The PIM API provides developers a way to integrate with the core information apps on BlackBerry 10 (Email, COntacts, Calendar, etc). One of the PIM services is “Notebooks”, which RIM describes as:

Notebooks let you create, store, and manipulate lists of actionable or non-actionable items. For example, you might create a notebook that represents a grocery list, which contains items to purchase. Or, you could create a notebook consisting of gifts you’d like for your birthday. You can use the Notebook APIs to add, remove, or update items in notebooks, create new notebooks, and so on.

Evidently these “Notebooks” make up the functionality of the Remember app. But it gets better. You can create four types of Notebooks:

• Generic: notebook stored locally on device
• ActiveSyncMemo: synced to your ActiveSync account as a Memo (note)
• ActiveSyncTask: synced to your ActiveSync account as a Task (a todo item)
• Evernote: synced to your Evernote account… wait what?

Yes, it looks like RIM has deeply integrated Evernote into BlackBerry 10′s Remember app. The Notes and Tasks you create on your device can optionally be synced to an Evernote account, and the rich database of information stored in your Evernote account will be accessible in a powerful BlackBerry 10 core app. This is the deep integration that BlackBerry people thrive on.

How deep does it go?

Looking at the documentation around the BlackBerry 10 Settings, the Evernote integration will be system wide. The account login is managed within the System Settings alongside your Email, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.

89Apps is excited that RIM is continuing the practice of taking these standard system apps to the next level. Just like they have turned the Address Book into a powerful Productivity and Social Media machine, Remember will take the standard Notes/Tasks app and integrate it with important cloud services for storing Notes, Tasks, and Images. We expect Remember and the Evernote integration are just one of the many features RIM will wow us with on January 30th.

Developers like 89Apps have been given early access to BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha devices, but since this is not behind closed doors access, RIM has understandably held a lot back. Part of what has been held back includes:

• Phone app (can not make or receive calls)
  
• Text Messages app (can not send or receive text messages)
  
• BlackBerry Hub (can not view emails and notifications)
  

RIM has generously provided a fully functioning BBM app and Web browser, as well as very functional Contacts and Calendar apps. While fun the test out, these apps are not enough to make the Dev Alpha our primary device.

BlackBerry 10 needs as many apps as it can get, but even more importantly, it needs killer apps. Apps that perfectly complement the new operating system and are well designed to the device’s ergonomics and design guidelines. These sort of apps are not dreamt up and perfected while sitting at a desk developing. These are the sort of apps that will be created by living the BlackBerry 10 experience all day every day.

Developers are motivated to develop for the phone that is with them 24/7, not the phone that is shackled to their office desk. If RIM were to provide Phone, Text, and Hub access to developers, it would guarantee App World will be stocked with more high quality apps. Kevin from CrackBerry has been advised an update to BBM for the Dev Alpha is coming mid-November. Let’s hope this same update is the one that will provide enough functionality to make the Dev Alpha a developer’s primary device. There must be tons of developers ready to swap their SIM cards into their Dev Alphas.

After attending RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Forum yesterday in Ottawa, two major things stuck out: the event was twice as big and the crowd seemed 10x as engaged as the last BlackBerry Enterprise Forum event in Ottawa.

While 89Apps does not fit into the target demographic for these events, which cater to the IT administrators of medium and large corporations/government departments, it is always an interesting opportunity to meet folks from an important part of the BlackBerry customer base.

Another big difference at yesterday’s event compared to last year was the speakers. This year the event was kicked off by Andrew McLeod RIM’s Country Manager for Canada, a higher profile speaker which indicated how important these customers are to RIM. Following Andrew’s presentation and a look at RIM’s suite of mobile device management solutions was what the crowd seemed most excited for: the live BlackBerry 10 demo.

Jamey Schein, RIM’s Manager of Carrier Product Management, took to the stage to show off the Dev Alpha device running a recent version of BlackBerry 10. This demo did not detail anything that had not already appeared in past demos, however much of the crowd seemed to have been seeing it for the first time. One neat thing was a brief glimpse of Docs To Go which looks fantastic on BB10. Jamey mentioned the work his team is doing with the carriers, which has included demoing the BlackBerry 10 devices to the C-level executives at Bell, Rogers, and Telus and that they have gotten very enthusiastic response from these executives.

Events like this are a perfect lead up to the release of BlackBerry 10. It is reassuring to see the progress RIM is making and, as an app developer, it is comforting to meet excited BlackBerry customers who are excited about the future of BlackBerry.

In our last post about finding the best Twitter client for the BlackBerry PlayBook we pointed out our favourite, Blaq by developer Kisai Labs. While we praised what Kisai Labs has done with Blaq we also had some nit picking requests that would make Blaq perfect.

Soon after that initial post, an update for Blaq hit App World with some user interface enhancements. It looks like Kisai must have also had the same gripe with the Tweet Cards covering the timeline, because this update solves that! Rather than our idea of moving the Tweet Cards to the right, Kisai had a better idea of shrinking the width of the timeline so that it would no longer get covered up. Perfect!

Thanks to Kisai Labs and Mr JCarty for the continuing great work on Blaq. PlayBook users everywhere appreciate what you have done for the platform.

Get Blaq from BlackBerry AppWorld for your PlayBook today.

RIM has only teased a few features of BlackBerry 10 to the public. The camera, keyboard, and universal inbox. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Here is what we’re looking forward to seeing demonstrated at BlackBerry Jam Americas on September 25:

• Docs To Go: a Cascades-ified version of Docs To Go will be coming with BB10 and will be a key app for RIM to show off their design, efficiency, and productivity skills. Perhaps RIM will use this office suite as a prime example of well designed Cascades apps and give developers a level to aspire to
• BBM + Video Chat: BBM and Video Chat are going to be better integrated than on the PlayBook. With BlackBerry ID becoming your single identity across devices, BBM and Video Chat are going to become even more interesting. Among the unofficial leaks are some hints RIM is taking video chat to the next level with the inclusion of a screen sharing feature so that you can share more than just video – a web page, game, app, etc (thank goodness for real multitasking!). Another often overlooked feature of RIM’s video chat is the ability to make Audio Only calls like Skype
• Flow and Peek: You may have heard RIM mention these concepts in the teasers so far, but what does this mean? Flow describes how you will move through the phone. Not just a fancy way to switch apps, but a flow that will move from app-to-app as you get things done – data and context following you as you flow. Flow will also bring parts of other apps into the apps you use, as a sliding-in card. Peek is a way to quickly look at things in the flow, such as the universal inbox and notifications. Say you are in the Universal Inbox, selected an email, and reading a PDF attachment – BlackBerry 10 will let you peak back several layers up to check your inbox with a single gesture. These two concepts will be demonstrated in detail, as RIM details how to achieve them to developers
• PlayOn: BlackBerry 10 will extend beyond the smartphone or tablet whenever possible. This includes freeing your media from a mobile screen/speakers and playing it on near by screens and sound systems.
• Widgets: Though BB10 will not feature widgets in the Windows/Mac/Android sense, it will enable your frequently used apps to display a widget-like interface when minimized on the homescreen. These widgetized apps will always be a peek away, meaning you are never far from the apps you flow between.
• Universal Inbox (email), Calendar, and Contacts: these three apps are central to the BlackBerry experience, and BlackBerry 10 will continue that legacy. The Universal Inbox will collect messages from all forms of communication on BlackBerry 10 and also centralize notifications. This is the app that BlackBerry people will live in, so much so that it will not even be an app in the traditional sense, it will be a part of the homescreen interface keeping it always a single gesture away. The Calendar and Contacts apps should prove equally impressive, given the crack teams from Tungle and Gist have had their input on these two critical apps.

This is just a brief list of some of the things we’re looking forward to. There are of course many more exciting aspects of BlackBerry 10 that will delight and empower users.

iPhone fans have often denounced the Android devices with 4+ inch screens as foolish and unnecessary. What will they say when the new iPhone is that size too?

A typical reason for criticizing the larger screen is that they think the iPhone’s screen is the maximum size it can be for easy one-handed use. The problem with this logic is that it is based on the assumption that the current iPhone’s user interface is the optimal design. iPhone apps typically place the constantly used navigation and action controls (back buttons, action buttons, etc) at the top of the screen. This design worked fine on the iPhone’s small screen, but when those navigation bars shift up another 176 pixels… there goes comfortable one-handed use! This is already evident when I use my Galaxy Nexus with apps poorly designed for this screen size.

So what can Apple do? Redesign the standard iPhone app design paradigms to avoid using the top of the screen. Leave the top for content. Pictures, video, less frequently used controls. Keep the constantly needed buttons at the bottom of the screen within a thumbs reach.

They should have a look at BlackBerry 10, a mobile computing operating system newly designed from the ground up. Having observed the short-sighted mistakes made by Apple, the designers at RIM have solved this issue. They clearly had 4+ inch screens in mind. BlackBerry 10′s standard navigation and action controls are designed so that they reside near the bottom half of the screen, optimized for one-handed use. The BlackBerry UI Guidelines lay out the principles of designing apps for the platform. On the principle of Efficient Ergonomics, here is what they say:

Smartphones are used primarily in portrait view. In our busy lives, we often use smartphones with only one hand. Make sure that people can carry out the most common actions in your application with one hand, preferably without changing the grip. On all-touch smartphones, be careful when planning the layout for your application and strive to place the most common actions on the bottom two-thirds of the screen.  For example, a list of search results grows from the bottom so that people can easily reach the top hit with their thumb.. – BlackBerry UI Guidelines

Here is an example of where BlackBerry 10 keeps all navigation and action controls at the bottom and iOS has the navigation at the very top. On a 4-inch screen, which do you think is going to be more comfortable to use?

Another example is the swiping down from the top of the screen to bring down a notifications tray. Both iPhone and Android use this gesture. On the Galaxy Nexus this is a painful gesture, which often requires you to adjust how you are holding the phone. Will Apple leave this gesture the way it is when they move to a larger screen? BlackBerry 10 solved this issue by using a gesture from the bottom-right corner to glance at the recent notifications and flow into the universal inbox. Check out the demo of this from BlackBerry World:

The iPhone is starting to show its age, and evidently has some baggage holding it back. iPhone fans should hope Apple rethinks this part of iOS for the next iPhone if the screen does indeed change for 4+ inches. They could learn a thing or two from BlackBerry 10.

And the BB10, while a nice device with “interesting features,” already comes up short when compared with competitor devices, Mr. Thompson said.

What device? Does he mean the prototype device RIM has given to developers that they will never release to the public?

The 4.2″ screen, for one, is smaller than many on the market,

A 4.2 inch screen is too small? Tell that to Apple’s 3.2 inch iPhone screen that has been selling quite well. He also fails to mention that the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha devices has a higher pixel density than the iPhone 4S and the unreleased Samsung Galaxy SIII.

while the dual-core processor is inferior to the quad-core processors found in Samsung and Apple phones

Kris, which iPhone did you find a quad-core processor? Not any one Apple has released.

Hopefully once BlackBerry 10 is released to the market these analyst reports will stop spreading misinformation about the platform.

When the PlayBook first launched, the only option was an interesting client called Tweedless. It had limited features and some quirks, but it got the job done. In short time two new Twitter apps emerged, both great solutions. TweetBook took inspiration from Twitter’s own iPad app and delivered a fantastic interface with cascading panels that could be slid back and forth for viewing webpages, media, conversations, and user profiles. Though it lacks every feature of Twitter and runs heavy on memory, it is a great solution.

The second app is called Blaq, which describes itself as the “Best Twitter Experience”. It has every feature of Twitter that you will need, and has some more unique features such as a real-time timeline that automatically updates as tweets come in. No need to constantly refresh.

So is it the perfect Twitter app?

It quite likely is the best Twitter app for the PlayBook. But there is one small flaw in the interface of Blaq that can get frustrating.

When you tap a tweet, a panel slides in to show you more details, if the tweet contains a link this panel will load the webpage in a small webview.

Unfortunately the designer of Blaq decided to have this panel overlap the timeline, obscuring a small bit of every other tweet.

Above is a screenshot of what we’re talking about. After using the iPad Twitter app and TweetBook so much, we are used to continuing to read our timeline of tweets while we wait for slow webpages to fully load in the in-app browser. Unfortunately in Blaq, this leaves you with a lot of guess work as you try to fill in the missing words that are obscured by the tweet card.

Surely there was a reason for this design decision? Perhaps most people don’t like to multi-task while they wait for webpages to load like we do. But the PlayBook is all about multi-tasking and the device has enough screen real estate to accomodate it.

Luckily there is an easy solution. Currently the tweet card slides in past the buttons on the right side. This leaves empty space to the right of the card, the same amount of space that currently covers the timeline. Those buttons don’t need to be seen while a tweet card is open, but the timeline certainly does! We’ll keep eagerly downloading the frequent updates of Blaq, fingers-crossed hoping to see this change.

Despite our nitpicking, the bottom line is that Blaq lives up to its claim, it is the “Best Twitter Experience” on PlayBook. Not perfect, but definitely worth checking out on App World.

If you were not able to make it to BlackBerry World / BlackBerry 10 Jam in Orlando earlier this month, this post is for you.

The launch of BlackBerry 10 with the first BlackBerry 10 Jam Conference was so successful, RIM is taking the show on the road and will be coming to a city near you*. These events will provide developers exposure to the new BlackBerry 10 Platform and help them create apps before BlackBerry 10′s launch this fall.

Here are our top reasons why attending the BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour it a must:

• See BlackBerry 10 in person. A YouTube video and blog post don’t do it justice, when RIM unveiled BlackBerry 10 in Orlando you could feel the excitement in the room
  

• Meet other BlackBerry developers. These events are packed with people like you, get out and meet them. You never know what opportunities may arise
  

• BlackBerry 10 Prototypes. Qualified developers will receive a BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device. Basically a mini PlayBook with a high resolution screen for testing your new BlackBerry 10 apps. When you release your app you can trade the prototype in for a limited edition version of the real BlackBerry 10 device when it launches later this year.
  

• Meet RIM’s Developer Evangelists and Application Deveelopment Consultants. The developer relations arm of RIM will be present, offering any help they can to make you successful on BlackBerry 10. Get feedback on your app and ask the experts about any questions you have.
  

• Get a head start. BlackBerry 10 is a new frontier in mobile computing. Get on the platform first with a head start fueled by in-depth sessions, help from experts, and making new connections. Get your app in App World before the platform launches to benefit from lower competition and the excitement of a new operating system.
  

RIM is setting up the launch of BlackBerry 10 to be huge. Attending a BlackBerry 10 Jam show is the best way to get ahead of the competition and make sure your app is at the forefront when this platform launches.

**Find the BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour event near you and register today.**

First-class?

Not satisfied with “good enough”, all of our apps will follow the BlackBerry Design principles and embrace the three tenets of the platform: Flow, Connect, and Extend. This means using the new Cascades user interface framework, integrating with other apps using the Invocation Framework and BBM Social Platform, and using the device’s capabilities to extend beyond the phone (NFC, Bluetooth, Geolocation, multiplle-devices, etc).

Why BlackBerry 10?

BlackBerry 10 represents a new opportunity for everyone. It is an opportunity for RIM to rethink mobile computing and provide a platform designed for the future. This is an opportunity to be at the leading edge of a new platform and take advantage of the opportunities.

Stay tuned for more blog posts as we dive into BlackBerry 10 development. We will share what we learn, thoughts on BlackBerry and mobile, and some sneak peaks on the apps we are building.

2012 will be the start of an exciting time for anyone investing in the BlackBerry 10 ecosystem.