The LinkedIn app update makes it even easier to stay connected on the go by allowing you to sync and merge your LinkedIn connections with existing BlackBerry contacts in your address book. And, with the new “Groups and More” tab, you can view saved and recommended jobs and access, add, view and participate in the groups that matter to you most.

Jobs

The new LinkedIn “Groups and More” tab allows you to access even more key areas of LinkedIn right from the navigation screen, including jobs. With this feature, you can easily access the jobs you’ve saved and browse ones that are recommended for you. And remember, when you’re done looking at jobs you can get back to the main navigation screen by tapping the LinkedIn logo at the top left-hand corner of the app.

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry for Business Blog »

Happy Friday #TeamBlackBerry! It’s Five Tip Friday, and today I’d like to share five reasons why you should consider using Social Feeds – a great app built right in to BlackBerry® 6 OS and BlackBerry® 7 OS smartphones. Using the Social Feeds app, you can stay up to date with your social networks and receive the latest RSS news and information from your favorite blogs and websites – all in one location.

Before we begin, if you aren’t familiar with Social Feeds, check out my post on How to use Social Feeds 2.0 to learn more.

1. Add your own Bit.ly® account

The next time you want to share a link with friends, you can send them a short link that will be created using your Bit.ly account. This will allow you to measure things such as how many clicks your link got and from which countries your link was viewed (one of my favorite stats!). To add your Bit.ly account details to Social Feeds, complete the following steps:

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog »

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

With the release of BBM™ Music you can now listen to your favorite songs, share music with your BBM friends and even receive recommendations on new music you might be interested in right on your BlackBerry® smartphone¹. The best part of all is you can try BBM Music for free².! The length of the free trial will vary by carrier – so, check with your carrier for details!

As of today, if you use a BlackBerry® 7 smartphone with data service provided by AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile or Verizon, an icon for the BBM Music application will now appear on your smartphone. If you are interested in installing the app from the BlackBerry App World™ storefront in order to start listening to and sharing music with your BBM friends who also have the app , open the Media folder on your smartphone and select the BBM Music icon. If you cannot see the icon for BBM Music, your BlackBerry smartphone may be associated with a BlackBerry® Enterprise Server. If this is the case, please contact your BlackBerry administrator for assistance with installing the BBM Music app. If you do not have a BlackBerry administrator, follow the instructions below to scan the QR code for the BBM Music app.

Note: AT&T customers using BlackBerry® 6 and BlackBerry® Device Software 5.0 will also have this icon appear on BlackBerry® Bold™ 9000 and 9700 smartphones as well as the BlackBerry® Curve™ 9300 smartphone. The icon will appear on your home screen or in the Downloads folder on your BlackBerry smartphone. Selecting this icon will open BlackBerry App World which will allow you to download and install the BBM Music app.
For those using a different wireless service provider or if the icon for BBM Music cannot be found on your BlackBerry smartphone, open BlackBerry App World and search for BBM Music, or scan the QR code below while browsing BlackBerry App World (Menu key > Scan A Barcode).

After installing BBM Music, check out the post, Getting Started with BBM Music over at the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog to learn more about BBM Music such as the minimum requirements your smartphone needs to meet in order to install the app, subscription fees as well how to share music with BBM friends and other features such as being able to listen to music when you don’t have a wireless network connection.

1. BlackBerry ID and data service required. Monthly subscription required for full track access. Songs must be available in BBM Music catalog in user’s home country. Users can have up to 50 songs in their profile and change up to 25 songs per month. Friends must be using BBM Music and have a monthly subscription for you to access their full tracks. Limit of 50 songs per friend. Accessing the service while roaming may incur additional data charges. When traveling outside of home country, only songs available in user’s home country BBM Music catalog are accessible. Songs may be cached to play off-network. Storage card and sufficient available memory required for caching. Songs will only play within the BBM Music app. When users change songs in their profile, deleted songs, included cached copies on their device, are no longer accessible. See http://www.blackberry.com/bbmmusic/legal for complete details and restrictions. Terms subject to change.
2. New BBM Music users only. May not be combined with other offers. Payment information required to receive full trial period. Following trial user placed into automatically renewing monthly paid subscription plan unless cancelled before end of trial period. Limited time introductory offer may vary by BlackBerry device or carrier. Additional charges may apply. Subject to change. See http://www.blackberry.com/bbmmusic/legal for complete details and restrictions.

When BlackBerry® 7 OS was released in August 2011, one of the pre-installed apps is the Wikitude app, which allows you to discover your surroundings in a completely new way. For example, you’ll be able to see places, points of interests and even your BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) contacts (if they have allowed you to be able to view them) through your camera’s field of vision – a truly engaging and immersive experience.

Recently Wikitude has been updated to support select BlackBerry® 6 smartphones, so today I’ll be providing a brief overview of how to install Wikitude as well as some of the features it offers.

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog »

With the recent release of BlackBerry® 7, I want to share some battery saving tips to help you get the most of your BlackBerry smartphone – for both BlackBerry 7 and BlackBerry® 6. Listed below are several tips I use that you can start taking advantage of today.

If you’ve got a tip on how to extend battery life, leave a comment and let us know as we may feature your tip in an upcoming post. Let’s get started…

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog »

Being able to find information on your BlackBerry® smartphone is really easy thanks to the Universal Search feature built into BlackBerry® 6 and BlackBerry® 7 OS smartphones. Universal Search is designed to allow you to search for help, contacts, documents, files, photos and other information right from the BlackBerry smartphone home screen.

Today I’d like to provide an overview of how Universal Search works and why you should start using it to help you stay on top of almost everything!

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog »

Taking photos using a BlackBerry® smartphone with v6.0 device software or BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet is really quick and easy, and allows you to capture great photos in plenty of different environments. Today I’d like to provide an overview of some of the options available when taking photos so you can customize them as you see fit, as well as take advantage of some options you might not have previously used.

For this post, I’ll be focusing on BlackBerry® 6 device software, so if you are using an earlier version of BlackBerry device software, check the user guide for more information on available camera options. If you don’t know which version of BlackBerry device software you are currently using, check out our post on How to Identify your BlackBerry Device Software version.

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog »

One of the things you should know if you own a BlackBerry® smartphone – or plan on purchasing a BlackBerry smartphone – is which version of BlackBerry® Device Software it is using. This is important information, as certain applications and services require you to be using a minimum version of the software.

Today I’ll show you how you can quickly identify which version of BlackBerry Device Software you are currently using, and where you can go to see if updated BlackBerry Device Software is available for your particular BlackBerry smartphone.

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog »

At BlackBerry® DEVCON 2010, we were honored to have the CEO of Sencha, Abe Elias, join us on stage during the keynote to showcase their new CSS3 tool: Sencha Animator. As part of our work with the great folks at Sencha, they pledged to bring the Sencha Touch Mobile JavaScript Framework to the BlackBerry platform.

I am very pleased to announce today that Sencha has released an update to their Sencha Touch Mobile JavaScript Framework that brings support for the BlackBerry® 6 operating system. For those unfamiliar with Sencha Touch Mobile JavaScript Framework, it is an impressive web framework based entirely on HTML5, CSS and JavaScript® that is designed to bring an incredibly powerful set of components to help create web apps that look and feel like native applications. The Sencha Touch Mobile JavaScript Framework 1.1 release today not only brings support for BlackBerry 6-enabled touch devices such as the BlackBerry® Torch™ 9800 smartphone, but it also supports the upcoming BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet.

To get started, developers should download the framework, and then check out the Sencha Touch Learning Center, where they will find code samples, videos and tutorials. To get an idea of what is possible using the framework, there are a variety of demo applications showcasing the breadth and power of the platform.

To help encourage our developer community to adopt the Sencha Touch web framework, I am pleased to offer a free BlackBerry Torch 9800 smartphone to the first ten developers that submit an application to BlackBerry App World™ storefront using the new framework for either the BlackBerry Torch 9800 smartphone or the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. Restrictions apply. See the Terms and Conditions for complete offer details.

UPDATE: In less than 24 hours, we have reached over 10,000 downloads of Facebook for BlackBerry Smartphones v2.0. To make sure more of you can download the app, 10,000 more beta trials have been added to BlackBerry Beta Zone!

I’m excited to announce the beta release of the Facebook® for BlackBerry® smartphones app v2.0 through BlackBerry® Beta Zone starting today. The Facebook app team here at Research In Motion® (RIM®) has been working hard to incorporate the feedback we have received from our users to make v2.0 the biggest update to the Facebook application since we released v1.0 more than three years ago. This initial release of v2.0 has a redesigned user interface and also offers Facebook Chat!

Below are some of the new features of Facebook for BlackBerry smartphones v2.0:

Facebook Chat

You can now check to see which of your Facebook friends are online and start a Chat conversation from within the Facebook application or within the unified mailbox on your BlackBerry smartphone.

On Facebook for BlackBerry smartphones, as long as your status is set to online, you still receive notifications even if you are not using the Facebook app.

Improved News Feed

Improved News Feed interactions enable you to scroll through your News Feed without accidentally clicking ‘Like’; you can simply click the ‘More’ button (+) to interact with your friends’ posts. Enhanced publisher functionality allows you post photos to your Wall, add an update, or check in to a Facebook Place from the News Feed.

New Navigation Control

By introducing a whole new way to navigate the Facebook for BlackBerry smartphones application, we’ve moved from a static navigation bar to a drop-down navigation control that is scalable to support new features in the future.

Notifications Bar

Borrowing from the BlackBerry® 6 OS’ “Today View”, the notifications bar offers an easy way to access your Facebook Notifications, Messages, Friend Requests and Chats from anywhere in the Facebook application.

External Notifications

You don’t have to leave the Facebook for BlackBerry smartphones app to see what’s new on your device. The BlackBerry smartphone external notifications header lets you see when you’ve received a new email message or BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™) message without having to leave the Facebook application.

New Profile UI and Profile Information Viewing

The New Profile UI now provides Wall, Info, and Photo tabs for an even better browsing experience. New to v2.0 is the ability to view key information on Profiles and Pages, such as contact info, basic info like birthdays, hometown and relationship status, and likes and interests.

Head over to BlackBerry Beta Zone today to be one of the first users to join the beta for Facebook for BlackBerry smartphones v2.0! As this is an early preview, we have a limited number of beta spots open. Also, please note the initial beta release will be available for BlackBerry 6 users only, but support for BlackBerry® Device Software 4.6 and higher will be added in subsequent beta releases and will be available in the official version.

Try it out and let us know what you think!