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Foursquare updated its Android and iPhone apps today with a feature that should appease those looking for new places to eat or visit when in a new city or their own.

The company has added a Filter button to the Explore tab, letting users draw down on specific genres or locations. It’s a small but significant change not only to the app itself but to the purpose of Foursquare as a whole. Less focused on check-ins for where you are now, Foursquare wants you to open the app whenever you want to go somewhere new.

Using your previous check-in data they can figure out the types of places you’d be more likely to visit, increasingly the likelihood of returning to that place, and the app, in the future.

Download Foursquare for Android and iOS.

Via: Foursquare Blog

BlackBerry will be making BlackBerry Messenger, one of their prized possessions, available on both the iPhone and Android smartphones this Summer. Both Apple and Google still need to approve the popular messaging app in their respected app stores, but there’s no reason to believe that it won’t show up.

Thorsten Heins, BlackBerry’s CEO, declared during BlackBerry Live last week that “I cannot wait for the day when all of our BlackBerry fans can send BBM invites to all their friends on other platforms. They’ve asked us for this for years. The time has come now for everyone to experience what we all know. BBM is simply the best messaging and collaboration platform in mobile today.”

Mike Lazaridis, founder of BlackBerry (RIM), stood behind the move to bring BBM to iOS and Android. In an interview with Bloomberg, Lazaridis said that he’s confident users of other smartphones, specifically iPhone, will embrace BBM, noting that “BBM is by far the most compelling wireless experience and wireless social-networking environment… Not only is BlackBerry back in a big way with BB10, he’s [Heins] also showing he can expand that vision to other platforms.”

BBM for iOS and Android will be free, but limited at launch. BlackBerry will only make messaging and groups available, then will update the app to offer BBM Voice, BBM screen share and BBM Channels “later on.” There’s currently 60 million BBM users across the globe and it’ll be interesting to see how many Apple and Android users jump on board, or how many depart from 3rd party messaging apps like WhatsApp.

Source: Bloomberg
Via: N4BB

In March 2012, TELUS launched a partnership with Vox Mobile to supply Managed Mobility Services for the enterprise, an all-encompassing solution for companies looking to administer a large number of smartphones over the operator’s business network.

Today, TELUS and Apperian are launching a partnership to supply Mobile Application Management (MAM), allowing BYOD (bring your own device) users to have corporate applications securely pushed, backed-up and updated to their devices. Apperian’s EASE platform installs on any iOS, Android or BlackBerry device and allows a user’s company to bifurcate personal apps and their data from corporate.

Samsung recently announced KNOX, a similar corporate offering with a larger scope than just MAM, that will operate on the Galaxy S4 and future devices, while BlackBerry offers Balance, a similar MAM solution for BB10 users.

According to a press release issued today, Apperian’s EASE platform allows “Canadian enterprises [to] manage all aspects of deploying apps in the enterprise in one secure location.” The idea is that, because users are familiar with the idea of an app store, they will feel comfortable entering a branded corporate store to oversee their corporate apps.

Canadian network operators are increasingly getting involved in the lucrative enterprise market, as BYOD is stemming the number of second devices companies are buying for their employees.

Via: Newswire

Samsung has paid nearly $48 million USD for a 10% stake in one of its competitors, Pantech Corp. The third-largest handset maker in South Korea behind Samsung and LG, Pantech is mainly known in North America for its low-cost carrier-branded feature- and smartphones.

Because Samsung is as self-reliant as possible for its own components, the investment is meant to further “bilateral cooperation” between it and Pantech, which itself is a fairly large manufacturer of internal smartphone components. Indeed, its single largest shareholder is Qualcomm at just under 12%.

So as Apple relinquishes some of its reliance on Samsung’s chips, the Korean company is furthering its own interests in ensuring future self-reliance.

Source: Yonhap News
Via: Android Central

Just in time for holiday season is Rogers with a slight refresh of their monthly international roaming passes. The prices are all the same, but they’ve included additional data. Rogers, like other carriers, have included real-time text alerts so you won’t get those “bill shock” charges.

Below is a list of the changes, plus you can check them out here at Rogers.

The BlackBerry Q10 went on sale a few weeks ago on various Canadian carriers. Some users who purchased the QWERTY/Touch BB10 device might have received OS 10.1.0.1483 when they first turned it on, but Rogers, Bell and TELUS users are now reporting an update to 10.1.0.1720 is available (127MB). Apparently there’s nothing different between the software versions, but it’s always a good idea to keep up with the latest OS. No word on if SaskTel customers have received this update.

Source: CrackBerry
(Thanks Todd!)

Nokia has updated its HERE Maps service for Windows Phone 8 users with a new augmented reality feature. LiveSight integrates into the core Maps app in a similar way to CityLens, another part of the company’s Lumia suite.

LiveSight overlays a list of memorable locations around you by using the camera lens on your Windows Phone device, along with its GPS sensor. The technology is not just integrated into Nokia apps, though: the new Foursquare for WP8 uses LiveSight to facilitate its context-based check-ins.

The feature also works offline, which is a bonus when you are in a foreign city with little access to data. Once you’ve downloaded that city’s map information, LiveSight will just work.

Download HERE Maps for Windows Phone 8.

Source: Nokia Conversations
Via: Engadget

When Sony’s latest high-end was announced earlier this year it was given a Q2 billing, with the expectation that it would debut sometime in the spring. Well, spring is here and the company has pushed back its original May 22nd ship date to June 3rd, despite the tablet shipping this week in the US.

Sony previously boasted about having the largest pre-order sales of any tablet in the company’s history, but without numbers there is very little substantive information to work with. We do know that the Z-series is easily Sony’s most accomplished line-up of smartphones and tablets to date, and will undoubtedly prove to be its most successful. We liked the Xperia ZL, though we had issues with its camera and battery life, and enjoyed using the waterproof Tablet Z earlier this year. It has a 1.5Ghz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC, 2GB RAM, an 8MP rear camera, a 1920×1200 pixel LCD display and is dustproof in addition to being waterproof.

While it’s disappointing to see the tablet pushed back, it will be here shortly. Did you pre-order a Tablet Z? Does it help that Sony is building a stock version of its software from AOSP?

The Xperia Tablet Z will be available for $499/$599 for the 16GB and 32GB versions respectively.

After what seems like an eternity, Amazon has finally launched its Cloud Drive service in Canada. Out of the box, this works like Dropbox, Sugarsync or any number of cloud storage service: you get 5GB that can be used to store and sync documents, music and photos. Paid accounts start at $10 for 20GB and increase to $250/year for 500GB. Compare to Google Drive’s $240/year for 400GB and that’s quite a deal.

Amazon doesn’t have mobile apps for Cloud Drive per se (unfortunately), but it does offer Cloud Drive Photos for Android and iOS, which gives users access to their photo collection in a nicely-designed app interface.

Adroit users can also access Amazon’s Music Locker service, too, but that isn’t officially available in Canada (and we’re not going to tell you how to access it).

Download Cloud Drive Photos for Android and iOS. More information at Amazon.

Via: BusinessWire

NewsBlur is one of the most fully-realized RSS feed consolidators in the wake of Google Reader’s impending shutdown. While the service has been around for a few years it was in March, when Google announced Reader’s death, that people really took notice.

Because it uses a freemium model like Evernote — non-paying users are limited to adding 64 sites to their feed list — there is a good chance NewsBlur will be around for a long, long time. With a $24/year fee for unlimited access and faster access, there is good reason to invest in the service, especially if it will something you’ll use daily. I’ve been using NewsBlur for the past few weeks and it has impressed me. There is a very fast, but simple, Android app, and today’s redesign for iOS cements it as a great alternative to Reeder (which has thrown in support for Feedbin in its latest update).

The iOS app has a bit more newness than just a visual redesign though: there is a new sharing workflow, which allows users to open articles in Instapaper, Pocket and Readability. The story layout is also more spacious, so you’re able to maximize the screen space of the iPhone or iPad. The app looks cleaner, performs faster and comes highly recommended.

Download NewsBlur for iOS (and Android).

Via: The Verge