We've seen smartphones with keypads that can spin away from the screen before (see the Motorola Flipout), but RIM seems to have something slightly different in mind with this patent application that was filed back in 2010 and just published today. It describes a device with a keypad that's coupled at one corner, but which can remain operable in at least two positions, or potentially three. That could include a position, for instance, where the screen is partially covered by the keypad and a second where it's below the screen, or one where the keypad can remain below the screen both in portrait and landscape modes -- or even flipped behind the device with the keys still accessible. Of course, it is still just a patent application, so we wouldn't recommend pinning your hopes on this as RIM's next big thing.

RIM patent application describes rotating keypad that can be used in more than one position originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Apr 2012 23:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last month we heard the Curve 9320 was readying itself for a discrete trip to India, and a recent "coming soon" page on T-Mo's site suggests the device could soon be heading to the UK. While the carrier's register sheet isn't revealing many details (save for the teasing photo above), The Inquirer claims the handset's warming up for an eventual launch in May. Of course, don't count on this OS 7.1-packing Curve to change much in comparison to the Indian flavor, as it's still expected to ship with identical lower-end specs, including the 3.2-megapixel rear camera, a 320 x 240 screen and 512MB of RAM. No word no pricing yet, but we're guessing it'll fall somewhere between "mildly tempting" and "almost free."

BlackBerry Curve 9320 shows up on T-Mobile's site, heading to the UK next month? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Apr 2012 06:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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U.S. government sticking with BlackBerry, appreciates RIM's focus on security originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RIM, the maker of the popular BlackBerry smartphone today said it was postponing its earlier scheduled disclosure of the latest company financial figures, preferring to go ahead first with the release of its awaited new BlackBerry 10 models.

With BlackBerry World only weeks away and RIM's earnings report merely hours away, it looks as if newly-appointed CEO Thorsten Heins will be leading it with quite the bang. While Heins has done a truly exceptional job of laying low (really low) during his first few months in the corner office, he's evidently been hard at work rearranging chairs... mentally, at least. According to The Globe and Mail's Iain Marlow, a trusted source has informed him that the BlackBerry maker's head honcho has begun "clearing house," with senior vice presidents and VP-level executives being informed of the imminent changes today. We're tracking down more on the story right now and will update this post as details flow.

Update: The report is up in full, with an unnamed source explaining: "Lots of high level people within RIM were let go today. Quite a few. Big shake up." We're still awaiting official word, which is apt to be found buried deep within the eventual earnings release.

RIM CEO Thorsten Heins reportedly 'clearing house,' laying off numerous executives originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Smartphones are now more popular than conventional mobile phones among the U.S. adults, according to a study released on Thursday, confirming a trend of aggressive spread of these “pocket minicomputers”. 

Continue reading Mobile Miscellany: week of February 6th, 2012

Mobile Miscellany: week of February 6th, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For wary Office 365 enterprises who've been reluctant to dip their toes into the beta pond, today will certainly be memorable in the IT room: Research in Motion has gone ahead and blessed BlackBerry Business Cloud Services as ready for prime time. The software, which has been in beta stage since October, allows BlackBerry users to easily integrate with their firm's Office 365 deployment. Users can expect synchronization with their Exchange email, contacts and calendars, along with the ability to remotely wipe or lock their data should the device go missing. Likewise, IT gurus may take advantage of remote administration and wireless activation of the handsets. The software is free and will work for all medium-sized and enterprise subscribers of Office 365. So go ahead and uncork that dusty bottle of champagne, or absent that, feel free to flavor up the Folgers a bit. The press release just after the break, and you'll definitely want to prepare yourself.

Continue reading RIM welcomes Office 365 users into the fold with BlackBerry Business Cloud Services

RIM welcomes Office 365 users into the fold with BlackBerry Business Cloud Services originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Research in Motion, regardless of how you may view its recent history or its long-term future, still has a stronghold on the corporate world. Its lineup of BlackBerry smartphones are known for great battery life, comfortable keyboards with intuitive shortcuts, top-notch native email and Enterprise clients and -- most important to businesses -- unrivaled security features. Sure, its influence is waning as competitors have caught up in some areas (and surpassed it in others), but there are plenty of companies that have clung to their CrackBerries and held on tight.

RIM's been hard at work trying to regain lost momentum by introducing a series of new devices featuring its latest OS, BlackBerry 7, and the BlackBerry Bold 9900 / 9930 series has been the star of the show so far. The problem is, it's not flashy enough. How is a C-level exec supposed to walk proudly on the golf course with a $300 (subsidized) phone? Talk about embarrassing. Have no fear, poor corporate top dog, luxury brand Porsche Design has come up with a solution: the $2,300 BlackBerry P'9981, a Vertu-ized version of that lesser handset you wouldn't be caught dead using.

The P'9981 is available only in the UK and the Middle East for now, so until the device arrives in the US this Spring, anyone who lives stateside will have to rely on retailers to import some in. Fortunately we got the hookup by our friends at Negri Electronics, who happily lent us one of the few handsets they have in stock. As a result, we're now able to discuss the real questions circling around such a Richie Rich smartphone: what in the blue blazes makes this so expensive? Is it even worth it? How different is it from a standard BlackBerry Bold 9900? You'll find these answers and plenty of mysteries unravelled after the break.

Continue reading BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9981 review

BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9981 review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We rarely meddle with stock news around these parts, but this was a pretty significant piece of meat to chew on. After Research in Motion introduced Thorsten Heins as the new CEO last night and again in a conference call this morning, the company's stock price tumbled a whopping 8.47 percent. When it comes to what kind of difference the transition will make for the struggling company, we haven't had a high amount of confidence; while we hope for the best and want to see RIM turn things around, the falling stock appears to indicate that we're not alone in expressing concerns about this morning's events. Here's some food for thought: when rumors that Samsung was interested in purchasing RIM flooded the internet, the latter company's stocks spiked by nearly ten percent.

RIM stock falls eight percent following CEO transition originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For a brief moment, I had hopes that RIM had made a move that would unseat it from the funk it's been sitting in for years. And then I watched the introductory video of newly-appointed CEO Thorsten Heins. Anyone who assumes that a simple CEO swap is the answer to all of RIM's issues is woefully misinformed, or worse, just blinded by false hope. Sure, removing Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis -- both of which have been rightly criticized for not responding to market pressures quickly enough -- is a start, but it's not like they're gone. In fact, the two are still situated at a pretty fancy table within Research in Motion's organizational chart.

Have a listen at this: Mike is hanging around as the Vice Chair of RIM's Board and Chair of the Board's new Innovation Committee. You heard right -- the guy who has outrightly failed to innovate at anything in the past handful of years is now championing an innovation committee. Sounds right up his alley, no? Jim's staying put as an outright director, and if you think anyone at RIM is going to brush aside the input of the founders, you're wrong. Jim and Mike may have new titles, but they're still here, and I have no reason to believe that they'll act radically different going forward than they have in the past. Oh, and about Thorsten Heins? Let's go there.

Continue reading Editorial: RIM's new CEO isn't the shakeup it needed

Editorial: RIM's new CEO isn't the shakeup it needed originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After months upon months of investor backlash, RIM's making some significant changes. And by "significant," we mean the co-chief executives (and founders) are out. As of tomorrow, both Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis will be stepping away from the top posts, enabling "a little-known company insider" to take over, according to The Wall Street Journal. Purportedly, this is all part of "a board and management shuffle," with COO Thorsten Heins (seen above) to step into what many expect to be an impossible role to thrive in. The Globe and Mail asserts that he'll be immediately seeking a Chief Marketing Officer to polish up the company's severely damaged brand, and he "will not rule out licensing RIM's new BlackBerry 10 operating system to other handset manufacturers." In an interview with the outlet, he stated that he'll be executing "flawlessly" and with vigor -- not unexpected, but still, bold words.

Startlingly, Heins also asserted that he's "confident" in the existing lineup of BlackBerry handsets and the software update recently made available for the PlayBook; call us crazy, but he'd be wise to just spout out reality and make clear that RIM's existing lineup is nowhere near competitive in the grand scheme of things. As for Mike and Jim? The former will become "vice-chair of the board with special duties to examine innovation," with the latter becoming a traditional director. In an interesting move, outgoing co-CEO Lazaridis stated the following: "I think it's that unwillingness to sacrifice our long-term value for short-term gain. That's why we didn't choose Android. That's why we decided to build the future on QNX." So wait, RIM had the chance to choose Android... and didn't? No time like the present to reach back and shake things up, Mr. Thorsten.

Update: Catch an introduction video to the new CEO just after the break!

Continue reading RIM's Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis are out, new CEO Thorsten Heins may license BlackBerry 10

RIM's Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis are out, new CEO Thorsten Heins may license BlackBerry 10 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Thus far, the Waterloo-Stuttgart wünderchild's been scooped, made official and even toyed with back at this year's CES. What hasn't happened yet, is a proper review, but until that joyous day comes we'll take what we can get in the form of this quasi-teardown, courtesy of the FCC. Those with stellar memory and a keen eye will recall we'd seen it pass through governmental annals once before, yet at that time any revealing imagery of its internals were strictly verboten. That's changed, as that once barren page now houses a PDF titled "Temp Confid_Internal Photos" which conveniently splays three snaps of the teutonic device's interior. Sure, it isn't a proper iFixit dissection -- ripe with details and color -- but it'll probably be the closest anyone will get to the innards of the $2,000 BlackBerry for quite a while. Read this far? Go on, don't be shy, espy the governmental shakedown at the source link below.

RIM's BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9981 gets splayed by the FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Porsche Design's executives use BlackBerry religiously, so when the time came for the luxury brand to consider adding smartphones to its portfolio, Research in Motion was a natural -- and perfect -- fit. Problem is, BlackBerry phones don't necessarily exude the luxury look and feel necessary to attract Porsche Design's customer base, so CEO Juergen Gessler got in touch with RIM to see if the two companies could collaborate on a phone that would take the best of BlackBerry and combine it with Porsche's premium design. Presto, the device now known as the P'9981 was born. We had the chance to behold the phone with our own eyes and hold it in our hands, so go past the break to read more about what we thought.

Continue reading BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9981 hands-on (video)

BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9981 hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bosses of http://smartphone.biz-news.com/news/tags/en_US/Microsoft and http://smartphone.biz-news.com/news/tags/en_US/Nokia have carried out several discussions in the recent months with the Canadians from http://smartphone.biz-news.com/news/tags/en_US/RIM (Research in Motion), the manufacturer of BlackBerry phones, in an attempt to build extensive partnerships regarding the future of RIM, company whose shares have reached the minimum value of the last eight years.

Canadian smartphone manufacturer Research In Motion has announced today in Jakarta two new models from the series running the new operating system Blackberry 7. The new smartphones, BlackBerry Bold 9790 and BlackBerry Curve 9380, will be offering a unique design and an impressive suite of features.

iPhone is leading the smartphone market in terms of sales, but smartphone users can also be divided by income: a study conducted by prospermobile.com, shows that the brand of mobile phones most used by the rich is BlackBerry. The study was conducted in June 2011 by interviewing about 25,000 respondents.

BlackBerry maker RIM offered to help the police in Great Britain to identify the protesters in the main cities of the Kingdom, after several days of violence that produced, on Tuesday, the first victim.

Canadian manufacturer Research in Motion has introduced on Wednesday three new Blackberry models: Torch 9810, Torch 9860 and Bold 9900. The new phones, along with an upgrade of Bold unveiled just few days ago, are part of what the Canadian company calls "the biggest global launch of the company”.

Research in Motion, the company producing Blackberry devices, has announced yesterday that is to fire 2000 employees. The measure taken by RIM represents another proof of the delicate situation of the Canadian company. RIM has also announced yesterday on Twitter that today will post new about the two Blackberry smartphones running on the OS 7.

Adobe today released much awaited updates to its Flex 4.5 and Flash Builder 4.5 software. The new release enables developers to create cross-platform apps successfully for iOS, Android and BlackBerry.

Nokia mobile phone market share dropped from 30.6% to 25.1%, reaching its lowest level since 1997, selling in the first quarter of 2011 107.6 million units, according to a study made by the research firm Gartner.

Research In Motion (RIM), the manufacturer of the popular Blackberry phones, has recalled from the market 1,000 copies of the new-released tablet, PlaybBook, because of problems with the operating system that could pose difficulties in the initial installation of the gadget, writes Reuters, citing overseas media.

Opera Software has just announced that the Opera Mobile Store is now open and available at mobilestore.opera.com. The Opera Mobile Store has been built and delivered through a partnership with Appia and offers both free and paid applications for virtually any mobile platform and device.

The worldwide mobile operating system market will be dominated by Symbian and Android, as the two OSs will account for 59.8 percent of mobile OS sales by 2014, according to Gartner.