Yahoo Shutting Down 7 Products including BlackBerry App

By Mohammed Anzil at Social media today:
Yahoo Inc announced on Friday that they are going to shutdown their 7 products. The company going to shutdown it’s BlackBerry app, Avatars, Clues, app search, Sports IQ, Message Boards, and its Updates API next month. On April 1 first six products will be shutdown.

Here is what Yahoo says “Ultimately, we’re making these changes in an effort to sharpen our focus. By continuing to hone in on our core products and experiences, we’ll be able to make our existing products the very best they can be”.

The products to shutdown

Yahoo! Avatars Effective April 1, 2013, we will no longer support Yahoo! Avatars across our properties. If you like your existing avatar and want to keep it, please go to the Avatars download page, pick a picture size and format, and click the appropriate download button. Similarly, if you want to edit your avatar, you can download the image and then use a photo editing service of your preference. If you want to continue using your avatar with our products, go toYahoo! Profile and upload the avatar you downloaded. For more details, please click here. Additionally effective April 1, we will no longer support the Avatars YQL table.

Yahoo! app for BlackBerry Effective April 1, 2013, the Yahoo! app for BlackBerry will no longer be available for download. For those of you who have already downloaded the app, you can continue to use it but it will no longer be actively supported.

Yahoo! Clues (beta) Effective April 1, 2013, Yahoo! Clues (beta) will shut down.

Yahoo! App Search Effective April 1, 2013, Yahoo! App Search will shut down.

Yahoo! Sports IQ Effective April 1, 2013, Yahoo! Sports IQ will shut down. Your final lifetime Sports IQ score and rank will be automatically transferred to and preserved within your Yahoo! Fantasy Profile.

Yahoo! Message Boards website Effective April 1, 2013, the Yahoo! Message Boards website will shut down. Our message boards on individual properties (like Yahoo! Finance and Yahoo! Fantasy Sports) will remain active. We also encourage you to ask and answer questions on Yahoo! Answers, and discuss issues in the comments section on Yahoo! News.

Yahoo! Updates API
As of April 16, 2013, we will no longer support the Yahoo! Updates API.

INFOGRAPHIC: Mobile Platform Shopping Guide

It's costly and time-consuming to develop mobile apps for multiple platforms, so most app developers will choose one platform to start and expand to others later. How do you decide what platform to build for first? This infographic weighs the pros and cons.  Designed By Erica Virtue

Browse more data visualizations.

Opera Mini browser finally makes it onto BlackBerry App World

Via GoMo News:
Although it has actually been compatible with the BlackBerry OS for some years, the Opera Mini browser has finally made it onto the BlackBerry App World app store. Savvy BlackBerry users have been saving money on their data plans by downloading it manually from http://m.opera.com. Having it made easily accessible on the official BlackBerry App World should ensure much wider usage if nothing else than the fact that consumers trust the official download sites for their brand of mobile OS. You have to wonder why it has taken so long to happen? Perhaps RIM is waking up to harsh commercial realities?Why would you want to use the Opera Mini browser instead of the regular BlackBerry browser?
The answer is that thanks to Opera’s technology, the handset only needs to transport around ten per cent of the data to the smartphone compared to standard operation.
Secondly, the Opera browser displays the pages to look more like they do in a standard desktop browser.
What also makes the Opera browser more enticing is the use of hot keys that make page-up and page-down viewing much faster.

Read the full article here

RIM CEOs Out: Jim Balsillie, Mike Lazardis Replaced By Thorsten Heins

 

By Bianca Bosker at Huff Post Technology:
After a bruising year and growing calls for their resignation, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, the co-chief executives and co-chairmen of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, announced Sunday they were stepping down from their posts and would be replaced by a new CEO, RIM veteran Thorsten Heins, on Monday.
Lazaridis founded RIM in 1985 and, together with Balsillie, oversaw its growth into a multibillion-dollar company in Waterloo, Ontario, that claimed $20 billion in sales last year and, in the early part of this decade, helped pioneer a new class of devices that was at the forefront of the smartphone revolution. RIM's BlackBerry smartphones, which preceded the iPhone by four years, helped make on-the-go email and Web access the rule not the exception among executives. The signature device proved so addictive it earned its own nickname, the CrackBerry.
Yet the company's fortunes have declined steadily in recent years in the face of an onslaught from competing devices such as Apple's iPhone, and Google's Android software, which now powers more than 250 million devices worldwide.
And 2011 was a particularly bruising year for the BlackBerry maker. Last year, Balsillie and Lazardis oversaw a 75 percent drop in the company's stock price. The company's share of the U.S. smartphone market declined by nearly half from January to November 2011, from 30.4 percent to 16.6 percent. Over the same period, Android's share jumped from 31.2 to 46.9 percent. RIM also suffered crippling network outages that left millions around the world without messaging services for days. And the company's attempt at a rival to the iPad, the BlackBerry Playbook, was a disappointment for the company, a flop that it has been forced to offer at steep discounts.
But RIM's new CEO, a four-year veteran of the company, may not provide the breath of fresh air the company needs.
Heins, 54, has worked at RIM since 2007 and most recently served as one of the company's chief operating officers, overseeing the company's hardware, software and sales. The New York Times noted that Heins "pledged during an interview on Sunday to follow the strategy Mr. Balsillie and Mr. Lazaridis set in place" -- a strategy that has so far yielded a series of losses and damaging delays for the company. Before joining RIM, Heins spent more than two decades at Munich-based Siemens, where he rose through the ranks to become chief technology officer.
Balsillie and Lazaridis will stay on the sidelines of the company, with Lazaridis assuming the role of vice chairman and head of the board's newly created innovation committee. Balsillie will not have an operational role, but will remain as a member of RIM's board. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Lazaridis said Sunday that he would provide counsel to Heins and work closely with the new CEO, news that will no doubt cause worry to some investors.
Last June during an earnings call, Balsillie and Lazardis congratulated each other on their performance as co-CEOs, suggesting that, despite criticism from investors, they planned to stick it out in their roles.
"Jim and I have the perfect balance to make the hard decisions," Lazaridis said, according to All Things D.
Their optimism did little to reassure investors, however, and in December, RIM shareholder Jaguar Financial Corp. issued a press release calling for a "substantial corporate governance change and for a sale of RIM."
"At this point we believe investors have lost faith in the ability of the RIM management team to carry out a proper game plan to restore value. Unless the independent directors push to replace management or change RIM's strategic focus, Jaguar believes that the road map to value restoration lies in a sale of RIM whether as a whole or in separate parts," Jaguar chairman and CEO Vic Alboini said in the release.
Balsillie and Lazardis claimed on Sunday in a group interview with reporters that the leadership change had been part of a succession plan formulated the previous year.
"There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership. Jim and I went to the board and told them that we thought that time was now," Lazaridis said, according to Reuters.
Heins now faces the challenge of ensuring that RIM's next great white hope -- the forthcoming BlackBerry 10 operating system that is to power new smartphones and tablets -- helps usher in the turnaround RIM so desperately needs. Already, the production of BlackBerry 10 has experienced delays. Lazaridis acknowledged in December the first BlackBerry 10 smartphones would not be released until the second half of 2012, which gives rivals plenty of leeway to prep the competition.

Jumptap: Android Keeps Lead in Mobile Apps/Web

By Susan Kuchinskas at ClickZ:
Analysis of traffic on the Jumptap mobile ad network found that the Android operating system continued to grow its market share in November, maintaining its lead over Apple's iOS.
In November 2011, Android devices accounted for 52.7 percent of traffic on the Jumptap network, up from 44.7 percent in October. Apple iOS devices accounted for 22 percent of the traffic.

Jumptap's MobileSTAT report analyzes its network of more than 11 billion impressions, 95 million users and 13,000 apps and websites.
Ad requests were almost evenly split between apps and mobile websites. Android now makes up the majority of mobile app requests, accounting for 56 percent in November, as well as 25 percent of mobile web requests, versus 19 percent for iOS.
Apple device users were more likely to click, however: The Apple iOS clickthrough rate was .72 percent, versus .64 percent for Android devices, .56 percent for Symbian devices and .48 percent for mobiles using Blackberry OS.

While traffic slightly decreased over the Thanksgiving holiday, clickthroughs actually increased, thanks, perhaps, to holiday boredom.
Jumptap got creative with its data crunching and spit out one fascinating nugget: Traffic to the Angry Birds mobile game spiked at midnight on Black Friday in areas within a kilometer of Wal-Mart stores. Evidently, shoppers stuck in long lines or spouses idling in the car represent an underserved attention pool.

More People Now Using Mobile Apps Than Browser — comScore

By Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land:
Traffic measurement firm comScore released its latest mobile subscriber market share report for November. What it shows is that Android continued to gain (3.1 share points vs. August). But so did the iPhone, likely powered by sales of the iPhone 4S. All other platforms lost ground.

Android handsets now represent nearly 47 percent of the US smartphone market, while the iPhone is just under 30 percent. The comScore data doesn’t reflect iPod Touch or iPad devices.

The firm also said that 39 percent of the US mobile population owned smartphones. This stands in contrast to Nielsen’s 44 percent estimate, which puts the actual number at more than 100 million people.

What’s perhaps most interesting, however, about the data in the report is the fact that it shows (I believe for the first time) more people used apps than used the mobile browser.

Spotify for BlackBerry available now

Via Spotify Official Blog:
We are excited to let you know that our BlackBerry app is no longer a Preview release and is now available to any user with a compatible phone. To download the app simply point the browser on your phone to m.spotify.com and follow the installation instructions.

Compatible phones include Bold 9780, Bold 9700, Curve 9300, Bold 9000, Curve 8520. Currently the app only supports phones running on GSM networks. CDMA-network phones and the Torch 9800 are not compatible.

As with all of our mobile app you’ll need a Spotify Premium subscription to stream from our catalogue. You can take advantage of our 48-hour free trial directly from the mobile app or sign up to our 30-day free trial to give it a spin.

Enjoy!

Twitter for BlackBerry 2.1 Beta Adds Multiple Accounts Support

RIM released another beta update to its BlackBerry Twitter app. The version 2.1 beta brings the BlackBerry Twitter experience closer to what is available on other mobile platforms.

Twitter for BlackBerry Smartphones v2.1 (Beta): Multi-Account Support (Official BlackBerry Blog)

The biggest enhancement is the ability to use more than one Twitter account. One common use-case for multiple accounts is a person who maintains personal and business Twitter accounts. There is a Switch Account function to work with multiple accounts. Tweets can be cross-posted across accounts. And, a retweet can be made between accounts within the app.

The Switch Account function is found in the Profile screen represented by a double arrow icon. The new Edit Profile function (represened by a pencil icon) lets a person change the picture or update personal information

Spotify Launches BlackBerry App

Social music streaming service Spotify has made its debut on BlackBerry with the preview release of its app for the platform. The company’s 6th mobile app is full of all the Spotify features that you’d probably expect to have access to from a mobile device.
You’ll have access to Spotify’s full catalog of millions of songs from your BlackBerry, along with offline playlists (music you can listen to without the need for a data connection). You can create and sync playlists; search for songs, artists and albums; and star your favorite tracks.
The app allows you to discover music in the “What’s new” and “Top tracks” sections, receive music recommendations from friends in your inbox and scrobble what you’re listening to on Last.fm.
It should be noted that, since this is a preview release, the app does not work on all BlackBerry devices. It has been tested on the following BlackBerry devices: 9780 Bold, 9700 Bold, 9300 Curve, 9000 Bold and 8520 Curve. At the time of this writing, the app only supports phones running on GSM networks — phones that are running on CDMA networks and the Torch 9800 are not currently supported. As with the other Spotify mobile apps, you’ll need a $9.99 per month Premium subscription to stream songs to your BlackBerry.
The move underlines Spotify’s continuing growth following its U.S. launch in July. Usage of the service rose sharply after it removed the need for you to have an invite to join and the announcement at the f8 conference last month that it was one of the launch partners for Facebook‘s music dashboard.
Although linking Spotify to your Facebook account (something that you now have to do when registering a new account) means that the songs you listen to are automatically shared with your friends on the new ticker, the music streaming service added a feature that allows you to stop sharing this information with your friends. The company recently announced partnerships with Western Digital and Boxee to let you stream music from Spotify through your TV using those companies’ media centers.
You can check out the preview version of the Spotify app by downloading it on your BlackBerry. Once Spotify has a final, fully tested version of the app, it will be released on BlackBerry App World.

By Kris Holt at Scribbal

UberMedia Launches Social Interest Network Chime.in

We’d been hearing rumors for months that UberMedia — a developer of social media management clients – was working on its own social network to rival the likes of Twitter and Facebook. As it turns out, there has been no smoke without fire as the company has announced the launch of Chime.in, a social interest network that aims to help you connect with friends and new people while sharing and discovering content related to your interests.
Chime.in allows you to share posts called Chimes that are tracked in a Chimeline (nice pun on “timeline,” there). You can add rich media to your Chimes, including images, videos, links and polls, and you can engage with that media directly without having to launch another app or website.

Chimes can be shared across other social networking platforms — such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ — and by email. They can be saved to read later and discarded if you are not interested in them. You can sort Chimes by interest, how often they have been shared, when they were posted and how many comments they have received. The comments on Chimes appear in a threaded format, while you can sort and like comments. A feature that will be added early next year will allow you to analyze Chimes to view their reach and impact.
The discovery aspect of Chime.in means that the social interest network surfaces the most relevant and worthwhile content to help you discover what people are saying around a specific topic. You can follow interests, specific people and (something that’s very interesting to me) Chimes related to a specific interest from specific people — a feature that UberMedia is calling “selective follow.”
You can view recommendations for people and interests to follow and communities to join, while you’ll be able to search for interests, people and communities simultaneously. Chime.in editors will offer curated content, while a feature which will be launched next year promises to make it easy for you to find the people with the most authority on a specific interest (which sounds very much like the topic pages feature of Klout to me).
Meanwhile, monetization tools will offer promotional spots on community and profile pages; full control over promotional activity; and a revenue share feature that allows anyone — an individual, brand or publisher — to receive some of the revenue that UberMedia generates from the content they create.

At launch, Chime.in has big-name partners in the form of entertainment brands E! Entertainment, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Studios and Bravo, while real estate brokerage Redfin is a launch partner too. Comcast Ventures is also joining the launch as it has invested in UberMedia.
Bill Gross, CEO of UberMedia, said:

Social media is the future of all electronic content and transactions. It will be everywhere, just like oxygen. However, now that a billion people are using social media, it’s easy to get lost in a sea of content that’s irrelevant to you. Chime.in, by focusing on your interests, and not just people, makes it much more relevant and engaging.

The selective follow feature is something I find very intriguing as it echoes some of the noise controls that Facebook launched recently along with the Subscribe button. While Facebook limits what you see from a specific person to posts on games, photos and videos, status updates, etc, Chime.in lets you follow posts related to certain interests from certain people, which is a very a smart move. For instance, I might have one friend who shares interesting thoughts about gadgets and I can choose to view those posts, while ignoring all of their posts about celebrity gossip if I don’t want to see them.
UberMedia has had well-documented run-ins with Twitter this year. The company’s apps Twidroyd and UberTwitter (now known as UberSocial and UberSocial for Android respectively) had their access to Twitter revoked following issues related to Twitter’s API rules, but later had their access restored. The companies also appared to butt heads over the acquisition of popular third-party social media management client Tweetdeck — a battle that was won by Twitter.
The beta version of Chime.in is now available as a browser-based app, while there are mobile apps for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry too. Registration for the beta version of the network is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Vodafone UK starts selling the BlackBerry Bold 9900 starting today

Earlier this week, Vodafone
UK opened up to accepting pre-orders for  the BlackBerry Bold 9900 –
with an estimated ship date of August 16th. However, they’ve forged
ahead to allow anyone to buy it starting today!

For those people
in the UK playing nice, they can pick up the highly anticipated BlackBerry Bold 9900 through Vodafone
UK for as low as free on monthly
plans that start at 41 GBP per month or higher.



In fact, the wireless
operator comes after Bell
in Canada to launch the long awaited BlackBerry smartphone. Now
that it’s available for purchase, we presume that pre-orders are more
than likely en route to their destinations right now.

Seeing
that this is undoubtedly the flagship BlackBerry device to own right
now, are you going to pick it up over other highly prized upcoming
smartphones on the horizon?

RIM to help London Police?

Who says BlackBerry is irrelevant? Research In Motion said it would
be working with police on investigating
what role, if any, the BlackBerry Messenger service had in organizing
the recent riots.


London has been under siege by some looting and rioters and
authorities say that the BBM service is being used to help coordinate
this. Unlike Twitter or Facebook, RIM’s service is encrypted and it’s
more difficult for law enforcement to track without RIM’s help.


The
Guardian says that RIM could be compelled to release the
information on who sent out the messages but it could say that the
encryption means it can’t really unscramble the real messages. We’ve
seen RIM say this when BlackBerry was under
fire in multiple countries for alleged security concerns.


Regardless of what happens, stay safe out there.

Do You Live In An Android State, iPhone State Or Blackberry State? [Infographic]

It is clear by now that Android is winning the overall mobile market share battle in the U.S. among smart phones. But how does the battle break down by state? Mobile ad network Jumptap put out a report this morning (embedded below) with a map showing which states have more Android activity versus iOS activity across its network that reaches 83 million mobile users.

According to Jumptap, Southern and Western states like Florida, Texas, California, and Oregon over-index for Android. Whereas the Midwest and New England states are dominated by Apple devices. Strangely, New York state is neither. It is one of the few remaining Blackberry strongholds. (I’m sorry, that’s just embarrassing, and I live in New York).
Overall Android market share is 38 percent versus 33 percent for Apple’s iOS, as of June. By comparison, comScore just released market share estimates on U.S. mobile subscribers yesterday that puts Android at 40 percent and Apple at 26.6 percent. The Android numbers are close, and the large difference in iOS share could be because Jumptap is counting iPod touches while comScore is not. (Jumptap is concerned with ad impressions in mobile apps, comScore looks at smartphones only).
What is clear is that there are more Android phones in the U.S. than iPhones. But more is not necessarily better. If you drill down to JumpTap’s click-through rates, iOS still performs better for adevrtisers. Mobile ads on iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches are clicked on 0.78 percent of the time compared to 0.47 percent for Android (and 0.36 percent for Blackberry). Remember, this data is only based on the activity on Jumptap’s own network, which could be skewed one way or another, but it sounds about right. The sad thing is that a 0.78 percent click-through is the best the mobile ad industry can do right now. Forget Android versus Apple for a moment. What that data says is that mobile ads are failing across the board.

GroupMe Rolls Out Major App Update, Adds Direct Messaging, Questions And More

Group messaging service GroupMe has rolled out an update to its apps for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 devices. With the launch of GroupMe 3.0, the service is now available in more than 90 countries and has a bunch of new features.
First is the option to send a direct message to another user. GroupMe is all about communicating with several people at once, but sometimes you might want to say something to just one person in a group. To send a direct message to someone, all you have to do is tap on their avatar anywhere within the app and you can start to have a private conversation with that person. Direct messages are now available on the iPhone and Android apps and the feature will be launching on other platforms soon.

Also new to GroupMe is Questions. This feature, which is currently in beta, allows you to start new kinds of conversations on the service. You can ask questions to a select number of people within a group, an entire group or everyone you know. You can push the questions to Twitter and Facebook as well so that everyone in your social graph can participate in the conversation. Right now, you can only ask questions on the iPhone and Android apps as well as the GroupMe website. You can respond to questions via the website, SMS (note: full GroupMe SMS features are only available in the U.S. at this time) or one of the apps.
On the GroupMe website, you can now do everything that you can on the GroupMe mobile apps. As well as asking and answering questions, you can create and manage groups; share photos; send messages and more. This was a widely requested feature from GroupMe users. The website is optimized for mobile devices as well, so you can still use GroupMe even if your phone does not support one of the apps.
Perhaps with user privacy in mind, GroupMe has removed the ability for you to be able to automatically see the phone number of anyone in your groups. However, if you need to know someone’s phone number, you can ask them for it by sending a direct message.

  

In addition to all of these updates, the iPhone and Android apps have been given a fresh look with a new user interface design. The “News” tab in the app now provides you with all of the latest information about GroupMe and there are several other improvements that have been made through the apps.
You can download GroupMe to your iPhone, Android, BlackBerry or Windows Phone 7 device now.

RIM Launches Three New BlackBerries

Research in Motion has launched BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 and two new Torch models, BlackBerry Torch 9810 and 9850/9860.

The two BlackBery Bolds, as well as the new BlackBerry 7 OS all of these devices are based on, were originally introduced back in May.

The BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 smartphone is the thinnest the company has produced so far, and has solid specifications, with a 1.2 Ghz CPU, 8 GB of onboard memory, 720p HD video recording as well as support for NFC and 4G HSPA+ networks. The device sports the classic BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard and a touch LCD screen.

The company also plans to launch BlackBerry Torch 9810 and 9850/9860, all of which will feature a large touchscreen display on the front, similar to Apple’s iPhone or BlackBerry’s own Storm.
The BlackBerry Torch 9810 has a vertical slide-out keyboard as well as a 1.2 GHz CPU, a large, 640×480 pixel display with 246 DPI, 768 MB of RAM memory, 8 GB of storage, a 5-megapixel camera capable of recording 720 HD video and HSPA+ support. The device will be exclusive to AT&T and is expected to hit the stores this August.
The all-touch BlackBerry Torch 9860 is coming to AT&T at a later date (as well as BlackBerry Bold 9900). The device is sporting a 3.7” inch touch screen at a WVGA (800×480) resolution with 253 DPI, a 5-megapixel camera, GPS and a digital compass.
And if you wondering about the varying version numbers on some of the new BlackBerries, the answer is simple: the Torch 9850/9860 as well as Bold 9900/9930 will be the same device, only on different networks.
The announcement comes after a rough year for RIM, which has had a tough time selling its tablet, the PlayBook, and eventually had to revise its outlook for the future and drastically cut its workforce.
How do you like these new BlackBerries? Please, share your opinions in the comments.

Via: Mashable

BlackBerry Messenger 6.0 available today – BBM Social, and new sharing options front and center

 

After some whispers of a launch, RIM’s instant messenging client BlackBerry Messenger has been updated to version 6.0. Since this has been in beta for awhile now, we’re already well-acquainted with many of the features. First and foremost is BBM Social connectivity, which lets third-party apps interact with BlackBerry Messenger contacts and profiles.
A perfect example might be the Foursquare which was recently updated to show your last check-in on your BBM status. A bunch of other apps are also going to be compatible, incuding one of my favourites, Poynt. Using their location-based search app, you can quickly send restaurant information to friends through BBM. Of course Wikitude will also be available on RIM’s OS 7 devices, so you can see all your BBM buddies in augmented reality; just point your phone’s camera in any direction, and it will show you who’s there. BBM 6.0 has a few other solid features, like sharing location, podcasts, and links with groups of friends, as well as sending native calendar appointments.
With mobile instant messaging clients now a dime-a-dozen, BBM isn’t much of a selling point. Sure, it’s immediate, and enterprises can rest assured that it’s secure, but even something as simple as Google Talk has the same level of native address book integration, and works cross-platform. More focussed third-party options like WhatsApp even make a point to offer group chat and file transfers, leaving BBM to seem closed and limited. For RIM’s sake, I hope the BBM Social SDK will catch on among developers and turn BlackBerry Messenger into more than just another IM client. How successful do you guys figure RIM will be in reaching that goal?
Those of you interested in upgrading will be able to find BBM 6.0 in BlackBerry App World over here.

The Official Tour De France Mobile game is now available for Android and Blackberry

The official Tour de France mobile game is no longer something reserved for the iPhone and iPod Touch users – Android and BlackBerry smartphone owners can now join the party, too. The game is true to the original event, allowing you to assemble and manage a team of real cyclists competing in the Tour, including the current yellow jersey holder Thomas Voeckler and/or green jersey holder Mark Cavendish. That team should be comprised of riders with different styles — rouleur, baroudeur, sprinter and climber — to be able to win most if not all rounds.

Moreover, you can pick between various strategies and tactics like drafting, relaying, and sprinting to break down your opponents.
All of the 21 stages of the Tour de France are included, with true-to-life locations, names, and stage features — from the grueling climbs of Mont Ventoux and Col du Galibier to the flat laps of the Champs-Élysées — ensuring tons of on-the-go entertainment.
Like it? If so, hit the appropriate link below to download the game.
Le Tour de France 2011 [$2.99 - iTunes link] [$3.38 - Android Market] [$3.99 - BlackBerry]

Android's UK market share explodes as Apple overtakes Symbian

Look at the chart above and you'll see two things happening. First, Apple has overtaken Symbian to become the top smartphone platform in the UK (with a 27 percent market share).

And secondly, Android has grown 634 percent year-over-year to shoot into second place, with less than half a percentage point keeping it from the top spot (other reports already place it ahead). As you might expect, much of that growth isn't coming from folks switching from one smartphone to the other, but from new smartphone users -- Comscore found that 42 percent of all mobile users in the UK used a smartphone in May of this year, compared to just 27 percent a year ago. Of course, that also means that 58 percent of UK cellphone users are still potential smartphone users (to say nothing of those that still don't have a cellphone at all), so there's certainly still plenty up for grabs for all involved.

RIM acquires online video editing suite JayCut

RIM is expanding their presence in Sweden after picking up The Astonishing Tribe last year. The maker of BlackBerry has just acquired JayCut, a small company in Stockholm that has been quietly working on a web-based video editing service for the last couple of years.

The BlackBerry PlayBook’s browser is its strong suit, and with WebWorks, full-blown apps can be created with web languages. With that in mind, I suspect it won’t take long for RIM to start loading up the tablet’s native video recording app with some advanced editing tools. This would compete nicely with iMovie, which found its way onto the iPad only a few months ago. The PlayBook certainly has the horsepower to handle rich HD video, and with HDMI out and DLNA support on the way, it’ll be easy enough to get those videos out to the big screen. You can try out the JayCut demo over here. I’ve given it a shot on the PlayBook, and though things are a little cramped, it all scales fairly nicely in the browser, and responds to editing smoothly. The pieces are in place to even capture live video and audio through the tablet’s mic and camera.
RIM’s not saying much about their specific plans for the video editing suite, but what would you like to see from JayCut in the PlayBook and BlackBerry smartphones?

How to install third-party Android apps on the BlackBerry PlayBook

Yesterday an early build of the Android app player leaked for the BlackBerry PlayBook, and though it’s not quite ready for prime-time, the daring and adventurous are welcome to check it out. RIM has warned against using it, but if you’d like to throw caution to the wind, we’ve got full instructions on how to get third-party Android apps up and running.

Just remember that performance isn’t ideal at this point, and lots of app just plumb don’t work. The process involves digging around a lot of risky parts of the device with unofficial tools, and since none of them are supported by anyone, you’re on your own if things go south. That said, the Spiciness Level of this How-To is graded at Guatamalan Insanity Pepper.

1. First you’ll have to get the Android Player. RIM has taken down the original host, but there are bunch of mirror sites now available.
• RapidShare
• MegaUpload
• DepositFiles
• HotFile
• zShare
• Uploading
• FileServe
2. Next you’ll need a way to sideload that Android Player into the PlayBook. There’s an app called the Dau Den PlayBook installer that can help you do that, but it requires the Java Runtime Environment installed. Go get the JRE first, then install DDPB.
3. Now to make your PlayBook play nice with DDPB by putting it into Developer Mode. Swipe inwards from either top corner of your PlayBook to pull down the system menu, and tap the gear in the top-right. Tap the Security tab on the left pane, then Development Mode on the right. You’ll need to pop in a password.
4. Now plug in your PlayBook via USB to your computer, and open up DDPB. It’ll ask for an I.P. address and the device’s password. You can get your PlayBook’s I.P. address by tapping that new icon at the top that looks like the image to the right.
5. Once you’re in, you can hit the Add button,  and select the Android Player .BAR file that you downloaded in step 1. Once that’s on the list, hit the checkmark, and hit install. This could take a little while, but don’t freak out.
6. Once that’s all done, you should have the Android Player installed and good to go. It will take awhile to boot up, but once it’s open, swipe down from the top to pick your screen view, and chose installed files. The back key is mapped to a diagonal swipe upwards from the bottom frame (make sure it’s not from the corners, or that will bring up the keyboard, or it’s straight up, because that will launch multitasking). From there you can run some of the core Android applications. Those are all well and good, but let’s get some third party stuff installed. For that you’ll need to download and install the Android Software Development Kit, and the Java Development Kit.
7. Next up, you’ll need to download the .APK file for the app that you want to install. For free apps, you shouldn’t have any trouble, but don’t be a dick and steal premium apps. Devs gotta get paid, son. I’ll leave this step to your well-established Googling skills. Remember, the Android Player is running OS 2.3.3.
8. If you’re doing this from scratch, you’ll need to boot up the SDK at least once to load the Android Debug Bridge. Back in Windows, browse to where you installed the Android SDK, and open SDK Manager. It will ask you which packages you want to install. Go with Android SDK Platform-tools, which should be near the top. This will take awhile to download. Grab a coffee. Once it’s done, move the APK of whatever you downloaded to the platform-tools directory.
9. This is where things get fun. Make sure you’re still in Development Mode and you’re plugged in via USB. Go into your PC’s command prompt by hitting Start, Run, and enter “cmd”. Once the prompt is up, type “cd\” to go back to C:, then navigate to the Android SDK’s “platform-tools” folder. If you went with the default installation path, you should be able to get there by typing “cd Program Files\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools”.
10. Connect with that adb dealie we installed in step 8 by typing “adb connect 169.254.0.1:5555″. It should return with a confirmation.
11. Then punch in “adb root restarting adbd as root”, which should return another confirmation. Reconnect again using the command in step 10.
12. Open up the Android Player on your PlayBook, and type in “adb install” and the full name of the APK file you want to install. It’s usually in the format of “com.developer.appname.apk”.  Remember, it needs to be in your platform-tools directory. You might have to set your home view to “Blank” then back to “Installed Applications” in order to see the apps after they’ve been installed.

And blam, you have a third-party Android app installed on your PlayBook. Whether or not it actually works is anybody’s guess, but now that you’ve gone through all of this trouble, you can try new apps just by running through steps 9-12.  If you do give it a shot, let us know which apps you’ve managed to get working in the comments!