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Five Killer Travel Apps for BlackBerry Users

by alec on January 7, 2012

Anyone who follows my 4Square updates on Twitter will know that I travel a lot.  This week it was a quick jaunt to Waterloo.  Next week, I’ll be in Las Vegas for CES 2012.  In February I’ll be at BlackBerry DevCon Europe in Amsterdam, and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.  And in March, I’ll be taking a short vacation with my wife and kids!

With that in mind, here are the killer travel apps I use on BlackBerry.

The big Kahuna is BlackBerry Travel.  I’ve used other apps in the past, on other mobile devices, but BlackBerry Travel blows them all away.   When you first book a trip, the incoming email from your travel agent triggers the creation of an itinerary on your behalf, that BlackBerry Travel then manages and updates in real time from that point forward.  Forget to book a hotel?  It suggests one.  Gate changes at the airport?  You already know, because Travel knows.  And on arrival at your destination, Travel updates your LinkedIn profile to let folks know that you’ve arrived.  Plus it has local and destination weather updates, points of interest, and more.  Free from RIM.  Alternatively, Tripit is a similar app to BlackBerry Travel – a little less automated, but with more itinerary sharing options.

BlackBerry Traffic is the next.  BlackBerry Traffic is a simple nav system that uses GPS to provide turn by turn directions to your destination.  It finds your destination from an address, and then barks out directions clearly and loudly, taking into account real time traffic information, even when left on the passenger seat.  In fact, it can even message ahead to let others know your time of arrival!   Travel is simpler than a full blown nav, like the brand-name system I paid $70 for on my previous phone, but it gets the job done quickly and efficiently, and the price is right.  Free, from RIM, and BBM enabled so you can easily share it with your friends as well!

For local search, I use Poynt.  Poynt is a local restaurant, event, and shopping guide all rolled into one.  Need to find a restaurant?  Poynt knows.  Tickets to an event?  Poynt knows.  Also free.  Urban Spoon is also available for older BlackBerry’s.

See you next week in Las Vegas!

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Happy New Year!

by alec on January 6, 2012

It’s been kind of a crazy 2011.  As a result of that, this space has been neglected.  Truth be told, it hasn’t been just due to being busy, though.  It has also been due to figuring out the relationship of Saunderslog.com to my new role at RIM.

Last week, Andy Abramson wrote that there used to be more bloggers.  In the early days of the VoIP industry, there was definitely a cabal of sorts – a crew of folks who wrote steadily about stuff that mattered. Often opinionated, often right, sometimes wrong, and always entertaining.   Andy, you’re right.  We need more bloggers again.  And I’m going to make it a New Years resolution to be one of those voices again.

But my voice is going to be a little different.  It’s going to be tempered by the fact that I now represent one of the largest players in the smartphone industry.  Even though this is my personal space, you can’t change the fact of my employment. 

Happy New Year, and see y’all next week in Vegas at CES. 

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New Beginnings @BlackBerryDev

September 28, 2011
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In early 1999, I experienced a technology that would change the world.  From the backseat of a taxi in Las Vegas, I edited a press release on a RIM 950 Inter@Active pager.  It was an early device, with email but no real PIM capability to speak of.  Still, it was enough to open my eyes [...]

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Pent up demand for Playbook Applications?

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Playbook first tablet to be FIPS certified

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The Blackberry Playbook is now the first tablet to gain FIPS certification, which means that it meets US government standards for data security and encryption.  Playbook also won Best in Show and Best of FOSE in handheld devices at the federal government IT conference in Washington DC this past week. This certification and these awards [...]

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Seesmic’s decision reflects on their business, not Blackberry

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Yesterday the Seesmic team blindsided RIM with news that they would no longer develop Seesmic for Blackberry.  They were very public about it, and the only explanation offered was they would “discontinue support for Blackberry in order to focus development efforts on our most popular mobile platforms: Android, iOS, and Windows 7.”  The press seized [...]

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Living with Playbook, two months later

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When RIM launched the BlackBerry Playbook in mid-April, I grabbed one and started using it.  You might have noticed that I didn’t write about it the time.  The same as other writers, my initial take on the Playbook was that it had a lot of promise but wasn’t ready for prime-time.  Some websites didn’t work, [...]

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RIM: Re-imagining “Phone” again

May 30, 2011
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The knives are out for RIM’s top management, but the financial press is missing the boat as they focus on short-term results. In 2002, the company remade the fledgling smartphone industry by releasing the first devices – Blackberry 5800 series – with integrated enterprise class email.  The arms race was on, as Microsoft and Palm [...]

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Who’s making money in mobile handsets?

May 17, 2011

Asymco has published one of the better pieces of analytical work on the mobile handset industry seen on blogs in a long time.  Author Horace Dediu has tracked operating profits for 8 handset vendors over the last three years, and plotted them on various charts.  He shows the rise of Apple, the complete collapse of [...]

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Does Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype change anything?

May 10, 2011
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So Microsoft has acquired Skype for $8.5 billion.  Whew!  It’s a breathtaking sum, especially for a company who’s bread and butter is the prepaid telecom business. Of all those rumoured to have been in the hunt for Skype, however, Microsoft was the suitor most able to take advantage of Skype’s network, ecosystem, and technology.  Their [...]

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