Rapidsoft Technologies

Research In Motion just released a sneak peek of BlackBerry 6.0. Right after the first sneak peek from WES 2010, today RIM posted the second preview of the prospective version of BlackBerry OS with video highlights and some updates that would come to the new OS, namely social integration at the system level, a more streamlined interface and support for gestures and other touch features.

The posting of new BlackBerry OS makes us think that RIM is planning to launch a new line of touchscreen BlackBerry devices. And almost all of the interface elements would appear to be touch-based with virtual keypad, similar to iPhone.

What else would BlackBerry 6 offer in its last release? We would see Facebook integration, Twitter and BlackBerry Messenger with the inbox, native RSS integration, new web browser based on WebKit, which would power Mobile Safari and the browsers on Android and webOS etc. The wireless backup and wireless restore features are also be available in this new version.

BlackBerry 6’s final release has been scheduled later this summer. Now we are waiting for the users’ feedback regarding the workflow of this new version.

Android users can now download Kindle App for reading e-Books on their devices. The Kindle Store currently contains more than 620,000 books. Like the other Kindle mobile apps, Kindle for Android can save and sync the books and can bookmark across all the devices Kindle app is now available on other leading smart devices such as BlackBerry, iPhone and iPad as well.

Android’s 4.3 inch screen is about to flood the market. And there are two most popular, HTC EVO and the upcoming Droid X, with the large screens and high resolutions that just scream “digital media,” whether that media is HD video or a good book. Kindle App can run on these devices and most importantly  as Android is an open source platform; users can customize the screen and font colors, screen brightness and font size to make their reading experience as comfortable as possible.

We can say, the release of Kindle app is really real-time button. Let us see how many users will be using Kindle App or buying e-books from the Kindle Store any time soon!

A couple of months after the BlackBerry Twitter app, Research in Motion (RIM) is announcing its full launch. Now BlackBerry users can access any user’s profile via an auto complete function. This app also includes language support for several additional non-English languages, including French, Italian, Spanish, German, EU and Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, Korean and more.

During the beta program, users used to have the features like editing retweets, image previews, Geo-Data functionality, and auto completion for usernames and spam reporting etc. Now full release of the app can be found on BlackBerry App World in the social networking category.

Twitter users were thrilled by the news of accessing Twitter from BlackBerry. Now rolling out from Beta version of Twitter’s official BlackBerry app would clearly shape the evolution of this kind of social networking application.

An Auto-Tune app for Android device came to the market. It is really good news for those who are Hungry for some portable Auto-Tune action. It’s been used for megahit web series, Saturday Night Live, digital shorts, Facebook status updates and Chatroulette pranks.

iPhone’s “I am T-Pain” app hit the Apple iPhone App Store just because it has the ability to auto-tune and it  records your voice according to specific user settings. Now the release of MicDroid Auto-Tune App is throwing a challenge to this iPhone App.

Just put your mouth near the mic, record your voice (sing a song instead), then use the supplied options to pitch and tone to your satisfaction. Now, you’re just a few touch screen taps away from potentially joining the ranks of today’s YouTube viral video makers. The early version of MicDroid didn’t have the bells and whistles like the ‘I am T-Pain’ app. But its final version is showing a lot of features!

MicDroid records your vocal efforts and applies the auto-tune treatment afterwards, and saves it as a .wav file. Amazingly, you can set your vocal efforts as your ringtone by long-clicking on the recording, once it’s been saved.

It’s not yet quite as fun as the T-Pain app which automatically tunes your rhymes as you spit them, but MicDroid is just a work in progress at the moment, so, this feature could be added in the future.

Ok. Then who will be the loser?

In one of posts, last month, we wrote that if Apple breaks AT&T deal, nobody can say whether opening up with another cellular network would be a benefit for Apple or not. Even, it is too early to tot up who would be the ultimate loser.

Meanwhile, we can see how much profit did AT&T and Apple’s iPhone drive in the last quarter?  It looks like Apple’s iPhone is selling like hotcakes while AT&T is reaping the profits in the U.S. AT&T’s profits rose by 26% in the last quarter to $4.01 billion with 1.6 million new wireless subscribers. So which phone got such a huge number of new customers?

With the end of AT&T – iPhone exclusive deal, should we expect any material negative impact? AT&T has commented that it would keep iPhone Customers. But according to their statement to SEC, as the exclusivity arrangements is about to stop, they expect to continue to offer such handsets (based on historical industry practice), and they believe that the service plan offerings will help their subscribers retain by having incentives not to move to a new carrier.

Let’s come to Apple iPhone’s corner. More than 80 percent of AT&T postpaid subscribers are using Family Talk Plans and business plans that would involve moving the whole group to a new carrier once the deal with iPhone will end. Moreover, the vast majority of AT&T postpaid subscribers are accumulating unused minutes (known as ‘rollover minutes’). It is a plan that is currently not offered by other major post-paid carriers in the United States. And users would lose these minutes if they switched carriers.

Users would not be able to bring AT&T iPhone to Verizon. For that you would have to buy a new device compatible with its CDMA network as AT&T’s phones operate on a GSM 3G network. So switching to other cellular network would be costly for them who have Family Plan with AT&T; because the prospect of buying an entirely new iPhone is unappealing, even if they sell off the old phone.

We may see that the prospective carrier of iPhone would come up with smart marketing strategy, incentives to switch and more reliable 3G network to attract customers once their AT&T contracts expire. But analysts say, loss of current customers may not be immediate, but AT&T would lose them, slowly, but surely.

It is true that AT&T scored some credits for the massive amount of mobile data growth since the launch of the iPhone. But all of its efforts to upgrade its network won’t be enough when other networks would come to play.

Some other opinion regarding this deal say, if AT&T stays as the exclusive carrier of the iPhone for a few more years, you can bet that millions of Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint customers would eventually cave and switch to the iPhone. If, on the other hand, it ends by the end of 2010, the incentive to switch to AT&T would go up in a puff of smoke.

There is a rumor that RIM is working on a tablet category device; but it would be a BlackBerry companion device. This device would not be able to work standalone and it will need a BlackBerry device that will connect it either via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

Now the question, do we really need such a companion device? Is there a market for this device which could only work with BlackBerry tethered? A group of market researchers say, it is a misstep just like Palm when they had come up with Foleo which got killed before its shipment.

This device offers 8.9” display screen. But, BlackBerry users have no use for such a large screen.  When they want to type a longer e-mail or surf, they usually pull out their laptop. Will this tablet be perfect enough for touch typing on the screen?

There can be a good reason. As BlackBerry is considered as an enterprise device, enterprise customers may not want to buy lots of new BlackBerry phones and they can put the companion tablets into the hands of all their employees connecting to the BlackBerry via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Maybe, for that reason, BlackBerry is developing this add-on device that enterprises can buy to leverage their investment behind BlackBerry.

Some people are commenting that few users may buy it just because of the Apple’s iPad hype. RIM might assume that only iPhone users are crying about lack of tethering on iPad. So they wanted to cater to this market gap. But can it be the competent market for coming BlackBerry companion tablet?

Ohh, Yes! These two titans of the smartphones industry are getting ready for a battle. Once again, an epic battle is about to start.
People have always asked about which mobile system has the more advanced users. Before searching for the valid answer, we would like to ask what makes the smartphone platforms so popular? The most obvious answer might be Apps. We can say, apps would be the biggest battleground for the Smartphone platforms, especially for iPhone and Android.
Both Apple and Google always try to boast of how many apps their respetive appstores have. Apple has more than 200,000 while Google has some 30,000. Among all these interesting apps, gaming and entertainment apps are mostly popular.
Meanwhile, we saw a few multiplatform game apps that can be ported to any platform. We can take the examples of “Skies of Glory”, “World of Warcraft”, “Final Fantasy XI”, “NOVA “and “Sandstorm”. It’s good to know that Android and iOS games can connect with one another. But, if we think about the features of the gaming apps, it would be a food-for-thought on which device will the users prefer. With that, the Smartphone market must split for some time.
So, we see a good enough reason that there will be an iPhone vs. Android arena at all times…

When cats and dogs viral walk with iPad have become crap in recent day, we found a really touching story of a 100 year old woman.
We saw an iPad has changed the life of a 100 year old woman. It is really story of Virgina Cambell of Lake Oswego, Oregon. By nature she is an avid reader. She is suffering from vision problem due to Glaucoma that affects her vision and makes it difficult for her to read books. Using her iPad she could read books and wrote some limericks by using its virtual keyboards.
It proves that not only the bunch of Gen Y’s just horsing around iPad. Now we see, the iPad can really help such an old person and that’s great.
has refined the user experience to the point where iPad is a very basic computing product to users. So age is not an issue when technologies are able to simply use the device to do what users expect to be able to do. In this case, the technology is enabling a person who has had a loss of vision to regain access to an activity she loved – reading – with a device that is able to help her do what she could not do easily anymore.

OpenSpot Android App offers users the ability to update a map when they leave their parking spots and share with others who are looking to park.

This app is pretty simple and easy to use. It pulls up a Google map near your current location and displays open parking spots within a 1.5km/0.9 mile radius of your standing point. Spots are marked for twenty minutes and after that time, they automatically disappear from the map. When you leave the spot, you just mark it on your phone and alert those around you, that a new spot is available.

But there are some limitations in this Android app. There is a potential for a spot to be taken before you get to it. Even if you mark a spot as “fresh” (within five minutes), it might not confirm whether the spot is available on the app! If there was a way for users to confirm that they have “taken” a spot in the system, the process could have been better. Another big issue is that the app can be useful only if it gains widespread adoption. It will likely be useless to you if you don’t have other users using the App. Also, they must mark the nearby spots

Would anyone be interested in using such an app where there are some inherent limitations? We will wait for the final version of the app. Meanwhile, let us know your comments.

Mozilla just entered the app economy. It has submitted its Firefox Home to Apple’s iTunes App Store. As per Mozilla’s statement, it gives iPhone users instant access to their Firefox browsing history, bookmarks and the set of tabs from their most recent browser session. Firefox Home for iPhone is a part of a broader Mozilla effort to provide a more personal Web experience with more user control. Earlier Mozilla had come up with Fennec, the official mobile version of the Firefox browser.

We hope Apple would approve the Mozilla app without much trouble. Few months ago, Apple approved Opera Mini browser competing competitor to Safari Mobile. In the mean time, Firefox became a great addition to any heavy Firefox user’s arsenal.

Now it is time to see how Mobile Browsers matter in app economy.