It’s that time of year, #TeamBlackBerry students — you’re cramming to make the grade, and hopefully you’ve got all the right credits to ace your finals and graduate (with honors!). But what about life after school? Have you thought about what you’re going to do in the “real world”?

Sorry if I gave you a bit of a scare there (or sounded too much like your dad). While you ponder your future, check out my top 5 apps for grads to help you along:

1. Evernote: Life is busy and your brain is stuffed to the brim with knowledge. Evernote is simple to use and helps you keep track of all your notes, files, pics, and audio notes as they happen. Click on over to Evernote for BlackBerry® smartphone and Evernote for BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet, so you can give your memory a rest. Also works great as a study aid for that final exam!

2. SideSwipe: The world is busy place, and as you embark on your next adventure, you’ll definitely want to keep tuned in to worldly events as they happen. SideSwipe is a nice news aggregator for BlackBerry smartphone.

3. Top Gear: Now that you’re all grown up, you might be looking for a new car. The ones featured here may be a bit out of budget, but that’s also another thing you need: motivation! A grad can dream, right? In the meantime, you can practice driving your dream car with Top Gear for BlackBerry smartphone and Top Gear for BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

4. InstaPhoto: Unless you have a superhuman memory, those magical moments of graduation won’t last a lifetime if you don’t capture them. InstaPhoto is my favorite way to customize your images and share them with your friends, family, and the world via social media. I, for one, happen to think that my pictures look way better with trendy filters on. Snap this one up and snap away!

5. Poynt: After you graduate, you may find yourself in a brand new city for a new career or your next adventure. Poynt is designed to help you find what you need and keep you connected to where it’s at. You can even make in-app purchases on things like movie tickets, make reservations at local restaurants and take advantage of local deals. Wherever you go, you’ll want to make sure Poynt goes with you by using Poynt for BlackBerry smartphone or Poynt for BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

You may not have locked down what you want to do with your life, but rest assured these apps will help you enjoy the journey a little more. Got a favorite app that you couldn’t have survived school without? Let us know in the comments.

It’s that time of year again, #TeamBlackBerry (the most wonderful time of the year, some would argue) – the big football game is happening on Sunday, February 5th, 2012, and if you happen to have a BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet handy, we want to help you keep up with the action! There’s a ton of great apps available for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet that can assist you in tracking stats, checking scores, playing some virtual football yourself and even throwing an awesome party. (Because really, who can resist a good football tailgate party?)

The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet can help you get the most out of Sunday football fun, and we think you’ll agree – it’s a great way to stay connected during the big game! This tablet multitasks better than any other, so you can plan, cook, watch, play, chat and trash-talk while you watch at home, at a friend’s, or at the bar.

You’ve got two days left until kickoff, so don’t delay – equip your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet with these applications today and get ready to score a touchdown.

Pro Football Insider for BlackBerry PlayBook – NFL News

“Pro Football Insider” – sounds catchy, doesn’t it? And it could be you, once you’ve armed yourself with all the knowledge gained with this handy BlackBerry PlayBook tablet app from Pro Football Weekly, LLC. If you’re looking to get the most up-to-date game info and stats immediately, this is a must-have app during Sunday’s matchup.

Patriots Football Insider for BlackBerry PlayBook

For all the diehard New England fans who’ve got their fingers crossed for Tom to bring home the big prize, this app is for you. Thanks once again to Pro Football Weekly, LLC, New England fans can use this BlackBerry PlayBook tablet app to obtain in-depth coverage and expert analysis on their favorite team.

MADDEN NFL 12 by EA SPORTS for BlackBerry PlayBook

If you’re looking to completely round out your entire day of football madness, why not play some football during the commercial breaks? Madden NFL 12 by EA Sports for BlackBerry PlayBook puts the game in your hands. Think you can control a better game than the New England or New York? Step up and give it a shot!

For a limited time as well, MADDEN NFL 12 is just $3.99 USD in the BlackBerry App World™ storefront! Download the app for your Blackberry PlayBook tablet now and get the hard hitting action just in time for the game!

Poynt for BlackBerry PlayBook

Now that you’re equipped with sports apps for both research and play, it’s time to find a place to watch the big game. If your living room just won’t do – or if you’re still cleaning confetti out of your carpet from New Year’s Eve – then consider downloading the Poynt® for BlackBerry PlayBook app and start searching for the best venue for your get-together. The app is designed to display any number of restaurants and pubs close to your location, so you’re sure to find a spot that works for everyone.

Groceries Made Easy

If you do choose to go the house-party route, then one thing a good tailgate party needs is tasty snacks. Think about it: what goes better with football than chicken wings, or chili, or guacamole, or…well, you get the picture. The Groceries Made Easy app will help you keep track of what you need to pick up at the supermarket in order to feed your party guests – and ensure that you don’t run out of salsa by halftime.

Photo Editor Extreme

Did you notice that the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is equipped with front and back-facing cameras? All the better to snap photos of your friends cheering on their chosen teams! Once you’ve got some good ones, use Photo Editor Extreme to edit, crop, flip, and create genuine works of art out of your photos – then share them across your social networks. Which brings us to our next app choice…

Blaq for BlackBerry PlayBook

Providing live-running commentary on sports events has become commonplace now that Twitter® has exploded in popularity, and discussing the game across the Twittersphere is absolutely fun. Not only are you watching and talking about the game with your friends in the room, but with people all over the world as well! Blaq for BlackBerry PlayBook – which runs in real time – is just the app to help you do so.

And of course, aside from these app choices, we’d be remiss to not include the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet’s host of handy built-in features. Use Video Chat to discuss the latest plays with friends, boot up the Browser to search for bits of trivia about your favorite football players, watch play-by-play videos with YouTube®, launch the Video Camera application to capture all of your party’s memorable moments…the list goes on.

What do you have planned for Sunday’s matchup, #TeamBlackBerry – and will you have your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet in hand to help out with the action? Do you have any other apps to add to this list? Let us know in the comments!

#1 – Poynt

(YouTube link for easy mobile viewing)

Poynt received the most mentions among #TeamBlackBerry, and is definitely one of my must-have apps. With Poynt, you can quickly find restaurants, movie theaters and other businesses around your current location – and easily call or email them right from the app. Their BlackBerry PlayBook tablet version is amazing, too – and works with the BlackBerry smartphone version to do some cool things. For example, check out the video above to see how you can find the phone number of a local restaurant using Poynt, and then push the phone number to your BlackBerry smartphone to start the call!

Download Poynt for BlackBerry smartphones
Download Poynt for BlackBerry PlayBook tablet

#2 – BlackBerry Travel

It doesn’t matter if you’re a serious “no checked baggage” business traveler or a “seeing the world” backpacker, BlackBerry® Travel is a must-have, second only to your toothbrush. When you receive an email from your travel agent, BlackBerry Travel can automatically import the details and create a trip record for you. If there are any flight changes, BlackBerry Travel is designed to alert you right away and can even suggest alternate flights. The recently released BlackBerry Travel v1.1 even allows you to book a rental car right from the app.

Download BlackBerry Travel for BlackBerry smartphone

#3 – Tube Map

This is great app suggestion from our #TeamBlackBerry UK members. Whether you live in London or plan to visit (for holiday, for the Olympics, or for a decent cup of tea), you can easilynavigate London’s subway with Tube Map. Tube Map is designed to provide you with more than just static maps, you get live updates of train delays and schedule changes, too.

Download Tube Map for BlackBerry smartphones

#4 – foursquare

Foursquare isn’t just for becoming mayor of your local watering hole, it’s also my go to tool for finding cool things around me when I’m traveling. I can launch the app and see what my friends are up to, or use the ‘Explore’ section to see what’s trending around me. The locals always know where the best places are, and there’s no better way to find out where they are then with foursquare!

Download foursquare for BlackBerry smartphones

#5 – Navita Translator

Nothing is worse when traveling in a foreign country than not being able to ask for directions or for a recommendation from a local. Navita Translator makes sure you never have to go through that (again) by designing the app to let you quickly translate any phrase and even read the phrase back to you in languages like English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, German and Russian. ¿dónde está el baño? Nice!

Download Navita Translator for BlackBerry smartphone and BlackBerry PlayBook tablet

Post a comment and let us know of any great travel apps that may have been missed. Make sure to send us more top 5 ideas for future posts too, either in the comments or with a tweet to @BlackBerry / @BlackBerryBlog.

Please note that to take full advantage of these BBM connected apps, you must first download BBM 6. The BBM 6 update and BBM connected apps may take up to 24 hours to appear in the BlackBerry App World™ storefront for some users.

Check out some of the new social experiences BBM 6 enables:

(YouTube link for easy mobile viewing)

More BBM status updates via BBM connected apps

BBM 6 allows for more status updates on your BBM profile when you use BBM connected apps. BBM 6 features a custom area within your BBM profile where BBM connected apps can insert status updates (such as high scores, trophies, achievements, etc.). For example, you can choose to let your BBM friends see your recently earned foursquare badges or your highest level in Dark Galaxy.

I personally love this new twist on BBM status updates because it allows me to venture out and share even more of what I do on my BlackBerry smartphone with my friends on BBM.

Share BlackBerry app experiences with your friends via BBM 6

With BBM now integrated into many of your favorite apps, the apps you love just became socially-enabled. That’s right – news apps, games, sports apps, productivity apps and multimedia apps – are experiences you can now share with your BBM friends. Select BBM contacts right from the app to invite them to download the app or join in on the fun. For example, imagine inviting a BBM friend from across town or across the globe to play a game of Backgammon King by Magmic – all without ever leaving the app.

(YouTube link for easy mobile viewing)

Start a BBM chat from within a BBM connected app

Many BBM connected apps allow BlackBerry smartphone users to have a BBM chat within the app. The video above shows how easy it is to start a BBM chat from within ScoreMobile after checking the latest sports scores to lay down a little trash talk in support of your favorite team.

Discover BlackBerry apps through friends via BBM 6

I’ve already told you how you can let your friends know when you’ve discovered a great new app via BBM 6. But, do you know you can also discover apps via your BBM friends’ profiles, if they decide to share? With BBM 6, you can launch or install the app by clicking on its icon within your friend’s profile update. This means you can discover great apps simply by reading the profiles of your trusted friends.

Tip: Look for new BBM connected apps to be added to BlackBerry App World. You can easily spot them on BlackBerry App World by looking for the “BBM connected” app icon. To help get you started, we’ve compiled a list of the connected launch apps below. Post a comment and let us know which apps are your favorites!

News and Sports:

• ScoreMobile
• Navita Sports
• Goal Mobile
• Placar UOL
• Huffington Post
• Azteca Noticias
• TVGuide

Location and Travel:

• Poynt
• foursquare
• Navigator
• Celebrate with Mobiesta – A Fun App for India
• asklaila Streetsmart
• Navita Translator

Music:

• Nobex Radio

Games and Entertainment:

• Jingu
• Backgammon King
• Forces of War
• Pocket Ants
• Photo Booth
• Battles on BBM
• Dark Galaxy
• Villains

E-commerce and Finance:

• Mercado Livre
• El Economista

Productivity and Collaboration:

• PowWow
• PowWow Premium
• Gist
• FileScout – the complete File Text Zip and Image Manager

If you’re like me, you must find yourself checking the BlackBerry App World™ storefront on your BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet everyday to see what’s new, what’s popular, and what’s featured. I recently tweeted that I was going to write a post for the Inside BlackBerry blog on what your favorite BlackBerry PlayBook tablet apps are…and the responses were both awesome and overwhelming! Based on the feedback, I now present the Top 5 BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Apps – as chosen by #TeamBlackBerry.

#1 Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook tablet

The Facebook® for BlackBerry PlayBook tablet app was the most mentioned app and a personal favorite of mine. It also received a nice update recently, so read more about that here: Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Update Now Available. With BlackBerry Tablet OS v1.0.5, we’re also preloading Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook on all BlackBerry PlayBook tablets now. Current BlackBerry PlayBook tablet users who update to v1.0.5 will automatically receive the updated Facebook app. Alternatively, you can grab the update to the app from BlackBerry App World, of course!

#2 Poynt for BlackBerry PlayBook

Need a recommendation for dinner? Want to buy movie tickets for a date night? Well, the awesome Super App – Poynt for BlackBerry PlayBook – is there for you. #TeamBlackBerry ranked this the #2 BlackBerry PlayBook tablet app – and for good reason. Beyond the awesome BlackBerry PlayBook tablet version features, it also integrates with Poynt on your BlackBerry smartphone – allowing you send a restaurant’s address and phone number directly to your contact list. Watch this video to learn more:

[YouTube link for easy mobile viewing]

#3 Doodle Blast

#TeamBlackBerry gamers love a challenge, and nothing quite delivers like the addictive Doodle Blast from FlexibleAIR. You have to use your doodle drawing skills to get all the marbles into the cup – without running out of ink (not as easy as it sounds! – Ed.). I’ve spent many a conference call playing this game. Uh, I mean intently paying attention.

#4 Need for Speed™ Undercover

One app that really kicked off excitement for BlackBerry PlayBook tablet apps is the Need for Speed Undercover for BlackBerry PlayBook. Personally I love Electronic Art’s TETRIS® for BlackBerry PlayBook more – but I’m biased towards puzzle games.

#5 GeeReader

I wasn’t surprised by the fact that GeeReader is another #TeamBlackBerry favorite – I believe this is one of the best RSS readers out there, especially with its awesome Google Reader integrations. You just sign in with your Google account and boom – all your favorite feeds appear in one easy-to-read view. If you like GeeReader, you might want to also check out the recently released BlackBerry® News for BlackBerry PlayBook app.

Here’s your next assignment, #TeamBlackBerry: It’s June and that means vacation time for many. What are your top 5 apps for travelling? Post a comment here and tweet @BlackBerry with your favorites and you’ll see a new Top 5 post soon!

(YouTube link for easy mobile viewing)

One incredibly cool demo that I saw this year at BlackBerry® World™ 2011 was Poynt’s integration of BlackBerry push services to call a number on a BlackBerry® smartphone from their BlackBerry PlayBook™ tablet app. Peter Werry from Poynt, winner of last year’s BlackBerry Partners Fund Developer Challenge, walks me through this new feature and other innovative uses of BlackBerry services in the above video.

Post a comment and let us know what super app features you’re building into your application.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

Are you looking for the next awesome BlackBerry® smartphone app? If so, you’ll want to peruse the winning applications from the 3rd Annual BlackBerry Partners Fund Super Apps Developer Challenge. The Super Apps Challenge started with an open call to the BlackBerry developer community to tell us how they had used the Super App characteristics to deliver an application that users can’t live without. Now that the Challenge has wrapped up, we wanted to highlight some of the winners and finalists (check out the above commercial for one of our winners!).

Selected from nearly 400 applications for BlackBerry smartphones across four regions—North America, Latin America, Middle East & Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America – these apps range across nine categories: Maps & Navigation, Reference & eBooks, Photo & Video, Business, News, Shopping, Utilities, Sports & Recreation, and IM & Social Networking.

Discover the kinds of Super Apps that people love and use every day:

North America

Winner:

Poynt (Maps & Navigation): Poynt is designed to enable users to find businesses, retailers, restaurants, events, movies, gas prices (US only) and weather information. It uses GPS or cell-site location to quickly deliver the information users need, whenever and wherever they need it, right on their BlackBerry smartphone.

Finalists:

• Dictionary and Thesaurus – Dictionary.com (Reference & ebooks): The only free dictionary app for BlackBerry smartphones is from Dictionary.com. Their well-known reference content from Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com includes more than 500,000 words, definitions, and synonyms. The app also features phonetic and audio pronunciations, spelling suggestions and Dictionary.com’s popular Word of the Day that is enjoyed by millions of people.
• Vayyoo (Photo and Video): With Vayyoo it is easy to capture and share life’s moments in one BlackBerry application. Whether users are out with friends, having fun on vacation, or witnessing breaking news, Vayyoo makes capturing and sharing moments simple by integrating the camera, location, email and many other BlackBerry smartphone features.

Latin America

Winner:

Vlingo Plus – Voice App (Utilities): Vlingo is the intelligent voice app that is designed to turn a user’s words into action. With Vlingo, users can simply speak to their BlackBerry smartphone to send a text or email message to any contact, search the web using Google® or Yahoo! ®, call a friend, update their Facebook® or Twitter® status, use instant messaging apps, and speak to virtually any application. It also reads incoming text and email messages while users are on the go.

Finalists:

• Navita Sports (Sports & Recreation): Navita Sports is designed to provide up-to-the-minute sport scores and coverage including soccer, tennis, Formula 1 racing, basketball, football, hockey and rugby. Game times are based on a user’s time zone; in some sports, users can choose which categories they like to watch and more.
• Waze (LATAM) (Maps & Navigation): Waze’s social navigation app is designed to bring users to the intersection of where geogaming meets crowdsourced traffic info and real-time live maps. In addition to providing free turn-by-turn navigation on BlackBerry smartphones, Waze is also designed to give drivers the ability to actively update users on traffic, construction, and more, reflecting a live description of the road at any given moment.

Europe / Middle East / Africa

Winner:

UbiNav EU (Maps & Navigation): UbiNav is designed to turn a BlackBerry smartphone into a reliable GPS mapping solution with real-time turn by turn navigation on screen. Users can listen to the turn-by-turn vocal instructions and find whatever they need wherever they are. They can find, map, navigate to, or simply call over 10 million businesses listed within the database.

Finalists:

• CamCard(Business Card Reader) (Business): CamCard is a professional business card reader based on IntSig’s market leading OCR technologies. It is designed to help users turn piles of business cards into BlackBerry contacts with just a few clicks. Users need only provide clear card photos either by built-in camera or album. Snap and click, and all info on the business card will be automatically recognized and categorized.
• n-tv mobil (News): This application is designed to enable users to get the latest news and videos on their BlackBerry smartphones. Users can open news articles at the push of a button; open and configure Favorites; find information on scheduled German soccer league matches, and more.

Asia Pacific

Winner:

Love Indonesia (Shopping): This application is an all-in-one guide to Indonesia on BlackBerry smartphones. It is a free Location-Based City Directory with different search features that are designed to help users find anything they need, such as discount promotions of merchants for each city in Indonesia, information on restaurants, hotels, shopping, movies, news, traffic, events and more. Love Indonesia currently covers 16 cities, with more cities to come.

Finalists:

• Forum for BlackBerry (IM & Social Networking): REMKO’s Forum is an application for mobile devices designed to enable users to discuss the latest news and events, politics, gossip, music, sports, religion, fashion, love and relationships, and more with other BlackBerry smartphone owners worldwide. Users can also exchange images, ringtones and files with others while on the go.
• Ramadhan Pocket Guide (Utilities): Ramadhan Pocket Guide for BlackBerry smartphones is designed to provide up to date information about Islamic Prayer Schedules, Imsak Schedules and Adzan reminders. Users can choose schedules and reminders based on location, enhanced with notification alerts using vibration and actual Adzan sounds.

Are you using any of these apps right now? Which ones do you like the best? Let us know in the comments!

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!