When you think of a beautiful and relaxing summer day at the beach, in the garden, or by the pool, what sort of items do you picture yourself needing? At the beach you’ll need sunscreen, a blanket, and maybe a game to keep the kids occupied. In the garden, odds are that you’ll want a spade, plants, and a pretty good plan. By the pool, don’t forget a towel, pool toys, and a good book. Pay attention, because here’s the really cool part: The BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet can help replace one of these items no matter where you go this summer! Let me show you how:

Life’s a Beach!

Kids love the sand and the swimming at the beach, but sandcastles and shells can sometimes give way to sighs of “I’m bored” right when you finally get comfortable. BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to the rescue!

• Encourage the kids to take pictures of their sand creations and send them to family members or post to social networks. Check out the photo frame apps in the BlackBerry App World™ storefront for that extra touch!
• Fire up a game like TETRIS™ or Monopoly for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet for the whole family to play while enjoying the waves.
• Browse the Internet with the kids to learn the history of the beach and some of the wildlife that occupies it. Searches for “shark attack” should be avoided, however.

No Green Thumb, No Problem

While navigating the mysteries of your garden, budding botanists and pros alike may sometimes wonder what to plant where, what grows best in shade, and what’s with that leafy thing that never seems to die. The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet has your back again.

• Browse the Internet to research the best places to plant, when to plant, and what to plant to create your dream garden. Some websites may even let you buy plants online and pick them up at the store.
• Photograph plants you are unsure of whether to dig up or water, and share them with experts or friends to get the whole story. Was that poison ivy you just stepped on?
• Show off your beautiful garden when you’re done by sharing 1080p HD movies and photos!

Poolside with the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet

An afternoon by the pool can be among the most relaxing of summer activities, but all that laying around can sometimes get a bit boring. After all, we are “BlackBerry People”, and we like to get things done! Here’s how the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet can help.

• Load up a book in Kobo Reader and get lost in your favorite fiction, cower from a thriller, or swoon through a romance novel from the comfort of your deck chair.
• Watch your favorite movie or television show from the video store with the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet Video Store. It’s like having a whole video store at your water-shriveled fingertips.
• Shoot high-quality HD video and pictures of the kids diving from the high-dive or jumping into the pool. You never know when you may need to access it later for an Olympic highlight reel or a wedding slideshow!

These are just a few suggestions and my favorite ways to use the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet in the summer, but I’d love to hear yours as well. Where will you and your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet go to chill?

You know that feeling you get when the kids are out of school, the weather is warmer, the days are longer, and you’ve finally found your favorite flip-flops? It’s summertime! One of the greatest freedoms that comes with summer is the ability to pack up the kids for a family vacation, or even send them to camp and have a mini-vacation all for yourself. Whatever your summer travel plans entail, you’re first going to want to grab these top travel apps for your BlackBerry® smartphone or BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet before leaving the house.

BlackBerry® Travel – By Research In Motion® Limited (RIM®)
This one is a must-have – and it’s free! Using the BlackBerry Travel app allows you to plan, book, and manage your travel plans by offering destination, hotel, and transportation options for finding the best price and most convenient flight times. You can also book your travel elsewhere online, and then pull your details into the app with the trip scanning feature; this gives you the whole itinerary right at your fingertips. BlackBerry Travel’s best feature? This app will notify your BlackBerry smartphone of a late or cancelled flight.

KAYAK Travel search Flights Hotels Cars Flight Status Trips – By Kayak.com
KAYAK rocks the bargain-hunting at a near mind-blowing level. Their app – which won the 2010 Gettie Award winner for best BlackBerry smartphone app – helps you to compare deals on flights, hotels, and car rentals across multiple websites for the best deal. If you like to travel on the cheap (and who doesn’t?), I highly recommend checking this app out.

Compass – A Premium GPS-based Compass – By SRID Games
Hikers, climbers, and outdoors enthusiasts of all skill levels can appreciate a good compass, and this one from SRID Games is a beauty. Using your BlackBerry smartphone’s internal GPS, Compass can help you find your way home from whatever adventure you’re returning from. This app also includes your movement speed (perfect for runners), latitude and longitude, and the direction of True North — which is perfect for trips to Canada to see your favorite OS, smartphone and tablet maker!

Navita Translator – By Navita Tecnologia
If you are headed abroad in your travels, this nifty free app Navita Translator is the perfect solution to make you seem like a local. Translator translates more than 50 languages, and can speak English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, German and Russian from words or phrases from e-mails, web pages, SMS messages or arbitrary text typed into the software. If you need to share your translations, Translator also allows you to send translations through Twitter®, email, or BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM™).

These are just a few of our favorite travel apps for summer that I collected from asking around the office, but I’d love to hear your contributions, too. How do you get the best deal, not get lost, or go native with your BlackBerry smartphone when you travel?

Picture this: You’re at the airport, all of the outlets are taken and your smartphone battery is about to die. Or, you’re sitting at the beach relaxing and you get a few important emails, but the sunlight’s glare makes it impossible to read them. Or, you’re relaxing in a lounge chair at your hotel and realize you forgot your headphones.

Well, #TeamBlackBerry, if you have been in any of these situations, we have you covered. After speaking with a few of my friends and colleagues, here are my top BlackBerry® accessory recommendations for summer travel:

Extra Batteries
When you’re out and about at an airport, an amusement park or a beach, the last thing you need is a drained battery – especially when you aren’t close to an electrical outlet. Something I like to have at the ready is an extra battery or two when I know I’ll be away from a power outlet for the majority of the day. You can find extra batteries and external chargers for your BlackBerry® 7 OS devices (and others as well) on Shop BlackBerry, so be sure to grab a few before you head out this summer.

Anti-Glare Film
As summer heats up, many of us spend more time outside. Since BlackBerry people are doers, we know how important it is to be able to stay on top of incoming messages and keep in touch with the important people in our lives. To protect your screen against the sun’s glare and make sure you’ll still be able to see everything on your screen, check out this anti-glare film you can easily apply to your screen. Plus, your device’s touch screen will still be fully functional, so you’ll have the best of both worlds.

Premium Stereo Headset
If you’re looking for headphones that can multitask as much as you can, we have the a great option for you. Our Premium Stereo Headset not only gives you quality audio and sound isolation so you can hear your music clearly, but it also includes a microphone so you can hop on the phone and chat, too. What’s even cooler is it has a single button to easily navigate between calls and music – perfect for when you’re lounging on the beach and want to keep things simple. While you’re at it, be sure to give BBM™ Music a whirl and make a few summer playlists!

These accessories are our favorites, but we want to hear from you: what is your favorite BlackBerry accessory that you never leave home without?

For all of you out there keeping tabs on BlackBerry World™ 2012 news, we’ve already seen a few apps launch this week. I’ve been able to get my hands on a few of them (including the fantastic Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light!), but if you travel a lot like me, then I have a solid recommendation for you: MyCityWay for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet. It’s a free download in BlackBerry App World™, and it’s a great app if you’re into exploring. MyCityWay is way more than a simple city guide — this is a concierge-type service offering real-time updates and a deeper look into the urban scene.

MyCityWay features a customizable hub that gives you the information you want and need and a little special sauce that makes this app alive as the cities themselves. Oh yeah, and as you can see, it looks hot.

The app currently features four cities: New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, and Austin. And we’ve been told by the developer that they have plans to launch many more cities in the coming months.

Make sure you download the free MyCityWay app, and tell us what you think of it in the comments below!

(Here’s another awesome guest post from Andreas to talk about the updated BlackBerry® Travel™ app – frequent travelers should definitely check it out! – Ed.)

I’m happy to announce that we’ve released BlackBerry Travel v1.1 today in the BlackBerry App World™ storefront. I am very pleased by the reception of the application so far and appreciate all the great comments and suggestions we’ve received since we launched BlackBerry Travel v1.0 in mid-February in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Spain.

Since February, we’ve introduced a localized version and released it in five languages and in 70 countries. To date, there have been more than 1 million downloads. We’ve also made great progress in working with our industry partners and have signed up 8 partners to our BlackBerry Travel ecosystem, including well-known and respected brands such as Air Canada, United/Continental, Lufthansa, Hilton, Starwood, Accor, KLM and Travelport.

Today’s release introduces a variety of new features and enhancements:

1. Mobile Rental Car Booking: To get you where you need to go, you can now book a rental car from almost any rental car agency anywhere in the world, whenever you need transportation.
2. World Clock: One of the most often-requested features, we now have a world clock that has been designed to allow you to track the time across multiple locations worldwide. This is very handy when trying to figure the best time to call family back home!
3. Support for Car and Hotel Bookings in local currencies: We’ve added 20 international currencies to accommodate booking in local currencies.

Download the app from the BlackBerry App World (note: it may take up to 24 hours for the application to appear in BlackBerry App World) to give the new version a try and let us know how you like it. Thank you for your support and safe travels!