using an Android or iOS device, you now have access to Documents To Go through the respective app stores for Android and iOS. If you're not familiar with Documents To Go, it's an app suite created by DataViz that allows editing of native Microsoft Word, Excel & PowerPoint files.

Word To Go includes rich formatting features including bold, italics, underline, font color, alignment, bulleted & numbered lists, tables, bookmarks, comments, footnotes, endnotes, track-changes, word count, find & replace, etc.
Sheet To Go offers powerful data computation with support for 111 functions, cell, number & sheet formatting, row & column preferences, auto-fit options, freeze panes, sort, cut, copy, paste, undo, redo, charting, etc.
Slideshow To Go allows you to effortlessly “flick” through slides, review notes, rehearse timing & make last minute changes to presentations on the go.
PDF To Go provides high-fidelity viewing of important reference materials with options for page view, word wrap, auto-rotate, bookmarks, search, select & copy text, and more.
Total access with support for attachments, password-protected files and built-in file browser
Localized in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Turkish, Russian, Polish, Czech and Arabic and traditional and simplified Chinese
As noted, the apps are specifically for BES 10 users and will not work unless your organization has the necessary back-end BlackBerry Enterprise software, so average consumers have no reason to download this suite. That said though, consumer offerings of the same apps are available for purchase on Android and iOS while they are included for free with every BlackBerry smartphone.

BlackBerry may be looking to break off BBM into its own company

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that BlackBerry may be looking to break off BBM into its own company. According to sources, BBM Inc. could become a subsidiary of BlackBerry that would focus solely on BBM across BlackBerry, iOS and Android devices.

BBM has long been one of the top features of BlackBerry devices and in the coming months will finally be available for iOS and Android users as well. Much more than a simple instant messaging service, BBM already offers video and voice calls for BlackBerry users as well as screen sharing between BlackBerry 10 devices. BBM Channels was also introduced a few months ago in hopes to bring a bigger social aspect to the messaging service.

While there is still no official word on just when BBM will be available for other platforms, things should still be on track for a late-summer release as we've seen hints of some action already on multiple occasions. It's reported that BlackBerry is also moving more personnel and execs over to the BBM team to expand the service's offerings for the future. We know that internally they have structured the BBM team as a standalone start-up of sorts within the company, complete with its own P&L, under the management of Andrew Bocking. Formerly Bocking was Executive VP of Software Product management, and his LinkedIn profile for the past three months has read EVP of BBM. Bocking has a legendary reputation within BlackBerry (he'll reply to an email at 3am within a minute), and is one of the best get it done guys they have on the team. Essentially, within the BlackBerry corporate structure, BBM Inc. is already there.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Polar bear app for BlackBerry 10.

Polarbear Social App is coming to BB10

BlackBerry users have been described as hyper connected, which for me anyway, is a spot on description. Whenever I feel the need to post something on my social networks, I like to post on them simultaneously. There are many apps out there that will let you post to Facebook and Twitter, but the guys at Nalindesign are going to up the ante.

They have created the Polarbear social app, that will allow you to post in multiple social sites at once. It will support Facebook, Facebook pages, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogger, and Posterous. It looks very promising and personally, I'm excited. The app will be available for BlackBerry 10, Android, Window, and Mac.

For more info you can check out their Facebook page, follow them on Twitter, and you can check out their website.

SayIt for BlackBerry 10 updated. Maybe now it won't suck.

SayIt for BlackBerry 10 has been updated and is currently available in BlackBerry World. SayIt is a Voice Recognition and Assistant software, that is on par with Apple’s Siri. Anything you can think of to search for SayIt is right there to find it for you. Or so they say.

SayIt is actually a really crappy voice controlled app. An expensive app that does nothing that the built in Voice Controls already do.

This update brings lots of improvements as well as fixes to the application.

What’s new?

Introducing the brand new A.I (Artificial Intelligent) Engine. Now, SayIt can actually make conversation with you and ask back to you
Introducing SayIt chat (Input command via keyboard)
Introducing the 1- click action (press and hold to record, release to finish recording) for Z10 version
Polish the UI
Add swap language for Translator
Bugs fixed