The slow, steady decline of BlackBerry isn’t showing any signs of reversing direction, unfortunately. The only possible thing that could save RIM at this point are smartphones running the new BB10 operating system, and we won’t see those until late next year. At this point, it’s looking like the best-case scenario will be a 10-inch PlayBook landing in the spring, and even that’s not certain. On the plus side, RIM still boasts decent growth internationally, but many of those markets are unstable. Will BlackBerry be able to survive long enough abroad to make something competitive for North America?

It will be much more interesting to see comScore’s numbers for December; maybe we can get some confirmation that iPhone actually did out-activate Android.

[via]

The Acer Iconia Tab A700 is shaping up to quite the beast, but that’s only on paper. Their software customizations to Android still have a long way to go, and with Samsung well-entrenched in the world of Android tablets, Acer has their work cut out for them.

The A700′s smaller brother, the A200, has already hit the streets, but we’ll definitely check them both out at CES. Unfortunately, the source says we may not see the A700 on shelves until March or April.

[via Engadget]

Setting Up

Before anything, you’ll want to prime your device battery. This is a good practice for any gadget with a lithium-ion battery. Charge that bad boy over night to make sure it’s in top-notch condition for the long haul. On a day-to-day basis, you’ll want to make sure the phone is drained to nearly empty before plugging it in, and charging all the way to full in order to maintain high battery life. If you got one of the newer BlackBerry 7 devices, the first thing the phone will ask you for once turned on is a BlackBerry ID. You’ll be able to use this ID for a variety of services, including accessing BlackBerry App World on a desktop PC, and easily setting up new devices should you ever switch phones.

After getting that out of the way, you’ll be taken through the e-mail set-up rigamarole. If nothing else, BlackBerry is well-known for handling e-mail, and if you go through a lot of it, you’ll be spending tons of time on your new phone. Connecting to the usual webmail services like Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo! is really straightforward, and that log-in information can be automatically applied to their related instant messaging clients. Connecting to your corporate e-mail might require a bit more legwork, namely finding the right server settings; talk to your IT guy about getting that info.

You’ll probably want to sync your contacts and calendar too. Navigate to Setup -> Email accounts -> Edit, then scroll down to the bottom, where you’ll find Synchronization Options, where you should be able to check off Calendar, Contacts, and Deleted Items. It shouldn’t take long for all of that to sync up.  While you’re there, you’ll probably want to update the Your Name field near the top and the signature section, where you might want to mention you’re sending your e-mail via BlackBerry, so recipients can excuse your shodding typing skills.

It’s entirely likely that you asked for a BlackBerry to get in touch with friends over BBM. After setting up your name and possibly updating the BlackBerry Messenger app itself, you can start inviting your friends as contacts via e-mail if you don’t have their PIN number handy. You can always share yours by typing “mypin” and hitting space anywhere on the device. There’s also QR barcode scanning as an invite option if your friend is right there; you can show your PIN barcode by tapping the top bar from the BBM home screen to open your profile, and hitting the “Show” button near the top. Your friend can then scan that code with their BlackBerry camera from the Invite to BBM menu to fire out the invite.

The final part of set-up for me is getting my social networks plugged in. Twitter and Facebook are the biggies, but there’s an app for LinkedIn, though it’s a bit dated. There’s nothing other than a mobile site for Google+, unfortunately. Facebook and Twitter should be preloaded, but may need to be updated through App World, which you can log into with your BlackBerry ID. Once you’ve logged in to your fully-updated Twitter and Facebook apps, you’ll want to start linking contacts with those in your address book. This means when you dig up your contact later on, you won’t only see their phone number, address, and the usual stuff you’ve manually inputted or synced, but there will also be a section to show their latest status updates. Facebook even pulls in their latest profile picture to use for caller ID.

The Facebook app should scour your existing contacts for matches and pair up after you first log in, and if it doesn’t, just hit the menu key and go to Options to make sure all the boxes are checked. If some of your friends have weird monickers on Facebook, or you’ve got different address book names for them, you can manually pair up too. Just open up the Facebook app, tap the top-left to summon the drop-down menu, and tap Friends, which should bring up the full list. Names that have a little address book next to them indicate that they’re already paired up with someone in your address book. Those with a phone icon mean they’re publicly sharing their phone number. If absolutely none of your friends are linked to your address book after setting everything to sync, you may need to reboot the phone in order for the pairing process to complete (protip: hold shift+alt+del keys for a few seconds to quickly reboot). To manually link contacts, just highlight the Facebook friend, hit the Menu key (to the left of the trackpad in the middle), scroll down to “Connect with BlackBerry Contact” and click the trackpad. Facebook will want you to find the contact in your address book to link to, which you can do by just starting to type their name, and clicking the right one that pops up. If the contact wasn’t imported through your e-mail service already, you can also create a brand-spanking-new contact using the available Facebook info.

This pairing process can be reproduced in instant messaging clients (including BBM) too; just hit the menu key while a contact is highlighted, and there should be an option to Link to BlackBerry contact. Gtalk tends to be pretty good about guessing who you want to pair with, but with most of the clients you’ll need to manually couple contacts.

An extra step you may want to take is downloading and installing the BlackBerry Desktop software. This will let you manually back up your phone data, update the operating system, and give you an easy-to-use interface for loading your phone with music from iTunes or Windows Media Player.

Using your BlackBerry

Up until now, you’ve probably managed to muddle your way through the basic navigation thanks to some of the initial tutorial videos, but here’s a refresher. The center trackpad is where 90% of the action happens. Swipe up, down, left, and right to get around, and press down on it to select items. If you have a BlackBerry with a touchscreen, you may end up using that more often, depending on the model and application, but for the most part, the trackpad is your best friend. To the right of the trackpad is the back key; use this to back up a step. Often you’ll be prompted to save changes to whatever you were working with before backing out, but not always. The back key is also used to exit from select mode when highlighting text. Next to the back key is the hang up key. You’ll actually end up using that more often outside of calls in order to go back to the home screen, so you don’t have to hit the back key a million times. You can also hold down the hang up key in order to turn your phone off, but generally you’ll just need to lock it using the key on the top of the phone, which turns off the display and stops it from reacting to key presses until you hit the lock key again.

On the other side of the trackpad is the menu key, which has the BlackBerry logo on it. This is going to be another frequent stop. It’s context-sensitive, so the options that pop up when you press it will be dependent on what you have highlighted. Generally, those options will be common tasks like replying to e-mails, editing contacts, adding browser bookmarks, and anything else you might want to do. Just scroll up or down using the trackpad and click to pick a selection. Another use for the menu key which isn’t readily apparent is app switching. There’s often a lot of stuff running in the background that you can’t see, but if you hold down the menu key, you’ll get a grid of the currently running apps; just navigate to and click the one you want to open with the trackpad. A common reason to switch apps is to paste text from one place into another. In order to do that, move the cursor where you want the selection to start, hold down the shift key, and scroll the cursor in the direction of your desired selection. On a touchscreen BlackBerry, you’ll just need to leave your finger on a block of text for a second, and you should get some cursors you can move around to alter your selection. Once the block is all selected, hit the menu key and click on Copy. Now you can switch to your other app by holding down the menu key, move the cursor where you want to place the text, hit the menu key, and click paste. Voilà. To the left of the menu key is the phone key, which is exclusively used for making calls. You can summon up the call log from any screen with it, and if you’re highlighting a contact, it will launch right into calling.

The keyboard is pretty self-explanatory. Tap alt before hitting any of the other keys in order to type the special characters shown above each letter. Further symbols can be accessed with the sym key next to the spacebar at the bottom – just tap sym again to switch between pages, and you can hit the corresponding letter key to input the symbol.  There are a few handy keyboard shortcuts to keep in mind, like if you’re in a call, you can hit the $ key in order to activate and deactivate speakerphone. Hold down the Q/# key in order to toggle vibration mode. You can also hold down the A/* key to lock the phone, but that’s pretty redundant with the dedicated lock key on top. Lots more on keyboard shortcuts later on.

To the side of the phone you’ll find the media control keys and the convenience key. The convenience key is set to launch the camera by default, but you can reprogram it to launch anything through Options -> Device -> Convenience Key. The three keys on the side will let you crank up the volume, lower it, as well as pause or play media without having to unlock your phone and fiddle around with anything. Additionally, you can hold down the volume keys to skip tracks backwards or forwards. Though the media controls are mainly for use with the native music application, the higher-quality third-party music apps will also work with these keys. The pause/play key crammed between the two volume keys can also be used to hastily mute incoming calls.

On the software side, there are just a few things to keep in mind. The basic home screen organizes your apps into different panes. You can switch between them by simply scrolling to the left or right with the trackpad while the title bar is selected. By default, you’ll only see a few icons, but you can show the full list by clicking on that bar, and hide them by clicking the bar again. On touchscreen devices, you can pull up or drag down instead.

Universal search is an awesome feature, and will make your life much easier. Instead of flipping through various panes to find the right app, or digging through your address book for one person, just start typing from your home screen. Results matching your query will pop up, giving you instant access to them on your phone. This mechanism can also be used to launch into quick Google searches, or launch into relevant searches using particular apps installed on you BlackBerry.

The other major area you should know about is the notification bar. Whenever you have an incoming alert, be it e-mail, SMS message, instant message, missed call, Facebook notification, or something from any other app, it will show up on this bar. Generally, you’ll be able to click that bar and access the source of the notification. Even when there are no notifications, bringing down this bar will show your upcoming calendar items.

Entering App World orbit

If this is your first smartphone, a BlackBerry can be overwhelming. A common question is “what do I need this thing for?”, and apps are usually the answer. There’s a lot of functionality bundled with your BlackBerry, like e-mail, phone, web browsing, and music playing, but apps are going to be what enable you to truly personalize your phone and tailor it to address your daily tasks. You may have already flirted briefly with BlackBerry App World when setting up Facebook, Twitter, or BBM. Now it’s time to get cozy.

App World is the official portal for downloading paid and free applications on your phone. There are other third-party app stores you can also use, but App World is generally going to be your first stop. Purchases are linked to your BlackBerry ID, so you can carry over apps to new BlackBerry phones should you ever upgrade. There are a variety of payment methods covering all of the major bases: credit card, PayPal, or even direct carrier billing, so it shows up on your monthly statement from your service provider. Carrier billing isn’t available everywhere, but it’s generally the easiest way to buy apps. Some apps require a regular monthly subscription fee to stay active, while others allow you to expand functionality by purchasing small incremental upgrades to an existing app.

In addition to using the search bar in App World and the various categories to find then apps you want, you can also use your desktop browser to skim through the catalog and even download apps over USB through Internet Explorer. Now, if you’re reading this before 2012 rolls in, you’ll want to cash in on some free apps RIM is offering as an apology for a service outage (protip: if you don’t see a little BlackBerry logo in the top right of the screen, it means you aren’t getting BlackBerry service. that could simply mean you’re out of service range, but it could also mean something is down at RIM’s end of things). My top picks among these free apps are Vlingo, which lets you talk to your phone and have it do stuff for you, and Shazam, which can identify music which is playing around you. There are others but whatever is available to you will show up in the “Thank You Gift from BlackBerry” category, which should be front and center when you boot up App World.

There are a few other apps I would suggest you pick up, and the first among them actually isn’t in App World. Visit google.com/mobile on the BlackBerry Browser and download Google Maps. It’s the only maps app you’ll need. It doesn’t have the fancy-shmancy turn-by-turn driving directions like the iPhone and Android versions have, but it’s the best you’ll get while staying in the realm of free apps. While on that vein, Poynt is another top pick for me. It overlaps a bit with Google Maps insofar as they both offer local search options, but Poynt’s experience is much more tailored towards particular categories –  for example, not only can you find a nearby theatre, but you can also find what’s playing, watch a trailer, and buy tickets from your phone. On the music side of things, Slacker may already be preloaded. Through it, you can stream themed radio stations, build your own stations, and tweak the songs that come in based on preferences. The basic version is free, and also available through your desktop web browser, though you have to deal with ads. If you’re willing to shell out $10/month, I would highly recommend Rdio, since it’s a bit better at pulling up individual tracks on demand, and I find the web interface much better.

RIM makes a few apps themselves that are also worth checking out. I consider BlackBerry Protect essential so you can easily track, lock down, and remotely wipe your phone if it’s ever lost. BlackBerry Travel is really great for those who move around a lot. It scans your incoming e-mails for flight schedules and hotel reservations, and automatically plops the information into your calendar. It will also alert you to flight delays, or help you find accommodations. Although Google Maps might not offer navigation, RIM has an app called BlackBerry Traffic, which tries to guess the best route based on current and estimated road conditions. It does turn-by-turn voice navigation, which is pretty handy.

If you’re looking for more downloads, check out my Top 10 BlackBerry Apps post from last year – a lot of those picks are still solid.

Becoming the BlackBerry boss

Most of the basics have been covered, but there are a few tips that will set you apart from the noob masses and fool anyone into thinking you’ve been using a BlackBerry for years. The first one are the variety of clever keyboard shortcuts that most people generally don’t learn until later on. Within the Messages app, you can hit any of these when either in a message, or simply having one highlighted:

• R: Reply
• L: Reply All
• F: Forward
• del: Delete message
• U: Jump to oldest unread messages (my personal favourite)
• N/P: Next/previous day/message (depending on view)

If you want to see someone’s e-mail address, highlight their name in the message header and hit Q.  In both Messages and the browser, hit the T key to go the top, B to go to the bottom, and the spacebar to go down a page.

I ran you through the basics of selecting text and copying and pasting earlier, but there’s an even easier way to do it, which even I forget to use sometimes. After text is selected, you can hold down alt and click the trackpad to copy the text, then shift and click the trackpad to paste it. That’s much easier than fiddling around in the menu, since you’re going to be busy selecting text with the trackpad anyway.

I find the home screen in its default state is a bit cluttered. For example, some of the panes I find are redundant, since most of those apps are readily visible elsewhere, and the extra pane just makes for more swiping. Luckily, you can hide those; from the home screen, hit the menu key, and click manage panels to show and hide the ones you want. “Downloads” and “Frequent” tend to get the axe from me. Individual icons can be hidden if you’re not comfortable (or unable to delete them). Simply highlight the icon you don’t want to see, hit the menu key, and click “hide icon”. You can always unhide icons with the same process, just hit the menu key from the home screen and check “Show All”. Some icons you might want to keep around, but just not have directly on the front page. This is when you start putting stuff into folders. You can do that by simply hitting the menu key from the home screen and hitting “Add Folder. Give it a name, and click the folder picture to chose an image for it. Now you can highlight icons, select Move to Folder, and start tidying up. If you’d like to have some apps more readily available (especially for that top row, which is the only one visible when the panes are lowered), just highlight the icon, hit “Move” from the menu, scroll with the trackpad where you want it, and click in its final location.

Not all icons have to be apps, though. You can also save website bookmarks as home screen icons, so you can launch right into your favourite destinations. Just pull up the page, hit the menu key, and hit Add to Home Screen. It will also give you the option to add it to the browser’s bookmarks. You can do the same sort of thing with Contacts, which is especially handy for family and friends you talk with all the time. Find them in your address book, hit the menu key, and “Add to Home Screen”. You’ll be able to chose which folder you want to drop them into, but usually I’ll just leave them in Favourites.

So, that’s a pretty solid start to your new life on a BlackBerry. There’s plenty more to learn, though. Leave your questions in the comments, and we’ll try to help you out!

Seeing as this is a New Years/Holidays promo, I’d hazard a guess that these sales will be wrapping up on January 1, which is this Sunday.  You can see all of Gameloft’s iOS titles over here, and everything on Android here.

While it’s sad to see kids stooping to such depths, I doubt it’s anything really new. What’s new is that people are casting the spotlights on these spoiled kids by retweeting and otherwise sharing these posts. Now, the public backlash to these individuals may be overkill for what was an off-hand comment, but in a lot of ways, I’m all for appropriate public shaming through social media. A great example of this phenomenon is Ocean Marketing, who recently made a series of poorly-worded e-mails with a customer and one of the biggest influencers in their industry. Once the misstep went viral, it put the marketing company out of business, and left a permanent dent in the product’s brand. Then there were the Vancouver riots earlier this year, where hockey fans were throwing a childish city-wide tantrum because their team lost. In an age where everybody has a camera thanks to their smartphones, social networking made identifying some of the unmasked rabble-rousers a breeze.

With any luck, the amount of negative attention these kids are getting will help them realize that they can’t get away with that kind of attitude in the real world. The worst-case scenario is that their parents cave, buy them the damned iPhone, teach them that they can get whatever they want, and those kids grow up to be self-entitled assholes.

Here’s a great great little song putting together just some of the spoiled tweets. Kids these days, eh?

[via @fart]

It’s a little weird to see Microsoft only starting to consider the platform competitive at the end of next year, though RIM is in the same boat. At least Microsoft has been honest about how much time it takes to get a platform like this up and running; when Windows Phone was first coming out, they said it would take five years to reach maturity, and even now, a year in, they’re ready to admit that they have negligible market share. This is largely because their current priority is to set a stable foundation for the future rather than trying to go head-to-head with Android or iPhone. Sure, it makes for some fairly basic updates, but they’re important nonetheless.

CES is just around the corner, and with any luck, we’ll see a proper unveiling of the Tango update.

[via wmpoweruser]

GeeReader Pro

Since day 1, GeeReader has been my go-to app, and instantly made the PlayBook useful to me. Seeing as I live and die in Google Reader, having a smooth, full-featured app that helps me comb through my endless RSS feeds is an absolutely requirement on any device I use. Since the last top 10, GeeReader has had a big user interface upgrade and now has a pro version for a scant $1.99. GeeReader Pro includes sharing to Twitter, Facebook and WordPress, on top of the usual two-way Google Reader sync that’s still enjoyed in the free version.

GeeReader simply has everything I need to keep up to speed – full read/unread sync, starring items, view filters, sorting, swipe navigation between stories, and adding new feeds. While I might spend more time combing through RSS feeds than most PlayBook owners, I’d suggest even light readers should pick up the free version and start playing around with Google Reader; it’s a lot easier than navigating individually to your favourite sites on the native browser to check for updates, that’s for sure.

Blaq

Blaq is still the King Kong of Twitter apps on the PlayBook. Since the last top 10, Blaq has added support for multiple accounts, search, lists, and reading an individual’s tweets (something that really should have been included from the get-go). On top of looking good and operating smoothly, Blaq is also among the first apps I’ve seen to make use of the PlayBook’s notification system for new tweets, followers, mentions and direct messages. The live streaming view is actually a great use for the PlayBook; most of the day I’m too busy in the browser to monitor a separate tab for Twitter updates, but having a nonstop stream pouring through on a dedicated screen lets me see things out of the corner of my eye that would otherwise be missed.

I’ll be interested in seeing how well Blaq holds its own when the deluge of Twitter clients come with Android app access, but I would say these guys have a pretty good head start; they’ve even tapped into Bridge so you can get updates when you’re outside of a Wi-Fi zone but paired via Bluetooth to a BlackBerry smartphone. Blaq is $1.99, and if you spend any time on Twitter whatsoever, it’s worth it.

Poynt

Poynt was one of the first high-quality applications on the PlayBook, and has weathered the test of time. Since the summer, they’ve added support for events, so you can see what’s going on nearby, and buy tickets through handy browser links. The usual location-based search is still there for other categories, like people, businesses, movies, and restaurants. You can watch movie trailers, get business info, as well as find their location on through embedded maps. Gas prices are only available in the U.S., which is a bit of a drag. Poynt’s real polish shows when you pair the tablet app with a smartphone, so you can send over directions, contacts, and calendar items – great for when it’s not practical to lug the PlayBook out with you. The mechanism they use is a little roundabout, and it would be much simpler if RIM just gave developers some access to Bridge, but it’s good to see Poynt is pushing that use case. Poynt looks great, is incredibly useful, and, best of all, it’s free.

Files and Folders

Why the PlayBook doesn’t include its own native file browser is beyond me, but odds are you’ll need one. So far, File Browser has met my day-to-day needs, offering all of the usual functions like copying files, renaming, and viewing thumbnails for images, but there’s also some more advanced stuff. For example, you can zip and unzip folders, sync up files across Dropbox, Box.net, and Google Docs, and even dig around in your BlackBerry smartphone’s memory and SD card if paired over Bridge.

$2.99 is a little steep for something that should be included with the OS, but if you’re looking for a free alternative, AIR Browser does the job just fine. File Browser has the added bonus of FTP file transfer, if that’s a dealbreaker for you.

Luko Remote

Luko Remote is where the PlayBook starts getting interesting. By installing the $2.99 app on your PlayBook and a free companion on your PC, you can use the tablet as both a touchpad-style mouse, and a keyboard for your PC. All you have to do is pull up the native PlayBook keyboard, and start typing. Your words show up on top of the touchpad area, so you can catch typos easily. In addition to simple remote control, there are a lot of advanced utilities here, like a file system browser that lets you launch files on your PC through your PlayBook, a scroll bar (like the middle mouse wheel) for larger windows, easy sensitivity adjustment, and media controls.

The practical use cases for this are slim, but I imagine if you have a home media PC hooked up to your TV and you don’t want to run a cable or deal with a secondary wireless keyboard, this could be the fix. Luko Remote might also be handy for a desktop crowded with more than one computer running at a time, but without enough room for a second keyboard. In any case, Luko Remote gets big points for originality. Next up, I’d love to see Luko enable BlackBerry smartphones to act as the keyboard and Bluetooth mouse for the PlayBook.

ToFu

This is my new favourite game on the PlayBook. Yeah, there are a lot of big-name, AAA titles, like Dead Space and now Angry Birds, but ToFu honestly strikes me as the most challenging, thought-provoking, colourful, and appropriate to the medium than anything else I’ve tried so far.

The simple puzzle game puts you in the hachimaki of a sticky, wobbly, tofu ninja. You pull him in a direction, then release, and he sails through the air until he hits something. Your goal is to navigate him through a series of devilishly clever obstacles to reach the big pink fortune cookie at the end. For $0.99, you get 140 levels, and each of them have a ton of replay value, since you can try to collect all of the zen orbs in each level, as well as complete the course in a set number of jumps for special badges. When it comes to fun, this is so far the best bang for buck on the PlayBook.

JeeoPlayer

JeeoPlayer is another remote control app something along the same vein as Luko Remote. By installing an app on a PlayBook and a companion on a RIM smartphone, you can play your music stored on the phone through the tablet. This is an ideal situation for me, since most of my tunes are on my phone, rather than the PlayBook, which is too bad considering the tablet has such good speakers. It’s a bit finnicky, since you have to set up an account with JeeoSuite, then screw around with IP address settings once both your PlayBook and BlackBerry handset are on the same Wi-Fi network, but once it’s all set up, it works fine, minus a slight lag.

Now, the PlayBook will be getting stereo Bluetooth support in the February update, but that only means that you’ll be able to pump out music stored locally out to external speakers, not take music in and stream on the PlayBook’s speakers – the latter being the usual situation when you just have your BlackBerry smartphone and PlayBook with you. Hopefully RIM will be able to add two-way stereo Bluetooth in time for the update, but if not, JeeoPlayer will be here to fill the gap, free of charge.

PlayEpub

The PlayBook comes preloaded with the Kobo app, but that’s really not enough to handle the demands of a truly voracious reader. PlayEpub has been my favourite e-reading app to date. It has a full range of visibility options, including switching from white on black to black on white, an extra level of brightness adjustment in addition to the system-wide display brightness, as well as font size and line spacing.  You can also leave notes and bookmarks on particular pages, and download a variety of books directly from the Caliber online repository. PlayEpub faces some stiff competition with the cheaper Book Reader for EPUB (which supports a wider range of formats), but the clincher for me was quick access to sharing passages via Twitter and Facebook as well as translation just by highlighting the text. At $1.99 and a free trial to make sure it’s for you, PlayEpub is a pretty good deal, even for occasional readers.

Phone Remote

Okay, this is another remote control app, but it’s the last one, I promise. In its current form, Bridge is still half-baked. Sure, it’ll be great when e-mail, calendar, contacts, and all of that other stuff can reside locally on the PlayBook on its own, but that doesn’t mean the idea of syncing phone with tablet is entirely flawed, it’s just incomplete. That said, I’ve tried using the PlayBook all day long with Bridge, and though it’s handy for reading incoming e-mails on a separate, dedicated screen without having to fiddle around with my phone, there are a lot of notifications that necessitate going back to the BlackBerry handset to check, like Facebook notifications, or text messages.

That’s where Phone Remote comes in. Like the other apps, you need to have a local Wi-Fi network and a companion app installed, but once set up, you can see and remotely control your BlackBerry smartphone from your PlayBook. My primary use for this was to clear notifications for instant messages that wouldn’t be caught by Bridge alone. The emulated screen on the PlayBook looks chunky, and the reaction times are slow, but it’s a unique offering, and one I’m willing to drop $3.99 on until something a little smoother comes around.

Evernote

Evernote is a popular, simple note-store service the puts everything in the cloud, and makes it accessible across a wide range of devices. The web app is particularly good, and the version for the PlayBook is more than enough to reference old notes, and create new ones. There’s full integration with the camera and microphones so you can attatch pictures and audio, as well as any other files. You can also keep your notes organized by Notebook as well as tags. There’s no rich text editing unfortunately, so updates to notes with hypertext links need to be appended in a separate section. The really great implementations of Evernote generally have tight integration with native services (for example, by offering a “Send to Evernote” link in the browser menu), but I have a feeling we won’t even see that with the big February update. The biggest downer right now is the lack of offline access, and with a Wi-Fi-only tablet, that’s a situation you’re going to be out of coverage often enough. At least it can connect if you’re paired via Bluetooth to a BlackBerry handset.

While I’m still getting used to using the Evernote service on a daily basis, it’s a great place to keep all of your miscellaneous scraps of information handy, especially in lieu of any native stand-alone memo app. Combined with the BlackBerry smartphone version of Evernote, this is practically a good, Bridge-enabled memo app. Unless you use Evernote a lot, it’s free and supremely useful.

That’s it from my list, but what about yours, new PlayBook owners? Find any particularly great apps, or are you holding out for the great deluge of Android titles next month? Feel free to let us know your top picks in the comments.

From Verizon, you’ve got the Samsung Stratosphere and HTC Droid Incredible 2; from AT&T, there’s the HTC Inspire, BlackBerry Torch 9810, and Sony Ericsson Xperia Play; from Sprint there’s the LG Marquee; finally, T-Mobile is offering the LG myTouch T and Q, and the HTC Wildfire S.

Best Buy’s after Christmas sale ends tomorrow, so better get hopping.

Verizon has knocked $80 off the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, asking $349.99 on a two-year contract for the 16 GB model, or $449.99 for the 32 GB version. Verizon has also reduced the price of the HTC ThunderBolt by $80, and is now $69.99 on a two-year commitment.  The Samsung Continuum, Verizon Jetpack LTE hotspot, and Samsung Fascinate have all had their on-contract prices slashed by a modest $20, but they’re all free (or close to it) at that rate. The Samsung Droid Charge and LG Revolution are both $70 on-contract after having $30 shaved off the usual device cost. Finally, the Motorola Droid Pro is free after $50 off, and the Droid Bionic is $80 after $70 off and a two-year contract. Costco is selling the Droid Bionic for $100, but they’re tossing in some accessories.

Sure, these are mostly older phones, and the savings aren’t exactly mind-blowing, but if you were in the market to pick up a new phone from Verizon anyway, this would be a good chance. You can get started on any of the above deals at their holiday sale landing page here.

This is a very progressive move, and shows how we might be able to reign in the always-connected lifestyle BlackBerry, and now smartphones at large, are promoting. The responsible thinking goes, “just because I can check my e-mail doesn’t mean I should”, but in practice, it’s hard to say no to a blinking red light.

The issue is one that both employees and their bosses are having issues coming to terms with; do you just turn off the faucet, like Volkswagen did here, and potentially lose some productivity, but gain some employee happiness? Or do you leave it on and expect employees to answer e-mails all night long, but offer overtime just for carrying around a smartphone? Of course, having a union on your side helps cement an agreement that’s favourable to the employee, while anyone else might have a hard time convincing their boss not to send e-mails after 6 PM.

How many work e-mails are you expecting to answer over the holidays? Is it fair for employers to ask workers to always be on call? Would you need extra compensation to be put in that position?

[via BBC]

While mobile and online aren’t a big part of BBM Canada’s business right now, it’s within their reach if they ever wanted to help advertisers get into the app space. The term “BBM” has been in parlance for awhile now, but RIM didn’t really start using it themselves until their signature BlackBerry Messenger app became a focus of their marketing efforts a little over a year ago. BBM Canada earned the name from its initial branding as the “Bureau of Broadcast Management”.

I could see how bothersome it might be trying to operate as BBM Canada, and always getting calls from various partners that are actually trying to get a hold of RIM. On top of that, BBM Canada did lay the first claim on the name, tried negotiating in good faith, and RIM would have done some cursory Googling due diligence before launching into their marketing campaign, and must have simply ignored these BBM Canada guys. The worst-case scenario is that RIM has to pay up, and start marketing BlackBerry Messenger rather than BBM; best-case scenario is RIM negotiates for the previous offer and gets to keep using BBM, so long as they pay for BBM Canada’s fees.

Man, poor RIM. These guys just can’t get a break.

Update: RIM has issued a statement on the matter…

“Since its launch in July 2005, BlackBerry Messenger has become a tremendously popular social networking service. In 2010, RIM started to formally adopt the BBM acronym, which had, at that point, already been organically coined and widely used by BlackBerry Messenger customers as a natural abbreviation of the BlackBerry Messenger name. The services associated with RIM’s BBM offering clearly do not overlap with BBM Canada’s services and the two marks are therefore eligible to co-exist under Canadian trademark law. The two companies are in different industries and have never been competitors in any area. We believe that BBM Canada is attempting to obtain trademark protection for the BBM acronym that is well beyond the narrow range of the services it provides and well beyond the scope of rights afforded by Canadian trademark law. RIM has therefore asked the Court to dismiss the application and award costs to RIM. Further, for clarity, RIM’s application to register BBM as a trademark with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) is pending and we are confident that a registration will eventually issue. The inference by BBM Canada that CIPO has refused RIM’s BBM trademark application is quite frankly very misleading.”

[via Globe and Mail]