A new feature available in select BlackBerry® 7 smartphones (such as the BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900/9930 and BlackBerry® Torch™ 9850/9860 smartphones) is the Compass functionality. You can also use the Compass with location-based applications – such as the BlackBerry® Maps application that might be preloaded on your BlackBerry® smartphone – and is designed to provide you with information like driving directions, or your position in relation to points of interest. You can also use the Compass application to determine your direction in relation to the Earth’s magnetic poles or to true north.

Today I’ll show you how you can get up and running with the Compass so you use can take advantage of Augmented Reality apps such as Wikitude – a great way to explore the world around you!

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog »

LBS nation, we have good news! The Wi-Fi® geolocation service officially launched on September 9th, 2011. This in-house technology at Research In Motion® (RIM®) uses Wi-Fi Access Point data that’s been collected anonymously by your BlackBerry® smartphone to provide a quick and accurate location fix to location-aware applications globally. This service is a further enhancement to our Cell-site geolocation service, which has been in service globally for more than a year.

Unlike GPS-based location fixes, this service offers a faster and more convenient way for developers to get location fixes via a secure connection with minimum bandwidth usage. Although the accuracy of this service is lower than GPS, it’s higher than Cell-site geolocation, and the speed is expected to be much faster than GPS. One advantage to Wi-Fi geolocation service is that it typically works even when GPS is not available. For example, when a user is indoors or when a user prefers not to turn their GPS on in order to preserve battery life, Wi-Fi geolocation service is still an option.

The APIs needed to acquire Wi-Fi geolocation fixes have been available since the BlackBerry® 6 OS release; therefore, all devices running the BlackBerry 6 OS and higher are able to leverage this service via existing APIs upon provisioning of this service. Please note that service provisioning may take up to a month from the launch date, so we’re asking for your patience and understanding if it doesn’t start working immediately. For APIs and other relevant technical details, please refer to the KB article Location APIs – Start to finish. You can also leverage Simple Location API if you want to get a head-start by skipping the full details.

I am really excited about this service as it opens up a lot of possibilities for innovation and great apps. Let us know when you integrate your app with this service, and let us know how it goes!

One of the great new additions to Facebook® for BlackBerry® smartphones 1.9 is the ability to let your friends know where you are using Facebook Places. Want your friends to meet you for sushi? Using this new feature, you can easily check in and tell them where you are!

But before you get started, there are a few simple steps that you’ll need to take to properly allow the application to find your location and check you in to your favorite Places.

By default, the option Share my Location with Facebook is disabled (unchecked) and may also appear as a non-editable/grayed checkbox. This option will remain grayed out until the application is able to determine that you have allowed Facebook to use Places and you have accepted the Places disclaimer.

Read more at the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog »

It was so busy at CES last week that there was some content recorded that we couldn’t get up during the show. For instance, my interview with Brian from Loopt about their social LBS application for BlackBerry smartphones. Loopt offers local content to help you meet up with nearby friends, explore new places to grab food, and find local events happening around you.

You can download Loopt for free right now at BlackBerry App World™.

Poynt has been a popular LBS (Location-based Services) BlackBerry smartphone app for as long as it has been available to download. Recently, Poynt has moved out of beta and launched, so I wandered over to the Poynt kiosk at the BlackBerry booth to speak with Margaret about the new release and key Poynt functionality. I also got to see their cool real-time Poynt display. Check it out!

If you are using BlackBerry® Messenger, we have a neat way to send your location to your friends. Choose “Send Location” while you are in the conversation screen.*

Your friend will receive a visual description, with a map and a pointer to where you are, in the conversation window of your friend. 

If your friend does not have the latest version of BlackBerry Messenger or BlackBerry Maps installed, they will receive the location information as a URL. If they plug the URL in any desktop internet browser, it will display a map and your location in the browser.

*Note that you and your contact need a device with 4.6 and above with BlackBerry Maps installed to take advantage of this feature.