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If you own a BlackBerry Tour, you'll be happy to know that there is update to your operating system available from Verizon. BlackBerry Tour OS 4.7.1.61 fixes many glitches, enhances features and has been reported to give the BlackBerry Tour an all-around speed tune-up.

Before you complete your BlackBerry Tour update make sure to backup your data. You can get the  BlackBerry Tour OS 4.7.1.61 through Desktop Manager.

To  Back Up Data:

Open up the Blackberry Desktop Manager Program and click on Backup and Restore.

There were previous reports of sticky trackball problems with the BlackBerry Tour. Other problems reported with the BlackBerry Tour were muffled voices with Bluetooth use as well as GPS and nav software appearing when not activated by the user.

According to Verizon here's what this BlackBerry Tour update does to make your life easier:

• Delete emails while composing messages, for greater efficiency.
  
• Save contacts with only a company name.
  
• Add email accounts in the simplified setup wizard at a moment's notice.
• Geotag your photos and find a GPS connection with our BlackBerry Tour GPS upgrade.
  
• Get music quickly and easily with V Cast Music with Rhapsody.
• Enjoy smooth playback of your music through your device.
  
• Enjoy crisp, vibrant video with the video player upgrade.
  
• Keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road with simplified headset set up and removal.
  
• Make calls quickly and accurately with improved dialing from the home screen.
  
• Keep things organized more easily with recycle bin enhancements.
• Be on time every time with the improved alarm application.

Previously, RIM briefly released BlackBerry Tour Update 4.7.1.53 and then pulled it.

T-Mobile has started offering T-Mobile Complete, a pre-packaged no-annual contract solution that offers the value of a monthly plan and the first pay-in-advance BlackBerry smartphone from a national U.S. carrier. Prepaid BlackBerry smartphones include the BlackBerry Curve 8520 for $299.99 and BlackBerry Pearl flip for $149.99.

With T-Mobile Complete, customers can choose from four handsets starting at $59.99, which includes first month free. Customers can also choose from a range of unlimited plans starting at $50 per month. T-Mobile Complete is currently available nationwide at Best Buy and at select  Walmart locations.

AT&T says it will sell the" best value in" its BlackBerry smartphones  the BlackBerryCurve 8520.

The BlackBerry Curve 8520 has a full QWERTY keyboard and touch-sensitive trackpad for easy typing and navigation, built-in Wi-Fi and an advanced media player, plus dedicated media keys. The BlackBerry Curve 8520 also provides global connectivity via phone, email, text, IM, picture messaging and social networking, with Facebook and My Space apps preloaded.

This Curve also comes with a high-resolution 320x240 display a 512 MHz processor, 256 MB of Flash memory, and a 2 megapixel camera equipped with video recording.

AT&T users of the new BlackBerry Curve 8520 can enjoy access to the nation's largest Wi-Fi network with more than 20,000 U.S. hotspots -- including approximately 7,000 Starbucks locations.

The BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone will be available in the coming weeks for $99.99 after mail-in rebate. (Pay $199.99 and receive $100 AT&T Promotion Card. 2-year agreement on a min. $69.99 plan required.) AT&T smartphones require the purchase of a monthly data plan. New customers can use the Wireless and Mobile News $50 off online only coupon-link for new customers with an AT&T contract.

Attention football fans, before you head out for Thanksgiving you must be sure that your can get the latest football news on your BlackBerry (Pearl, Curve, Storm, Bold), iPhone, or Android/Droid. National Football Post (NFP) will drop-kick you through the holidays with their new free NFP Mobile app for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. NFP Mobile that delivers instant, real-time access to NFP sports content, news and information.

NFP Mobile for Android, BlackBerry and iPhone features all of NFP's popular online content with easy-to-navigate tabs, including:

• Hot News and Rumors.
• Columns from NFP Experts (Matt Bowen, Jack Bechta, Robert Boland and Andrew Brandt).
• Notes from Lombardi.
• Fantasy Football News.
• Scouting Department.
• Daily Jolt.
• Team News - featuring a customizable tab that lets users get up-to-the-minute news on all their favorite teams.

If you're thinking about buying a BlackBerry you may want to think Wal-Mart where they will give you a $100 gift card when you buy a BlackBerry with a contract.  Buyers of BlackBerry smartphones from all four major carriers: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless with be rewarded with a $100 Walmart gift card.
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The deal ends on Nov. 20, customers will receive a $100 Wal-Mart Gift Card with the purchase of select BlackBerry devices with a two-year contract in Wal-Mart stores and online.

It hard to figure out the online deals, because from the Wal-Mart website you have to click on "click here for online only offer,' and then the price drops even more online  than in a Wal-Mart store. The Wal-Mart online deals are all better. The easiest way to find the BlackBerry deals is to to click on the BlackBerry advertisement that appears on the Wal-Mart electronics page, pictured above.

If you want to learn how to master development, servers and services for  BlackBerry smartphone.  You may want to go back to college.

Research In Motion launched the BlackBerry Academic Program to provide colleges and universities around the world with a curriculum and course content to offer courses in administering and supporting the BlackBerry solution and developing for the BlackBerry platform.

Course content is currently available for mobile application development for BlackBerry smartphones, administration of BlackBerry Enterprise Server, and support for BlackBerry smartphones. The curriculum has been developed in collaboration with academic professionals and has been in pilot for over a year.

Sony Music with Azuki Systems will create mobile versions of its artist websites, offering video, photos, news, and more for the music fan on the go with the Michael Jackson's official website will be the first mobile site to launch at  m.michaeljackson.com.

The Michael Jackson mobile website will feature Michael Jackson news, photos and streaming access to classic videos such as "Billie Jean," "Beat It," and the unforgettable "Thriller."
 
The site allows mobile music fans to experience Michael Jackson's celebrated artistry.

The Michael Jackson mobile website is available at m.michaeljackson.com for Android, BlackBerry Storm, iPhone, iPod Touch, and Palm Pre users. Azuki and Sony will roll out full support for mobile browser handsets by the end of the year.

Sony Music will roll out mobile versions of other artists' websites in the coming months.

At the BlackBerry Developer Conference, in the “Final 16” awards event,  judges awarded 7digital Music Store (by DevelopIQ) as the winner of the US$100,000 grand prize in the 2009 BlackBerry Partners Fund Developer Challenge. The free app lets users browse and buy DRM-free music.

Here are the top 3 BlackBerry App  winners.

• 7digital Music Store - (FREE) lets users browse the latest music charts, preview the latest tracks and discover, purchase and download high quality, DRM-free MP3 music directly to a BlackBerry smartphone. The software also comes with an integrated advanced media player that imports your existing playlists and music files.
• Fierce Towers ($4.99) is the first tower defense game for the BlackBerry smartphone. Control the field to stop the waves of attacking enemies as you place upgradeable towers around the field as you try your best strategies to stop wave after wave of invading enemies.
• Kik (FREE not available yet) lets users find, manage and play music files stored on BlackBerry devices.

The runner up in this year’s Challenge, Fierce Towers (by Nickel Buddy), receives a prize package valued at more than US$25,000. An on-the-spot honorable mention and US$5,000 prize was also awarded to Kik (by Unsynced). 

There are many free apps available for the BlackBerry Storm and BlackBerry Tour  our readers love the top free best app articles.

At the 2009 BlackBerry Developer Conference, Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) and Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) tannounced that creative professionals and application developers will be able to use the Adobe Flash Platform technology and Adobe Creative Suite content development and authoring tools to easily create rich content and application experiences for BlackBerry smartphones.

Future versions of Adobe Creative Suite starting with Adobe Creative Suite 5 will provide the ability for designers to create optimized graphic assets, such as image and video content, from tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe After Effects, for the BlackBerry platform.

RIM made some big announcements during the BlackBerry Developers Conference.Research In Motion unveiled a new services platform for developers that offers advertising, payment, content push and new location services.

The BlackBerry Advertising Service will enable developers to integrate advertising into their BlackBerry applications,. The service will feature ads compliant with the Mobile Marketing Association's (MMA) guidelines as well as rich media ads that will be able to deeply integrate with BlackBerry applications.

Examples of this deep integration between ads and applications will include the ability to easily initiate a call from an ad, add a calendar entry or contact entry from an ad, and directly link to an application in BlackBerry App World™ from an ad.

The Ad service will also include real-time, detailed, consolidated reporting of advertising across ad networks, including ad impressions, clicks, conversions and earnings, as well as integration into the Omniture Online Marketing Suit™ for more advanced analytics.

Sprint will be selling the new BlackBerry Curve 8530 smartphone and is taking pre-orders. It comes in royal purple and black. If it's in in purple than is it PurpleBerry instead? Verizon announced it will start selling the BlackBerry Curve 8530 smartphone on November 20 for $99 with a contract.

The BlackBerry Curve 8530 has an easy-to-use,  tactile, full QWERTY keyboard and touch-sensitive trackpad, along with 256 MB flash memory and 528 MHz next generation processor for enhanced performance. The BlackBerry Curve 8530  works with Bluetooth (version 2.1) and comes equipped with  2.0 megapixel digital, camera with zoom and video recording.

BlackBerry Curve 8530 smartphone has dedicated music keys to skip to the next song on a playlist, pause or play. It comes preloaded with several multimedia applications including BlackBerry Media Sync, Sprint Music Store, Sprint TV and Pandora. It also has dedicated applications for a smoothly integrated social networking experience with Facebook, MySpace and Flickr. BlackBerry Curve 8530 will be available in three color options - Black, Royal Purple and Red.

Sprint's BlackBerry Curve 8530 will have access to BlackBerry App World for thousands of applications. Sprint has not set a price for their Gl

Verizon announced it start selling the BlackBerry Curve 8530 smartphone on November 20. The slim BlackBerry Curve 8530 smartphone gives customers access to Verizon Wireless' 3G network, built-in GPS and Wi-Fi capabilities, as well as easy access to music, games and other mobile apps for entertainment on the go. The BlackBerry Curve 8530  comes in Black and Smoky Violet.

It has an easy-to-use, highly tactile, full QWERTY keyboard and touch-sensitive trackpad, along with 256 MB flash memory and 528 MHz next generation processor for enhanced performance.

It has Bluetooth (version 2.1), 2.0 megapixel digital, camera with zoom and video recording and advanced media player for music, pictures and videos, dedicated media keys and a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack, plus BlackBerry Media Sync.

Egnyte introduced Blackberry and Android device interfaces that allow small business users secure access to all their business files via their Blackberry or Android-powered smartphones.

Egnyte's on-demand file server enables both Mac and PC business users to have online file storage, file sharing and automatic backup in one solution. The new interfaces, which require no additional software installation on the device, leverages a mobile drive -- "m Drive" -- that lets mobile users access all of their data stored via the Egnyte file server.

For existing Egnyte users who use a Blackberry or Android-powered smartphone, the new user interfaces allow businesses and professionals to easily navigate folder hierarchies and open and share files using their Blackberry or Android device keypad or touch screen. Last year, Egnyte introduced an iPhone interface following the launch of the Apple iPhone 3G. Following its introduction, users quickly adopted the interface, illustrating the need for mobile data support, as more and more business professionals seek to complete work functions outside of the traditional office.

IDC isn’t the only research company that is reporting a positive outlook for wireless in the fourth Quarter. ABI Research is reporting a slowing of the contraction in the market and calls Android the “dark horse” that could capture 10% of the market in 2010.

“The outlook for mobile handset markets continues to improve”, says Jake Saunders, ABI Research’s VP for Forecasting. “While 3Q-2009 showed a YoY 6.5% contraction in shipments to 291.1 million, 2009 should close out with only a 4%-5% contraction (to 1,138 million for the year).”

Handset vendors are starting to mutter confidently of 4Q-2009 cash tills jingling to the tune of robust handset sales. In 3Q-2009, North America and Asia-Pacific helped to spearhead a recovery. In North America, the avid enthusiasm for smartphones was the driver. In Asia-Pacific, recovery in the local economies has been stoking interest in upgrades.

Market shares are starting to thaw. Nokia saw its market share slip from 38.3% to 37.3% in 3Q-2009. Samsung continues to steam ahead, raising its market share to 20.7%. Despite some very novel handset model introductions in 2Q-2009, LG’s market-share softened in 3Q-2009 (10.9%). All the other vendors either held their ground or lost a small amount of market share.

The prime exception is Apple: its iPhone range of smartphones increased its market share from 1.9% to 2.5%. There have been arguments that Apple’s limited handset line-up will constrain growth, but for the mid-term, ABI Research does not expect any slowdown in Apple’s market-share growth.

“Despite the successes of the iPhone operating system, the leading player in the smartphone OS market is still very much Symbian (48%), followed by Blackberry (18%),” notes practice director Kevin Burden.

“The ‘dark horse’ in all this is Android.” This week Motorola announced the launch of its navigation-friendly “Droid” handset. As the list of vendors committed to releasing Android handsets expands, product momentum should translate into increased Android sales. ABI Research estimates Android could capture 10% of the smartphone market by 2014.

We were wondering if the new touchscreen BlackBerry Storm2 would be included in the  Buy One Get One Free BlackBerry Deal at Verizon and the good news is that if you buy one BlackBerry Storm2, you can get another BlackBerry or mobile broadband device for FREE. The added advantage of buying online is that when you buy the BlackBerry Storm2 you immediately get the rebate included and only have to payout $179.99.

Therefore, you can get another BlackBerry device or mobile broadband device such as the MiFi or a Gateway netbook for free after rebates. If you were thinking of getting a netbook, anyway, this is the best, top, cheapest deal for you.

The BlackBerry Storm2 comes with the latest BlackBerry operating system OS 5.0. The BlackBerry Storm2 features new SurePress "clickable" display technology and built-in Wi-Fi, 480 x 360 display at 184 ppi.

The BlackBerry Storm2 has received good reviews and is an improvement over the first version.  Where it really excells in the email department.  The BlackBerry Browser is improved with faster JavaScript and CSS processing as well as support for Gears and BlackBerry Widgets.

The Gateway LT2016u Netbook comes with Windows XP Home Operating System, is global capable, features a 10.1" display, 1GB of RAM and 160GB of Hard Drive. It features a built-in Web-cam/microphone, Windows Media Player, and  Wi-Fi.

The time is now for original BlackBerry Storm owners to download the latest update to the BlackBerry operating system OS 5.0.  This update improves on the entire BlackBerry Storm experience.

This is an impressive upgrade with typing enhancements, new buttons and it launches camera faster. The image capture is faster. Applications launch quicker. The BlackBerry Storm rotates faster between portrait and landscape views. Also the web browsing speeds are improved.

The typing experience is faster, more accurate and more natural text input experience.
This includes word completion (enabled right out of the box),a virtual QWERTY keyboard in portrait view, and enhanced sensitivity when editing, copying, and pasting. There is now the
 ability to enable Auto Correction as opposed to Word Completion in landscape view. Your mistakes will be corrected for you.

Form more details of the update continue reading.  If you need instructions on how to do the update yourself and what glitches this update fixes check the BlackBerry Storm Update article we published yesterday. Read about the Top Best BlackBerry Storm Free Apps.

As we previously suspected, Verizon announced that the BlackBerry Storm2 will go on sale October 28. The BlackBerry Storm2 comes with the latest BlackBerry operating system OS 5.0. The BlackBerry Storm2 features new SurePress "clickable" display technology and built-in Wi-Fi, 480 x 360 display at 184 ppi.

The BlackBerry Storm2 has received good reviews and is an improvement over the first version.  Where it really excells in the email department.  The BlackBerry Browser is improved with faster JavaScript and CSS processing as well as support for Gears and BlackBerry Widgets.

Customers running BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 will gain the ability to set follow-up flags, manage e-mail folders, access remote files (Windows Shares), forward appointments, view calendar attachments, and more. First gen BlackBerry Storm owners note OS 5.0 is now also available for BlackBerry Storm first gen users.

We checked the Verizon website today, to see if the Buy One Get One Free BlackBerry Deal is still in effect.  Select BlackBerry smartphones are showing "get a select BlackBerry" for free with a two year contract  It would be great if the new BlackBerry Storm 2 would be included in the deal.

The BlackBerry Storm2 smartphone is available beginning Oct. 28 for $179.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement on a voice plan with an Email and web feature or an Email and Web for BlackBerry plan. Customers will receive the mail-in rebate in the form of a debit card; upon receipt, customers may use the card as cash anywhere debit cards are accepted. If you use the Wireless and Mobile News' online purchase coupon-link for Instant Phone Rebate Only Available with Online Purchase then you don't have to wait for the rebate.

Data plans for the BlackBerry Storm2 smartphone begin at $29.99 when added to any Nationwide voice plan. There a lot of great apps available for the BlackBerry Storm.

There are several sources that showing internal Verizon websites leaked that reveal an update to the first gen BlackBerry Storm today at 7:00 pm PDT. to OS 5.0.0.328. The average udpate time will take less than an hour, usually around 20-45 minutes. 

The new BlackBerry Storm2 (which has gotten better reviews than the first BlackBerry Storm) will come already preloaded with the OS 5.0. There are some major improvements in this version of the BlackBerry Storm operating system udpate to 5.0.0.328. The browser is greatly improved and has better rendering of CSS and JavaScript. The 5.0 update offers better screen rotation and a pop-up menu to call a person when an SMS text message is received.

In the BlackBerrry Storm update 5.0, users can increase the number of SMS alerts up to 10 and there improved video/media playing. There's better auto-correction while typing and enhanced sensing of copy/paste. It also adds the quick buttons to access the web, add dates to calendar and send email.

There supposedly will not be an over-the-air update of this BlackBerry update, therefore, you will have take action yourself. You can access the update my visiting the RIM BlackBerry update website to download the file or via your desktop manager where you will see that there is a new update available.

Before you update, be sure to backup your data.

To  Back Up Data:

Open up the Blackberry Desktop Manager Program and click on Backup and Restore .

Blogs that publish leaked documents usually don't reveal their sources. The latest rumor which apparently comes from the Verizon employee internal intranet blog shows the "all channel release date" of the BlackBerry Storm 2 to be October 28.

A PDF file that sort-of-looks like a Verizon document hows the price before the Verizon $100 rebate to be $279.99.  That's a twenty dollar drop from the first gen BlackBerry Storm when it was released later than it's original release date in November, last year. Stores are reportedly receiving their launch kits on October 24.

In forums, members are reporting the Verizon managers have gotten email notification of October 28 as the launch date.

Google has updated Google Maps for mobile for BlackBerry to 3.2. The new maps for BlackBerry includes layers You can view many layers of information on your map at the same time. Layers make it easier and more useful to find and interact with geographic content, like public transit, traffic (with incidents!), local search results, Latitude friend locations, Wikipedia and more.

You can also see your own My Maps content as a layer on Google Maps for mobile. And finally, multiple layers can be combined at the same time to give you a content-rich view of what's around you.

Layers make it easy to view various types of information on your map and are especially helpful in situations when you're traveling somewhere new. For example, you can turn on the Wikipedia layer to read entries about nearby places, then use the transit lines layer to help map out a route. Or you can use the My Maps feature of Google Maps to create a collection of places you're planning to visit on your trip and then use Google Maps for mobile to access it from the road. You can also turn on the Google Latitude layer to see your friends' locations.