Author: Matt Cameron

BlackBerry has partnered with independent music distribution platform Zimbalam to bring fresh new music to BlackBerry World users. The Zimbalam system requires a tiny upfront fee but then gives artists 90% of the royalties.

We’ve recently seen BlackBerry App World transition into BlackBerry World and begin offering music, movies, TV shows and rentals. The music industry has changed dramatically over the past few years with listeners demanding more than the just the top hits. Even the Billboard 200 has modernized and begun counting YouTube hits into their listening rankings.

Zimbalam offers artists the largest network of music markets from online radio to music stores, to mobile purchases including targeted distribution. They also offer in depth sales reports and analytics as well as several ways for you to connect your fans to your music using a myriad of online services.

Musicians, bands and artists can get started by clicking here to open a Zimbalam account.
 

BlackBerry Travel is an app that helps manage your air travel. This first party app notifies you of your flight’s status and automatically imports your flights by scanning your device for trip details.

A mobile travel management app like BlackBerry Travel can bring a lot of piece of mind to an otherwise stressful travel experience. No more double-checking printed confirmations or missing an important announcement about your flight. Be instantly notified of flight changes so that you can be one of the first to re-book. The BlackBerry 10 version sports a few new features as well as Turkish localization.

Here are some of the new BlackBerry 10 features:

• BlackBerry ID now controls access making it more secure
• Book Hotel rooms or compare your hotel reservation with a better deal or a better hotel in the same price range
• Added sharing with BBM, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter

Click here to download BlackBerry Travel for the Z10 for free from BlackBerry World.

OpenTable is a free app that takes the guesswork out of eating out. Find nearby restaurants on an interactive map with a quick an easy breakdown of what to expect and how much it will cost.

In the UK, you can make a reservation at participating restaurants by going to http://m.toptable.co.uk on your browser.

OpenTable makes eating out a bit of a game by offering Dining Rewards Points. Eat at participating restaurants and earn points (plus bonus points for eating at off-peak hours) redeemable for dining cheques good at any OpenTable restaurant.

The app allows you to manage reservations, refine searches by type of cuisine and price complete with free table reservations.

Click here to download OpenTable free for all BlackBerry smartphones from BlackBerry World.

Sector Strike is a free space shooter for BlackBerry 10 and PlayBook done in the style of SHUMP and Super Rtype. Gameplay is simple: dodge enemy bullets, collect powerups and destroy all enemy ships.

Developed by Clapfoot, Sector Strike is loaded with over 20 weapons and powerups and a classic space shooter theme. Game save data is done over the cloud so you’ll be able to migrate your progress from BlackBerry PlayBook to BlackBerry 10 smartphone with ease.

The game also features great graphics with a few custom skins for your ship, as well as an original soundtrack by Boneyard Audio.

Click here to download Sector Strike for BlackBerry 10 and the PlayBook tablet free from BlackBerry World.

InTouchApp by Volare Technologies has just arrived on BlackBerry 10. Now supporting all BlackBerry OSes, InTouchApp helps to backup and restore contacts as well as synchronize your address book and a handy auto update feature.

The app does all sorts of things with your contacts that you wish the OS did like transfering contacts between devices without cumbersome cables and desktop sync software. Backup and sync with ease across all your devices online. Editing a contact on your BlackBerry PlayBook will reflect on the entry on your phone.

Migrating to BlackBerry 10 is extra easy now that you can restore all your contacts over the air. There’s also a virtual business card feature that serves up a stylish digital business card.

Click here to download InTouchApp for BlackBerry free from BlackBerry World.

HUB++ by Devcellent, (makers of Email++) is a productivity app for BlackBerry 10 that allows you to customize your notifications in a variety of ways. Their supporting of the “disco” style of LED color cycling is a BlackBerry 10 first and opens up a range of customization option for your incoming notifications.

The highly rated app allows for very specific LED notifications. For example you can have a different LED sequence play if the incoming email has been CC’d to your boss.

A lot can be learned from the notifications now without having to unlock your device and read. The different notifications can be queued up so that you can decipher that the purple flash means your work email was replied to while a rapid disco means your best friend has texted you about tonight.

The preview settings also turbocharge your BlackBerry Hub such that you can mark things as read or flag for another look later very quickly and easily.

Here are a few more features of HUB++:

• Clean and Stunning UI built in Cascades Native Platform
• Many LED color combos to choose from
• Choose Disco patterns and speed
• Over 40 preloaded audio alerts
• Choose your own custom audio
• Set the audio alerts to loop forever
• Custom vibration lengths

Click here to buy HUB++ for BlackBerry 10 for $2.99 from BlackBerry World.

Ebscer, developer of Xploding Boxes and Runaway Trains has released a new puzzle game for BlackBerry 10. In Starbeams there are stars connected by lines like constellations and you need to color all the stars without having a similar color on the neighboring star.

The game starts of easy and gets much harder as the levels go up. The first 25 levels are free and players can upgrade to the full version via a one-time in-game purchase. Right now the game has 100 levels available to full version holders, with even more on the way with coming updates.

Starbeams is compatible with the Z10, DevAlpha and the Q10.

Click here to download Starbeams for BlackBerry 10 from BlackBerry World.

Keek is a video sharing platform best suited to status updates. Share what you’re doing with this easy to use app or browse the activity feed to see what Keek users are doing worldwide.

Capture video then upload it for your friends to see. You can be social by sharing your video with the Keek community or you can also share your video with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, email and SMS.

Interact with the Keek community by posting text or video comments, customize your activity stream. Keek is easy to use, supports front and back cameras and can upload videos in the background so you can keep using your device.

Click here to download Keek for BlackBerry 10, free from BlackBerry World.

President’s Choice Recipe Box is app made by Canadian grocery chain Loblaws. Famous for developing a strong store brand that is recognized as surpassing the quality of their brand-name counterparts, their app is chalk-full of mouth-watering meal suggestions.

The app is heavy on pictures that make my stomach grumble and has a good variety of recipes to search from. Even if you’re searching with a number of ingredients there are enough recipes in the database to offer a good number of suggestions.

Even though the ingredients in these recipes are laden with their own products, they are all pretty generic and can be swapped out for your local store’s equivalent.

Click here to download Recipe Box for BlackBerry 10 and the PlayBook tablet free from BlackBerry World.

Voices.com is a London Ontario based voice talent agency that has just launched an app for BlackBerry 10. The app will help you find voice talent for any project drawing from their database of over 75000 talented voice over artists.

Shopping around for voice talent is mostly a matter of casting a performer with the right tone and delivery. The voices.com app allows you top browse through lots of talent and can have you working with that talent at record speed, sometimes in the same day.

More and more, video projects require simple narration in order to drive the point home. This app takes the guesswork out of finding talent and can have you working with the voice talent in a hurry.

Click here to download the Voices app for BlackBerry 10 from App World.

Critical Wave is a dual thumb controlled top-down shooter by Grannies Games. Blast though enemy waves, collect power-ups and upgrade your ship.

Critical Wave’s vector geometry art style is fantastic for a shooter that has so many enemies at once. Your nimble ship is able to steer and shoot in any direction, really handy because of just how many enemies you’ll be dealing with at all times.

The developers have really optimised the game for the BlackBerry 10 platform delivering smooth 60 frame per second gameplay at all times. They’ve also added support for the SteelSeries mobile wireless controller, a BlackBerry gaming first and a must-have peripheral if you’re playing critical wave on an external monitor.

Click here to watch the Critical Wave demo video on your BlackBerry.

Buy Critical Wave for BlackBerry 10 for $0.99 from BlackBerry World.

Aerize Alerts has been updated to version 2 and have made all sorts of additions to their popular pop up message alert app. Aerize Alerts will give you a clean and clear popup not matter what you’re doing on your BlackBerry and gives you a call to action with various options.

One of my pet peves with multitasking is having to decide whether to navigate to the messaging app without knowing what I’m going there for. You’ve got to stop what you’re doing in order to determine the importance of an incoming message. I have a bit of a fear of ignoring anything incoming (it might be important right?) so I’m always bouncing around and losing focus of what I’m doing. When I’m playing a game, I just hate my notification light going off while I’m trying to execute a tricky move too.

Enter Aerize Alerts: an app that gives you a call to action for every type of message you could receive without having to leave your current app. The app is customizable and has a few hotkeys for when the popup appears.

Press the BlackBerry Button to snooze for a minute if you’re being bombarded by messages and have to get something done in that app that you’re engaged in. Press “O” to open the message right away. Press “M” to mark the message as read. Press “D” or “alt-backspace” to delete the message instantly. Press “A” to mark all as read, great if you’re at your desktop taking care of those emails anyhow.

Aerize Alerts is available for legacy BlackBerry Oses 5, 6 and 7. The new version 2 features BBM fuctionality and even more customization options. It’s on sale right now for a dollar, a bargain at double the price!

Click here from your BlackBerry Browser to try out Aerize Alerts for free.

Click here to buy Aerize Alerts for $0.99 from BlackBerry World.

Since BlackBerry has begun supporting other mobile platforms under BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, more and more policies have been made available to non-BlackBerry smartphones and tablets. The latest feature coming to iOS and Android devices managed by BES 10 are features that securely separate work data from personal data.

Administration of mobile devices has really exploded in the past few years. Employees bringing their own smartphone or tablet into the workplace to access files on the secure corporate network has made every IT admin and CTO’s job more demanding with some workplaces seeing a huge increase in the number of the devices per person.

Enter BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, a straightforward, robust and secure system to provision and monitor mobile deployments of any scale. The latest feature to come to BES 10 is delivering the benefits of BlackBerry Balance to the other major smartphone platforms: Android and iOS.

Click here to read the press release.

DecoBeer is a fun photo app that gives you lots of stickers you can add to your photos. Developed by Keyspice, DecoBeer has a selection of St. Patrick’s Day themed stuff like leprechaun hats, pints of beer, shamrocks and more.

Add various stickes to your photos to make them fun, then share them online. Select and position stickers using touch gestures to rotate, scale and flip the elements. Add as many elements as you wish then save them to your gallery or share them online.

Click here to download DecoBeer for BlackBerry 10 and the PlayBook Tablet.

Circle Pie is a puzzle game by Ivy Studio with simple game mechanics that make it a pleasure to play. Connect like colored dots without intersecting lines and filling the entire play board to win.

The game sounds simple enough but after playing even a couple of levels you’ll agree that it clearly defines fun. It seems like no big deal, but as soon as you get stuck on a level and then solve it you’ll be hooked for life.

Playing Circle Pie on a BlackBerry Playbook is ideal with friends too. You can either trade off levels, or trade drawing specific lines for a more intimate gameplay experience.

Take my word for it, it’s as addictive as that game that Riker brought back from the pleasure planet Risa.

Click here to buy Circle Pie for BlackBerry Playbook and BlackBerry 10.

BlackBerry OS 5 users have received a significant update to BBM this week with the latest 7.0.1 version featuring BBM Voice. Since the launch of BBM 7 on BlackBerry 6 and 7 this last December, over 50 million free voice calls have been made.

The latest BBM features baked-in multitasking so users can continue to chat or send attachments while they talk. Your friends list clearly shows which friends of your on on Wi-Fi and able to receive a BBM Voice call. BBM Voice also works seemlessly with your existing mics, bluetooth or otherwise.

Click here if the BBM 7 preview video below doesn’t load.

SXSW is becoming increasingly star-studded as companies hope to draw attention to their wares. In the mobile space this year, Samsung is sponsoring a Prince concert while BlackBerry is staying true to their productive roots by getting Robert Rodriguez to host a talk on filmmaking followed by a sweet backyard BBQ.

Robert Rodriguez is officially launching his section of the BlackBerry Keep Moving project the following Monday but has already begun the collaborative filmmaking effort a bit early by speaking with film students at SXSW.

Rodriguez’ talk will be from 2-3pm on Friday March 15th (Backyard BBQ from 5-6pm) at the BlackBerry house. You might need to use a bit of charm secure an invite so drop by the BlackBerry house located at 78, 80 and 82 Rainey Street (just half a mile from the Austin Convention Center) before March 14th.

Introducing the Tech21 Impact Snap Case for the BlackBerry Z10. The Tech21 case is a premium offering that features d3o technology to minimize drop damage. d3o is an advanced material that stiffens apon impact, taking the punch out a hard drop.

The Tech21 case with it’s advanced materials protects against a variety of drops. How many cases can make the claim that they utilize non-Newtonian liquids as part of their drop protection design?

The way armor works from football pads to samurai armor is to spead out the shock using a stiff surface and to dissipate it with something soft underneath. The Tech21 cases’ use of the advanced d3o material for the soft part means they can achieve a high amount of shock protection without having to add a bulky soft material inside the case.

Click here to buy the Tech21 case for the BlackBerry Z10 for $37.99.

mWeather is a great BlackBerry weather app for BlackBerry OS 5, 6 and 7. The app has the ability to take over your wallpaper and dynamically changes it’s app icon to the current weather conditions.

mWeather by the mobindustry is great legacy BlackBerry forecast app that makes checking the weather as easy as checking the time. With the ability to set your wallpaper or the app icon to the current weather, you’ll rarely need to click into the app unless you want a more detailed forecast.

Click here to download mWeather free from BlackBerry World.

Purity is a tile-based puzzle game for BlackBerry 10 by Carbide Software. The object of the game is to find your way out of each stage using portals, shields, connectors and static tiles. The full game features 60 levels and they also offer a free trial with a few sample stages.

Purity is a great puzzle game that will challenge you to think of solutions as you listen to atmospheric music and enjoy psychedelic cosmic game art. Most stages have a lot of different paths you can take in order to solve it which makes it much more interesting than single-solution puzzlers.

Click here to try the Purity free trial for BlackBerry 10.

Click here to buy Purity for BlackBerry 10 for $1.99 from BlackBerry World.