Rockin' the phone at BlackBerry World

I'm at BlackBerry World 2012 (as you already know if you're following my tweets), and it really is amazing.

In his keynote, RIM's CEO Thorsten Heins provided stats on how the average BlackBerry user isn't just connected, but hyper-connected. BlackBerry users engage in more social media, use more organizational tools, and download more apps per day than other smartphone users. (I wasn't quick enough to type up all the stats, but I'm sure you can find them elsewhere.)

Introducing the BlackBerry
10 dev alpha device

Is the BlackBerry platform an entertainment tool? Productivity tool? Social media hub? All of these, but more than anything else, BlackBerry creates success. The 77 million BlackBerry users worldwide are more agile, productive, competitive, and nimble than their counterparts.

Here are some great factoids I was able to capture:

• Mippin is a worldwide mobile development shop responsible for 50,000 apps on iOS, Android, and BlackBerry. But BlackBerry accounts for 70% of their downloads.
   
• Occipital offers a very cool panorama camera app, which they demo'd this morning. It took them only 7 days to port to BlackBerry 10, and it already performs better than the Android version.
   
• Fishlabs creates mobile games. It took them one day to port Galaxy on Fire to the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. (And it is one awesome app — I gotta go download it tonight :-)
   
• App World for the PlayBook underwent 240% growth in Q4 2011.
   
• 90% of Fortune 500 companies standardize on BlackBerry.
   

Stay tuned for more pix and reports from what promises to be an awesome show!

HTML5 Hackathon

Learn how to put together HTML5 apps at the HTML5 Hackathon. You'll get hands-on experience with WebWorks, which is the BlackBerry tool for building applications with HTML5.

That'll get you primed for building HTML5 apps for the QNX CAR 2 application platform!

CrackBerry posts first peek at OnStar RemoteLink for BlackBerry PlayBook

Paul Leroux

This morning at CES, CrackBerry.com met up with QNX's Andrew Poliak for a walkthrough of the new OnStar RemoteLink app for the BlackBerry PlayBook.

If you aren't familiar with RemoteLink, it provides a very cool and powerful connection to OnStar-equipped vehicles. From the convenience of your tablet or phone, you can access gas mileage, tire pressure, and other information in real time; you can even remotely start your vehicle and unlock its doors.

Cooler yet, the new version running on the PlayBook boasts a user interface built entirely in HTML5. But enough blather from me. Roll the tape...



Did you know? QNX is the core OS for the PlayBook, but it's also the OS for OnStar and OnStar FMW.
 

BBDevCon — Apps on BlackBerry couldn't be better

Unfortunately I joined the BBDevCon live broadcast a little too late to capture some of the absolutely amazing TAT Cascades video. RIM announced that TAT will be fully supported as a new HMI framework on BBX (yes, the new name of QNX OS for PlayBook and phones has been officially announced now). The video was mesmerizing — a picture album with slightly folded pictures falling down in an array, shaded and lit, with tags flying in from the side. It looked absolutely amazing, and it was created with simple code that configured the TAT framework "list" class with some standard properties. And there was another very cool TAT demo that showed an email filter with an active touch mesh, letting you filter your email in a very visual way. Super cool looking.

HTML5 support is huge, too — RIM has had WebWorks and Torch for a while, but their importance continues to grow. HTML5 apps provide the way to unify older BB devices and any of the new BBX-based PlayBooks and phones. That's a beautiful tie-in to automotive, where we're building our next generation QNX CAR software using HTML5. The same apps running on desktops, phones, tablets, and cars? And on every mobile device, not just one flavor like iOS or Android? Sounds like the winning technology to me.

Finally, they talked about the success of App World. There were some really nice facts to constrast with the negative press RIM has received on "apps". First some interesting comparisons: 1% of Apple developers made more than $1000, but 13% of BlackBerry developers made more than $100,000. Whoa. And that App World generates the 2nd most amount of money — more than Android. Also very interesting!

I can't do better than the presenters, so I'll finish up with some pics for the rest of the stats...