I picked a great time to start blogging for BlackBerry. The anticipation for BlackBerry 10 has been so exciting for us community managers, and we know how excited you are too! We’ve received a lot of questions about BlackBerry 10 recently, and while I’d love to answer all of them, I focused on the five questions that kept coming up.

Here’s a list of the top five questions for BlackBerry 10:

• Question 1: How will BlackBerry10 make our lives easier? What makes it more user-friendly?
• Answer: I’m lucky enough to have had a lot of hands-on experience with a new BlackBerry 10 device. While it took a little getting used to, I quickly became its biggest fan. There are so many features that make using your smartphone easier; BlackBerry Hub and the peek feature are my new best friends!

• Question 2: What is your favorite feature of BlackBerry 10?
• Answer: I love that BlackBerry 10 is customizable enough for mobile techies, but simple enough for beginners. And BlackBerry Balance allows you to use your BlackBerry 10 device for both. It’s a smartphone you (and your IT manager) will love.

• Question 3: Which BlackBerry device will be available?
• Answer: We’ve showed many videos of the BlackBerry 10 touchscreen devices on the Inside BlackBerry Blog. While we love the touchscreen device, we know BlackBerry fans also love the physical QWERTY keyboard. Rest assured, we will have both versions available in the future. We’ll have more info available on January 30th.

• Question 4: What is the one defining characteristic that truly sets BlackBerry 10 apart?
• Answer: The reengineered operating system, or OS! As Thorsten Heins told the world: We went right back to the drawing board to create BlackBerry 10. BlackBerry 7 OS is a great operating system, but we wanted to bring our customers something brand new. And with BlackBerry 10, we have.

• Question 5: What’s new in BlackBerry 10 that you haven’t told the media yet?
• Answer: Oh, there are more features coming, believe me. And the best place to hear about everything BlackBerry 10 is right here on the Inside BlackBerry Blog.

What’s your burning question about BlackBerry 10? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more answers!

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To say that I’m a car nut is an understatement. That’s why when the folks at QNX offered to walk me through an exclusive demo of their new technology concept car, I jumped at the chance. The connected car has always been a hit at CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) for QNX; just last year they outfitted an award-winning Porsche. But this year they have truly outdone themselves with a connected Bentley Continental GT featuring a custom dashboard and 17inch curved DLP screen. Words can’t do it justice – so check out this video below:

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

That is truly impressive. Here’s a quick recap of the technology behind the car which, by the way, shares its heritage with BlackBerry 10:

• First in-car touchscreen digital light processor (DLP) that blends advanced graphics and physical controls
• Reconfigurable digital instrument cluster that can be changed on-the-fly
• Quality audio experience with Ultra HD Voice and AT&T Watson and realistic stereo telepresence
• Real-time interactivity with car via smartphone
• LTE connectivity as well as a Wi-Fi hotspot for devices brought into the car

How does a QNX equipped car fit in with BlackBerry 10?

They’re built on the same tried and true technology and branched from the same source. For the QNX car, we added in the things automotive companies expect and removed the things that they don’t need. These identical underpinnings allow us to do something unique, which is to draw on the mobile development ecosystem to give car makers something they want – an app ecosystem. The QNX car makes use software development being done for BlackBerry 10, such as browser optimization, power optimization, and file system improvements, and we also have technology assets for BlackBerry that are a natural fit for the connected automotive experience; things such as mobile device management, secure communication channels, graphics frameworks, encryption and authentication, and application stores and delivery.

All of this has lead to the QNX team being awarded a Design and Engineering Showcase Award at CES 2013.

For more details and a behind-the-scenes “Making Of” video, swing by the QNX Auto Blog – then be sure to share your thoughts on the car.

Last week I wrote about a new NFC mobile payment option we launched with some of our partners. Today, I wanted to take a moment to give you some more information about NFC (near field communication) and how it will turn smartphones into “smarter phones.”

In a nutshell, NFC is a data transfer. NFC possesses two types of information transfer: emulation or peer-to-peer (P2P). In emulation mode, it allows a user to replicate all activities directly from their NFC-enabled mobile device; in P2P mode, information can be shared back and forth between mobile devices.

One of the coolest things I’ve observed lately is the integration of NFC on devices beyond smartphones and tablets. Recently, Dutch publishing firm Elektor International Media released the first NFC-enabled book: Catch the Sun, a book about ballooning, features NFC tags on its cover and select pages within. When readers with NFC-enabled BlackBerry® devices click a tag located within the book, they are directed to an Elektor-hosted website to get more information about the section of the book they’re reading. I love that this is a meaningful way of bringing technologies like traditional book consumption into a digital age.

With all the possibilities of NFC-enabled BlackBerry devices – such as enhancing foursquare “Check-in Stations” and automating your life – where do you see NFC going from here? Let us know by sharing your opinion in the comments below.

We’ve posted new information on screen resolutions that the new BlackBerry® 7 smartphone operating system will support and we’ve even posted new simulators for each – read on to find out more!

Back at our BlackBerry World™ conference in May, we introduced the world to the new BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 and BlackBerry® Bold™ 9930 smartphones and the new BlackBerry 7. We recently followed that up by launching a BETA of the BlackBerry 7 SDK with the BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 simulator on our BlackBerry® Developer Zone website to enable developers to start testing and optimizing their BlackBerry® applications for BlackBerry 7. In addition to that, we have opened up the BlackBerry App World™ storefront to enable vendors to start posting their applications for sale in time for launch of the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930. We’ve seen great adoption of the new tools already and have heard from many developers that their existing BlackBerry® 6 applications are running as-expected on BlackBerry 7 without change. However, it is important to note the following two key items as a BlackBerry developer regarding BlackBerry 7 and how you can prepare for launch:

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry Developer’s Blog »

Now that BlackBerry® Java® SDK v7.0 is available in BlackBerry® Developer Zone, it’s time to start getting your apps ready for BlackBerry® 7 in order to ensure that you’re ready to support the new BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 and BlackBerry® Bold™ 9930 smartphones at launch. To help you out, I’ve prepared a little step-by-step guide for getting your app BlackBerry 7 ready.

But before we get into things, it’s important to note the following: If you are currently distributing your apps through the BlackBerry App World™ storefront, you will need to log into the vendor portal and select the apps that you would like to have posted as “For Sale” for those smartphones running BlackBerry 7, because your apps will not automatically be available for these new smartphones. So, now’s the time to start testing, updating, and posting your apps for BlackBerry 7 to be ready for launch.

With all that said, on to the step-by-step guide!

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry Developer’s Blog »