Blackberry Q5 gets video demoed: Looks like an attractive little phone!

   Blackberry's announcement of the Q5 was a bit of a strange one. They showed us a picture of the device and they told us what some of the internals would be like, but the guys took their time and they didn't seem to have many press resources ready for the announcement.

   Well that's changing now and there's a new video on the internet which shows off the device in all its glory and all of its colours too! So check out the video down below to see the devices in action!

   Just as a reminder, the Q5 features a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. The touchscreen is a 3.1-inch display with a 720 by 720 resolution and there's 2 and 5MP cameras on the front and rear respectively.
BlackberryOS Via PhoneArena.

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In Other News: 16/05/2013.

• EA have told Kotaku that their company is no longer producing any games for the Wii U. EA spokesman, Jeff Brown, said that, "We have no games in development for the Wii U currently." EA's ex-CEO, John Riccitiello, had previously promised an"unprecedented partnership" but it seems that that won't become a reality any longer!
  Via TheVerge.

• Blackberry have confirmed that when their BBM app goes cross platform that tablets of both iOS and Android varieties will not be able to use the app initially!
  Via TrustedReviews.

• If you missed Google's keynote at I/O yesterday then head to this link here to catch up if you have a spare three and a bit hours!
  Via Phandroid.

• Angry Birds Rio has landed on Windows Phone! The app will be available for both versions of the platform and is priced at $0.99!
  Via PhoneArena.

• Sony's Xperia Tablet Z for NTT DoCoMo in Japan has started getting a new software version with the build number 10.1.E.0.265. According to DoCoMo there is only one change and that's touch panel improvements, but there's no specifics! The update is about 840MB in size so do this over WiFi!
  Via XperiaBlog. 

• Sega has announced that the OG Sonic the Hedgehog game for Android! The game which debut in 1991 will cost you $2.99 (USD and AUD), £1.99 or €2.69 depending on where you live and that's not a bad price for full 60fps gaming and a remastered soundtrack!
  Via TNW.

• YouTube Live has expanded to all of the channels on the website with more than 1,000 subscribers! That's good news for people who don't like watching people stream on Twitch!
  Via TheVerge.

• Android app piracy is still a really big problems with some games seeing piracy rates around 95% which is absolutely crazy!
  Via Slashgear.

And finally, Microsoft have confirmed that the ad you see below is actually from the company and that it was internal and was leaked. The idea is that the phone they're showing how Google does their business, but obviously it's designed to promote Microsoft's offerings, but that doesn't make it less interesting and it has a little bit of a point!

Via TheVerge.

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Windows Phone is now third in the smartphone wars!

   The IDC have done it again and this month they're back with an update to the distribution of the mobile OS' and they have revealed that the for the first time ever Windows Phone is officially the world's third placed operating system!

   This months stats show that Windows Phone is slowly starting to garner more attention, while Blackberry's current lack of phones is starting to impact their overall market share. Obviously, the battle for third place seems somewhat insignificant because both Blackberry and Windows Phone are miles behind the runaway success stories of Android and iOS!  

   As you can see from the tablet above Android is the runaway leader in terms of market share, with huge quantities of devices being sold, indeed Google announced that there are at least 900 million devices which have been activated running their operating system just yesterday! In second place is Apple with their quantities of sales steadying a little and seeing 6% year over year growth in the volumes of phones they ship. Having 17% of the market is still a remarkable achievement considering that they only sell three phones at any given point in time!

   Then comes Windows Phone which saw year over year growth in sales of 133%, which means they only shipped 7 million phones in the last quarter, but some growth is good growth! Then there's Blackberry devices, Linux devices, Symbian devices and the fateful 'other' categories which round out the stats.

   Do you expect Blackberry to head back above Windows Phone when cheap BB10 device start arriving? Can Windows Phone gain on Android and iOS? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Via PocketLint.

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BBM to come to Android and iOS this summer!

   Blackberry have today confirmed that their popular messaging solution BBM will be going cross platform! With the messaging service set to arrive on both Android and iOS this summer!

   There are only a couple of remits which have to be filled for you to be able to make use of the free app and they include having a device running iOS6 or higher or Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich or higher! After that there's not much more to know other then the fact that Blackberry want to start to bring features across bit by bit. They said they plan to begin "with messaging and groups, but we'll bring voice, screen share, and of course, channels later on." With the ultimate aim of maknig the BBM experience on the other platforms as fully featured as possible!

   Wow, we definitely weren't expecting that when we tuned into the stream! Heins said that, "It's time, to bring BBM to a greater audience" and that's definitely what this will achieve! WhatsApp, Kik and others will have a tough job on there hands adding in the extra features which BBM will have, but we do wonder whether or not Blackberry have missed the IM boat here?

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Blackberry announce the Q5: Want to bring youthfulness and fun to BB10!

   Blackberry are keen to make sure that Nokia's new Lumia 925 doesn't steal the limelight today and so they've announced a new budget BB10 device and that will be known as the Q5!

   This device won't be as high-end or as expensive as the Q10 and Z10, but it will be bright colourful and is aimed squarely at the youth and budget markets! Blackberry's Thorsten Heins said that:

 “BlackBerry is excited to bring a new BlackBerry QWERTY smartphone, the BlackBerry Q5, to our customers in selected markets around world... The BlackBerry Q5 gives you the best of everything with its cutting-edge BlackBerry 10 functionality and a physical QWERTY keyboard. It is for youthful fans that are passionate, confident and bold, and it makes it easy for them to have fun, create, share and stay connected.”

   With this phone you get the best of 'touch and type' with a physical qwerty keyboard, as well as the option to use the 3.1" touchscreen for all your other needs. That screen is an LCD panel with a 720 x 720p resolution which will be powered by 1.2 GHz dual-core processor with 2GB of RAM, which should make this thing plenty fast enough for the average user. Aside from that there's a non-removable 2000 mAh battery, 8GB of internal storage which is expandable via MicroSD, 5 and 2 MP front and rear cameras respectively and just for good measure there's a micro USB port for charging, but we're not sure if can act as a USB OTG port.

   On the software front there's things like Blackberry's Story Maker, BBM with the new Video and Screen Share features and the Blackberry Hub which compliment the now relatively expansive set of apps which is on the higher side of 100,000.

   If you're interested in picking up this device then it is set to land in 'selected markets in Europe, the Middle East, Africa,  Asia (including the Asia Pacific region), and Latin America' around the start of July! Oh and don't forget there's red, pink, black or white to choose from in the colour department too, the latter pairing are matte.

The full press release is available here.
Specs Via PocketLint.

[Update] Here's some pictures from the official product page for the Q5!

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Blackberry's Thorsten Heins talks Tablets and the Q10! [Update: Blackberry aren't ruling out tablets!]

   Blackberry once upon a time were a behemoth. They were huge in business, popular with consumers and everyone loved BBM. If we fast forward to the present then it's not quite as rosy over at their HQ in Canada. It seems that the boys almost missed the boat when things changed to touch screen, leaving them with tonnes of qwerty devices which seemed a little outdated.

   If we fast forward to now, things are looking a little better. The company has released the Z10, which is not a bad smartphone at all, but it does have a lot of last years specifications at the price of this year's smartphones, which isn't a smart move. There's also the Playbook and the Q10 on sale now!

   The Playbook though is a few years old now and there were rumours that Blackberry were going to release a successor to the device, on the condition that it was profitable. After what we've heard today though it doesn't seem too likely that we will see a new tablet from Blackberry though. In an interview with Bloomberg Heins went on the record as saying:

 “In five years I don’t think there’ll be a reason to have a tablet anymore... Maybe a big screen in your workspace, but not a tablet as such. Tablets themselves are not a good business model.”

   Instead, Heins wants to “see BlackBerry to be the absolute leader in mobile computing -- that’s what we’re aiming for,” with the plan being, “to gain as much market share as I can, but not by being a copycat.”

   With regard to the qwerty Blackberry Q10 Heins said that, "We have very, very good first signs already after the launch in the UK.” He then said that sales of the Q10 were building on an “installed base of more than 70 million BlackBerry users... We expect several tens of million of units.” That last statement is a little strange because that quantity of sales seems a little excessive given that the population of the UK is just below 70 million, but we suppose there are a lot of business users!

   If you're interested in the full interview then check it out on Bloomberg here. Take it with a pinch of salt though, it's quite likely that he's been misquoted!

Via Twitter.

[UPDATE]

It seems that the guys over at Slashgear received a statement from Blackberry which read:

“The comments that Thorsten made yesterday are in line with previous comments he has made about the future of mobile computing overall, and the possibilities that come with a platform like BlackBerry 10. We continue to evaluate our tablet strategy, but we are not making any shifts in that strategy in the short term. When we do have information about our PlayBook strategy, we will share it.”

So there's still the potential that we will see a tablet in the future, just Heins doesn't think one will arrive?

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A few more BB 10.1 details leak out as does an off-contract price for the Q10!

   We've already heard a few details which we're expecting to see in Blackberry's upcoming BB10.1 update to the QNX-based operating system which is set to launch with the Blackberry Q10, but it seems like the guys over at Crackberry managed to get their hands on some more details today!

   It seems like a few more details about the BB 10.1 update have been leaked through a document at the Canadian carrier Bell. The document tells us that BB 10.1 will add a fair few new things to the operating system including a new HDR camera mode, new notifications for contacts and messages, the ability to transfer data from a BlackBerry 7 device using BlackBerry Protect something which will make the whole process a lot easier and we've already heard about the re-theming of apps to make use of the inky blacks from the amoled display!

   While there's no exact release date in the info we do know how much the new all qwerty phone will be in Canada and it's not cheap! The phone will set you back a huge $699 (£446 or USD $681) if you pick one up without a contract! When you consider that the internals from the 8MP camera through to the dual-core processor are the stuff of last year's flagships you have to seriously consider whether or not it's worth the money which Blackberry want to charge you! For those of you who are after a qwerty enabled smartphone though this will be the obvious choice! Let us know your thoughts on the phone and the price in the comments below!

Crackberry Via IntoMobile.

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In Other News: 08/04/2013.

• Microsoft will end their support for Windows XP in a years time to the day!
  Via TheRegister.

• O2 are the latest company to announce a deal with Virgin to give their customers access to WiFi on the London Underground. Check out the Tweet below for more details!

Free. Easy. Underground. O2 customers can access free London Underground WiFi from June. Find out more here: o2lin.kr/o2underground
— O2 in the UK (@O2) April 8, 2013

• Vodafone have announced that they will be rolling out LTE to their Australian customers! Initially their network will focus on Sydney and Perth, but in the future if you live in  Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Newcastle, Wollongong or on the Gold Coast you will have "some coverage", but that could literally mean anything!
  Via Engadget.

• TheVerge is reporting that Sky have refused to air some of the adverts from their competitor BT. Sky has traditionally been the dominant force if you wanted to see sports games, but BT has invested heavily in that department lately and we think this probably has something to do with the lack of advertising. We're sure OFCOM will have something to say about that and we'll keep you updated.

• T-Mobile USA will supposedly be selling the Sony Xperia Z in the next few weeks if leaks are to be believed!
  Via PhoneArena.

• Economic Development Canada have loaned the world's fifth largest mobile carrier, Telefonica €200 million (£170m , $260m) to fund the purchase of Blackberry's new BB10 devices with less risk for the carrier.
  Via PhoneArena.

• Microsoft have supposedly pushed back the supposed new Xbox announcement from April to somewhere around the 21st of May! We'll let you know when we have something more concrete.
  Via TheVerge.

• Samsung has started rolling out the Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean update to their Austrian Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus'! This means the update for other countries is close, but if you've got a carrier specific version you'll probably have to wait a little longer.
  Via SamMobile.

And finally, is this Nokia Lumia 928? EVLeaks are normally pretty good with this so we think this is going to be pretty close to the mark! You can find the same device pictured in black here.

In white. twitter.com/evleaks/status…
— @evleaks (@evleaks) April 8, 2013

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Blackberry's Q10 to usher in BB 10.1: Here's what's new.

   Blackberry may well have rolled out an update to their Z10 devices already, but with the launch of the Q10 just around the corner it seems like the guys have got another update in the works with a few features designed more specifically for the qwerty device.

   One of the coolest new features is the brand new 'Type N Go', pictured right. Essentially this gives you the option to use a number of quick access commands which makes accessing certain things right from the Blackberry search bar a fair bit easier. As for an example if you were to type "email" and then a
the name of one of your friends or 'work colleagues' then that would send you straight to the email client and your contact will automatically be your recipient. This feature will work with BBM, video calling, SMS, phone calling, and a few other things too.

   There's also new shortcuts which work direct from the keyboard. Some of the best include using "i" and "o" to zoom in and out, there's the surprisingly simple use of "r" or "f" to reply to or forward an email, which we particularly liked and "s" will bring up the search features too. Blackberry will also change the prediction in the typing app to fit better with the hardware keyboard.

   The change list is going to be rounded out with improvements to Blackberry Balance and Corporate Liable for added security and well 'balance'. The final change will supposedly be the use of darker themes in the apps which we presume will help make the most of those inky blacks from its amoled screen.

   You can find much more in depth information on the update here!
Via PhoneArena.

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Blackberry has their first earnings call since dropping the RIM name: Here's how things look!

   Blackberry were once the mobile phone of choice for many businessmen, adults and to some extent they still are the go-to phone for teenagers. We've all heard about their recent woes, but Blackberry officially said how it's going today and this is what they said, we'll start with the good news.

   The company is actually still in profit, they made $94 million from $2.7 billion worth of revenue, which is just about inside the analysts estimated, which ranged from between $2.4 and 3.2 billion dollars and this is up from the quarter before in which Blackberry only made $14 million profit, so that's not too bad!

   The slightly worse news is that Blackberry are still losing subscribers. They lost a lot over the last three months actually. They're now down to 76 million across the globe, which doesn't compared very favourably with the 79 million they had in Q3 or the 80 million which were in full use in Q4!

   When it comes to how actual sales are looking, then they're still not great, but they could be a lot worse. From January to March there were six million Blackberry phones sold, a million of which were Blackberry Z10's which is pretty good going actually! What isn't so great is that only somewhere between 'two thirds and three quarters' of those are actually in consumers hands, the rest are still in stores. We don't yet know anything about how American sales will have impacted these numbers, but we'll find out some time in the summer!

   What do you think is this good, bad or middling news for Blackberry? And are the Canadians still relevant in the smartphone wars in your mind? Let us know in the comments below!
Via TheVerge.

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Blackberry's Thorsten Heins says Apple 'were' successful whilst discussing Blackberry's future!

  Blackberry's CEO Thorsten Heins, recently had an interview with the Australian Financial Review and he offered his opinions on everything from Apple right through to BB10 and the prospects of new Blackberry tablets.

   When the topic of Apple came up Heins said that:

"Apple did a fantastic job in bringing touch devices to market. They did a fantastic job with the user interface, they are a design icon... There is a reason why they were so successful, and we actually have to admit this and respect that."

   What Heins said there is quite interesting because he repeated mentioned Apple in the past tense, so they 'were' successful, which means Heins thinks that Apple is no longer at the forefront of the smartphone battle. He went on to justify this claim with the statement that:

   "History repeats itself again I guess. The rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don't innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly [he knows from experience]. The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for this invention was all about is now five years old."

   Five years in the smartphone market is a very long time! We only have to think back three years to the original Samsung Galaxy S to remember there was a single-core processor and now we're looking at a device with eight cores and a full HD display! If you want to go back four years then you might remember Nokia's iconic, but shockingly poor, N97, so with Apple's interface having stayed the same for five years, perhaps Heins has a point, but naturally you could ask what's the point in changing something that 'just works'?

   Heins added that he now thinks BB10 devices are much better at multitasking than the iPhones and he acknowledge that iOS has a better array of apps, but he argued that with 100,000 native BB10 apps, users shouldn't be too disappointed when the Z10 launches in America this week!

   When it came to tablets we basically heard what we have before. Heins reiterated that he:

"Wouldn’t want to do it the same way again, if I do something around tablets, I want it to be really substantial and meaningful, and quite frankly it would need to be profitable as well... I think the profit pool is very very thin. Kudos to Apple, I think they really managed to own that space, so it doesn’t make sense for me to just take this head on. I need to figure out, for my enterprise customers, for my consumers, for my BB10 audience, what can I do that provides them a mobile computing experience in the form factor of a tablet, which goes beyond just the puristic tablet experience."

At least this time Heins is being realistic without simply jumping in at the deep end and hoping Blackberry can swim!

   He touched on the 'unhelpful' rumours of a Lenovo buy out as well as bits and bobs about the general direction in which Blackberry are heading and to be fair everything seems to be very calm and calculated with Thorsten at the helm!

  Check out the full commentary at the Australian Financial Review here.
Via HotHardware.

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Blackberry sell a million BB10-based devices to a mystery suitor!

   BlackBerry and their shiny new QNX based operating system have received mixed reviews, there's been mixed feedback on sales and at the moment we're not really sure how well things are going.

   That might all change with this little bit of news though, because the Canadians have tied up a deal to sell one million of their Blackberry 10 based smartphone to an unnamed partner. Blackberry spokesman Adam Emery told AllThingsD that they are "bound by confidentiality and cannot disclose our partner’s name," which is a shame because we'd love to know what sort of organisation was prepared to buy a million devices and it's almost impossible to guess at who it could be!

   Unsurprisingly, Blackberry's  shares surged when this news broke and according to Reuters, "Nasdaq-listed shares jumped 8 percent to $15.62 in afternoon trading, while its Toronto-listed stock rose 8.3 percent to C$16.06," which is a great boost after the recent hard times!

   Blackberry have also said that this is their largest single order in their history and undoubtedly getting this quantity of handsets into the wild should mean that in some part of the world at least the devices will start to get recognised!

Via Reuters and AllThingsD.

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In Other News: 08/03/2013.

• Blackberry's Thorsten Heins has said that his company won't target the emerging markets with '50, 60 dollar phones,' because that's 'not Blackberry'. This is a interesting remark, we would have expect Blackberry to target every possible customer they could find, but apparently they can still afford to be picky!
  Via Bloomberg.

• HTC are reportedly having trouble making those Ultrapixel cameras for their HTC One's. There are supposedly huge problems creating the voice coil motor (VCM) and compact camera module (CCM), both of which have yields of  between 20 and 30%! Unfortunately that will mean that there will be a limited availability for quite a while and that means HTC are literally being kicked while they're down!
  Via AndroidAuthority.

• Samsung's Galaxy S4 is rumoured to have an amoled material called “green PHOLED” in its screen which produces a new green-yellow colour and it supposedly makes the panels 25% more efficient than standard amoled panels. SamMobile also believe that there will be 'floating touch' capabilities which will let you use your finger as a cursor to hover over icons and give you sneak peeks into galleries and things like that!
  Via SamMobile.

• Dishonoured's chief designer, Christophe Carrier, has said that the 8GB of RAM which is helping drive the PS4 is 'a joy' and 'something [they, the developers,] have been waiting for'! Do we reckon Nintendo and Microsoft took the hint?
  Eurogamer Via Bit-Tech.

• The Nexus brand continues to expand its reach and today the Nexus 7 has landed in South Korea! The Nexus 7 may be getting refreshed soon, but this means that the next version will definitely come to the country!
  Via AndroidCentral.

• WhatsApp have confirmed that their app will be landing on BB10 devices next week!
  Via Crackberry.

• EA has told their affiliates to cease promotion of SimCity until further notice! This is likely down to the unexpected demand which caused server crashes and download failures amongst many other problems!
  Via Slashgear. 

• Google may see their Maps solution banned in Germany after the Judge said he is 'inclined' to  ban the service because of Microsoft's patent which allows for a "computer system for identifying local resources and method therefor".
  Via T3.

• The rumour mill for the next iPhone is cranking up already and one key feature will supposedly be wireless charging!
  Digitimes Via T3.

• Motorola have announced that they are cutting another ten percent of their workforce! That means that another 1200 jobs will be going because Motorola still believes their costs are too high.
  Via WSJ.

• Pandora's President, CEO and Chairman, Joe Kennedy has announced that he will resign from his leadership post after the company announced another quarterly loss.
  Via TheVerge.

• As Pandora lost their CEO so have AVG! J R Smith has confirmed he will step down from his post, which he's held since 2007, when AVG find a successor.
  Via Reuters.

And finally, have you ever wondered how little you can pick up a smartphone with a full 1080p screen? Well if you're lucky enough to live in China you can get a Neo N003 complete with its 5-inch screen and quad-core processor for a mere 899 Yuan or $144 (£95), which is absolutely bonkers!

Via PhoneArena.

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German government buys 5,000 Blackberry Z10's.

   Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) this week confirmed that they have struck a deal with Blackberry. The purchase will see the Canadian's providing 5,000 of their shiny new Z10's which will be put to use with the BSI's employees.

    We can speculate that one of the main reasons why Blackberry devices were chosen is because of the great new 'Blackberry Balance' which lets employees separate their work and home environments on the phone, so this is the perfect phone for the new 'bring your own device' culture.

   Naturally because this is the Office for Information Security all of the phones will have an added layer of security, in this case they will all be using Secusmart technology, which adds extra security measures such as data encryption with secure voice and text messaging.

   Perhaps this is the first sign that BlackBerry and more specifically their BB10 operating system will be enough to win back a few of the enterprise customers which the company has relied on in the past. But, let us not forget that Blackberry will need to have a lot more deals like this to make BB10 a success and they'll need a fair few normal consumers to pick up the Z and Q10's, but every little helps right?
Via AllThingsD.

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Blackberry Z10 prices drop already?!

 

   The Blackberry Z10 has only been out a little while and it seems that networks and phone resellers are starting to drop the price of the Z10 already here in the UK.

   The Telegraph is reporting that the Carphone Warehouse has chopped about £160 off the totaly price of a two year contract on the mobile network 3. Previously they were asking £36 a month for the handset, but now that has dipped to £29 up front with £29 per month across the span of 24 months. That's a pretty hefty saving given that the phone has only been on the market for a month now.

   Vodafone has also starting offering a discount, but it's not quite as spectacular. They're offering a web-only deal which gifts you the Z10 for a charge of £33 per month, something which will reduce your overall contract expenditure by £72 over twenty four months.

Will the Q10 fair better?

   We're not sure if this means that analysts predictions are wrong about the initial sales or whether demand has dropped because of the upcoming launch of the Samsung Galaxy S4! There may well be a far simpler explanation here though.

   If we just pause and have a look at the internals of the Blackberry Z10 we realise there's a dual-core processor, a 768p screen, 2GB of RAM, 8MP rear-camera and everything else you would expect. Given that the flagships of this year all feature quad-core processors and 1080p screens the Blackberry Z10 simply cannot command the price of devices such as the Sony Xperia Z and the HTC One. Instead, the device will be in the mid-segment with last year's flagships and newcomers. Something which is support by Pacific Crest analyst, James Faucette, who said:

“We believe that meaningful price cuts so soon after launch, while probably at the initial discretion of the carriers, is likely to relegate the Z10 to being a mid-tier device with very low gross margins.”

   In spite of all of this an internal Blackberry showed that one third of new Blackberry Z10 owners in Britain are actually Blackberry first timers! We're not sure whether the Z10 will be the device to save the Canadian giant, but it's a good start and hopefully they can full it up with some fantastic phones filled with flagship quality internals and build qualities!
Via Telegraph.

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In Other News: 01/03/2013.

• SamMobiles believes that there will again be six different versions of the next Galaxy S device, the S4. There will supposedly be both black and white versions of the 16, 32 and 64GB Galaxy S4's and they believe all of these will also have MicroSD card slots too. According to SamMobile's insider the Korean giants might opt for Qualcomm processors this time instead of Sammy's own brand Exynos processors, but nothing is confirmed on either front. We'll have full details for you on the 14th of this month!
  Via SamMobiles.

• Sony's European CEO, Jim Ryan, has told the PlayStation Blog that the company has grander plans for Playstation Plus. Ryan said: "We’re not yet in a position to disclose our plans for the future of PlayStation Plus, but there will definitely be a prominent role to play for it in the PlayStation 4 landscape." We're not sure what this will entail but it'll be interesting to see where Sony take it from here!
  Via TheVerge.

• Acer are supposedly working on a quad-core phablet to address their current lack of a flagship device. The Acer Liquid S as it is set to be called, will have a screen bigger than 4.7", it'll have to be bigger than that to earn its phablet name tag though! For more details click here!
  Via GSMArena.

• Blackberry have announced that all of their BB10 devices will include front-facing cameras from here one out! Check out the tweet below for more!

You asked for it & we listened: all #BlackBerry10 phones will feature the front-facing camera. Selfies just got way easier.
— BlackBerry (@BlackBerry) March 1, 2013

• An update to Android 4.1.2 is currently rolling out to owners of Sony's Xperia TL on AT&T in the United States. It seems like you need to use Sony's PC companion to get the update at the moment, but we expect an OTA update to arrive at some point soon!
  XDA Via GSMArena.

• Some of you out there might have heard of DreamWorks new movie 'The Croods' well it turns out that Rovio will be making a game of the film for mobile devices! You can check out the video teaser below or Rovio's website for more details!
  Via Twitter.

• Another day another child has spent an absolute fortune through in app purchases. Today a child in England managed to wrack up a bill of £1,710.43 in ten minutes by purchasing add ons in game on the free Zombies vs Ninja app! Naturally Apple refunded the family and hopefully some of this exposure will make people more mindful!
  Via CNet.

• O2 UK have launched a new service for O2 pay monthly customers called 'TU Go'. Basically this is a version of Airdroid that only lets you send text messages from your computer. It's somewhat akin to what Nokia's old OviSuite would do to your Symbian phone and everyone used to love that!
  Via CNet.

    And finally, what better way to welcome in the weekend than with a cheeky new advert from UK phone company Three. Embedded below is a video of a moon walking pony called Socks. We don't understand it either, but it's quite amusing! Have a good weekend guys!

Via Twitter.

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Blackberry release the first software update for the Z10!

   Blackberry's Z10 is meant to be one of the key instruments in saving the company. It's a great device, it's snappy, aesthetically pleasing and Blackberry are committed to it. The first reassurance of the company's commitment is through a brand new software update for the phone, supposedly focused on what the Canadian's have been hearing from users. 

   This update, version 10.0.10.85, will give users five enhancements and fixes for those little niggles which users have been reporting. This first of which is '3rd Party App Performance' and Blackberry claim that the update will 'improve performance' and now apps will run faster and smoother and they point to the upcoming release of WhatsApp on the platform as a teaser for what's in store.

   The Phone, Calendar, and Contacts also got the once over, with numerous fixes for the Gmail calender on BB10, along with 'improvements' in the way the Blackberry Hub logs calls and how conversations are dealt with. Blackberry also claim to have 'made general improvements to importing contacts from online sources', but they didn't expand.

   One big thing which customers reported was the issue of low-light camera performance and so now the camera has been optimized 'for better photos in low-light situations'! Similarly Blackberry have touched up the way the browser handles online video and media, so you should see some improvements there too!

   The final and possibly the most important change regards the battery life. This is a problem for pretty much every smartphone at the moment, it's notoriously hard to get a full day worth of usage out of one charge! So it's good to hear that the update will offer '60 [unspecified] battery saving improvements', these are supposedly aimed to give noticeable 'improvements in battery life and heavy users especially should see a longer average usage per charge cycle', both of which are nothing but good news!

   All of that adds up to quite a large update, somewhere in the region of 150MB in fact, so Blackberry recommend you download via WiFi for the sake of speed and your data plan! The update will pop up as a notification over “the coming weeks”, or if you head to Software Updates in the settings menu and hit “Check for Updates” you can pull it down right away!
Blackberry Via Slashgear.

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In Other News: 18/02/2013.

• Lately it's been reported that Apple are quite likely to hold a launch event for new iPads in either March or April of this year. First up was Jefferies analyst, Peter Misek, who claimed that his "channel checks" had suggested Apple would hold a developer event in March which would offer new Apple-TV features. The Loop's, Jim Dalrymple, simply replied with "Nope", which was enough to end that claim. That being said Piper Jaffray's, Gene Munster, has argued that Apple are likely to launch a product in the next two months! He said:
  
   "We believe that looking at the history of time between Apple product launch events suggests that the company will introduce something new in March or April... Over the past two years, the Spring event has been iPad updates."
  Via MacWorld.

• For those of you rocking a device running either Blackberry 7 or 7.1 there's some good news! That YouTube problem which you might have been experiencing since Thursday should now be resolved! Woop!
  Via Crackberry.

• O2 has confirmed that Sony's budget Xperia E handset will be arriving on their network in March! The device was first shown off back in December last year, more details about the phone are available here, but this should fill a little hole at the more budget end of O2's range!
  Via TheInquirer.

• Samsung is reportedly rolling out the Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean update to original Galaxy Notes around the world. Devices are reportedly being updated in Germany, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The upgrade brings with it the new Nature UX as well as Multi-view, Pop up and play and other enhancements to S-Pen apps!
  Via Softpedia.

And finally, it looks as though Nokia will be launching a few more phones in the near future. WMPowerUser reportedly confirmed some of the specifications of the devices in question too. They have said that the "Lumia 720 will have 4.3inch CBD, 1Ghz Dual-core, 512Mb RAM, 8GB storage, HSPA+, WP8, microSD, 6MP camera and 2MP front camera, while the Lumia 520 will have 4 inch  Super Sensitive screen, 1Ghz Dual-core, 512Mb RAM, 8GB storage, microSD, WP8, 5MP with no front camera." We'll have to wait and see where these guys pop up though!
Via WMPowerUser.

I see Nokia RM-914 (Lumia 520), RM-885 (Lumia 720), RM-887(?) and RM-860(?) on Verizon in our logs. 3-4 new phones at #MWC13? cc @tomwarren
— Alan Mendelevich (@ailon) February 16, 2013

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In Other News: 14/02/2013.

First and foremost, happy valentine's day everyone! Now that that's out the way lets crack on with the news!

• You may have heard of the sword fighting game for iOS called, Infinity Blade. Well at the moment the game is available for free in the iTunes Store! This is the first time ever that the app hasn't required a payment to own and the app is free all the way through to February 21st! It might just be worth a download now, so you don't have to pay for it in future, even if you don't play it every day! You can download the game here!
  Via Slashgear.

• Qualcomm have offered some details on their QuickCharge 1.0-enabled products today. There are lots of devices, such as the HTC DROID DNA, LG Nexus 4, Motorola DROID RAZR and RAZR MAXX HD, Nokia Lumia 920 and Samsung Galaxy S III, which all feature the technology. Essentially it reduces the charging time and it's especially good for midday top ups! Qualcomm said they will offer more details on the feature and "exciting news on the newest advancement in fast charging technology" next week! Keep it locked for all the details!
  Qualcomm via Phonedog.

• KickStarter have now launched an app for iOS so you can back projects on the fly! Check it out in the app store!
  Via Slashgear.

• LG have had a bit of a PR nightmare today as they first issues and then asked people to wait to announce that the company had shifted 15 million of their L-series devices. Either way the company is either there or nearly there with sales of the L line. One thing they have confirmed is that they have sold a device a second so far this year, which is frankly insane! Just in time for the refresh at MWC! It all worked out nicely!
  Via CNet.

• The ex-CEO of Blackberry, Jim Balsillie, has sold his full 5.1% stake today, just a short while after the company launched BB10!
  Via PhoneArena.

• The Android 4.2.2 update for Nexus 4 owners has finally ended the unofficial LTE connections on the device! There's new radio software version included in the update. Be sure not to update if you're making use of unofficial 4G, but other than that, the update seems squash quite a few bugs!
  Via PhoneArena.

And finally, with iOS 6.1 Apple have let the ball slip from their usually astronomically high standards. First there was the problem with 3G connectivity which Vodafone texted users about and now there's a simple way to bypass the lockscreen code for the devices! Check out the video below!

Via Gizmodo.

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In Other News: 08/02/2013

• A couple of weeks ago there was a big old hoohar about Microsoft's Surface Pro, which would supposedly be arriving with very little internal memory available because the OS was meant to be taking over a lot of the internal storage. Well it turns out it's not all as bas as everyone thought! The picture above pretty much clarifies the situation and assuming you save your recovery image on a flash drive then you'll actually have over 5GB of extra storage on your Surface Pro then you would on a 128GB MacBook Air!
  Via ZDNet.

• LG Hong Kong have posted an official confirmation that the 4X HD, as well as the Optimus L7 and L9's will all get Android 4.1 Jelly Bean in the first half of the year!
  Via UnwiredView.

• O2 UK has announced that they are currently rolling out the Andorid 4.1.2 Jelly Bean update to the Sony Xperia T!
  Via AndroidCentral.

• Blackberry have confirmed they will not be offering phones for sale in Japan any more. Apparently the company cannot justify the extra cost in translating their OS' to Japanese because there simply isn't enough demand in the country, with only 0.3% of phone users rocking their Blackberry's! Blackberry have said that they will support current users for the foreseeable future though!
  Via ZDNet.

• Three UK has announced that their new upcoming DC-HSDPA and LTE connections will be called "Ultrafast". Along with this there has been the announcement of the 'Ultrafast Galaxy S3', which is exactly the same as the HSPA+ version except it can take advantage of Three's new DC-HSDPA network!
  Via AndroidCentral.

• Nokia's much rumoured device with the huge camera module is being touted as the Nokia 1000 by some sites on the internet. This has become relevant because the device has supposedly popped up on a list of devices destined for China.
  Via UberGizmo.

• Forbes have said that the Evasi0n jailbreak is the most popular ever with nearly seven million downloads in total thus far!

• The BBC Trust has announced that they have approved a 12-month trial which will allow shows to be broadcast online before they are shown on TV! The trial will allow up to a maximum of 40 hours of shows available online before they are on TV!
  Via Telegraph.

• The Nexus 4 has supposedly shipped over a million units now! If you believe that the XDA estimates are accurate!
  Via TechCrunch.

And finally, Nokia have been award a patent for a phone which has a curved backplate and an overall rather pleasant design! Given that we are expecting Nokia to unleash at least one new Lumia device on the world at MWC wouldn't it be pretty sweet if they offered us something like this?
LiveSide Via TheVerge.

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