I personally think simple games work very well on the Blackberry platform. Business people will be too busy to get involved in a long winded game with levels and a plot to follow, and the average person who buys a Blackberry that is not tied to a business is buying it for the internet and messaging package. This is why games like Catapult and a slew of games I have reviewed before are rated well and games that require you to follow a plot or a storyline haven’t been as successful. Android and iOS can be seen as gaming platforms, but RIM hasn’t built many handsets capable of playing games on a large screen.

Catapult is a very simple game to play, but will take a while to actually master if you ever do. The object of the game is simple, place the rock in the huge catapult and fling it as far as you can. The further it goes, the more points you get. Using the 9860 with a touch screen you just drag the rock onto the catapult, fling it backwards and you get a gauge of how fast the rock will go. You can adjust the height of the throw as well. At the top left corner you have a meter for boost, this can be used once your rock has been thrown by dragging the rock upwards. The boost increases the height of the rock, but finishes off quickly. The rock has two objects it can hit in the sky, the bulls-eye and a star. The bulls-eye increases your points and the star can be later used to buy upgrades.

The rock can land on 3 different things when it falls, the first being the ground itself, the second is a sand pit that stops the rock dead in its tracks and the third is a spring that flings the rock forward and helps you score more points. The upgrade system consists of 6 categories or variables that you can upgrade: bounce, luck, spring, rubber, boost and score. The more stars you hit, the more points you get to upgrade with. You can adjust the upgrades however you like, taking points away from one thing to bolster another. Once you’re done playing you can submit your score, view high scores or trade in your upgrade points for score points if you’ve maxed everything out.

Catapult is a simple game that can become somewhat complicated if you want it to. If you want higher scores you have to use the upgrades but the game is good fun on its own regardless. Obviously there is no reason to play other than to get the highest score. The controls or handling is very good, the game responded nicely to my finger and there wasn’t any lag in the gameplay either. This game may not offer much in the way of a story, but it does offer a lot of entertainment without a purpose. Good, solid, basic gaming.

The guys over at Crackberry managed to get a hold of some slides that shows the BlackBerry roadmap for this year. One such slide showed a sneak peak at BlackBerry’s next flagship smartphone, codenamed ‘London’.

The BlackBerry London is expected to launch by the end of this year, probably around September. What makes London so special is that it’ll be running the new and completely reformed QNX based BlackBerry 10 OS. The all touchscreen London is expected to have a dual-core TI OMAP 5 processor running at 1.5GHz, so that’s already beyond what the current PlayBook is capable of.

With all the trouble that RIM has been going through in 2011, BlackBerry London could be exactly what’s needed to bring the company back up to speed with other smartphone makers; a territory that RIM once dominated.

I think we can all agree that Nokia has not been doing too great the last few years. Sure, the Finnish telecom giant has released some interesting smartphones, like the N8 with its amazing camera. But it has not been able to grab headlines, like its competitors, at least not for the right reasons. When Nokia announced its partnership with Microsoft about a year ago, I was actually very excited because I felt going with Windows Phone for its smartphones would allow Nokia the stability and functionality it so badly needed.

Let’s take one step further back, to Mobile World Congress in 2010. There, in Barcelona, I witnessed when Microsoft unveiled the new Windows Phone 7 operating systems for mobile devices. I wasn’t exactly blown away but what I saw, but I was convinced it could compete with iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and all the rest. Microsoft had thought in new ways in terms of the interface as well as functionality, which is not something that can be said about Microsoft very often.

Then we waited. First we waited for any Windows Phone smartphone to appear, and what first came out didn’t exactly impress too much. Then we waited for Nokia to introduce its first Windows Phone device and while we waited we got the N9.

Finally, in October 2011, Stephen Elop stood on stage at Nokia World in London, declaring that the Lumia 800 was “the first real Windows Phone device.” As it turns out, the Lumia 800 is basically the N9 but running the Windows Phone OS. I’ve had a Lumia 800 for a few days now, and I can say it’s a very, very nice smartphone.

But I’m not going to review the Lumia 800 in this article, for that you’ll have to wait for the Tbreak tech labs team to sink their teeth into it. What I can tell you is that Nokia seems to be on the right track again, and that’s good news for you as a consumer as well as the industry as a whole.

With the Lumia 800, and presumably also with the Lumia 900, which I’ve not tried, Nokia has beautifully designed, high-quality smartphones, which run a cutting-edge mobile OS. Sure, the Marketplace for Windows Phone may only have 50,000 apps compared to the 500,000 you can find for iOS, and that is a problem, but it’s a problem that can be made to go away. Nokia and Microsoft have to push hard to get great apps, and a lot of them, developed for the Windows Phone OS. One such app, which many of us are waiting for right now, is Carbon for Windows Phone by UAE-based dots & lines.

By adopting Windows Phone as the OS for its smartphones, Nokia remedied the one big problem it has had over the last few years: Symbian. Now, Nokia can focus on its industrial and product design, something it has always been good at, and spend less time developing an OS. And I, for one, think that is a good thing.

Nokia is in the game again, baby, and I, for one, wish them all the luck in the world.

Picture by Olga Berrios.

It’s no surprise that geeks like me are not necessarily big on fashion. When I don’t have to attend events or meetings, I much prefer being in my jeans and a Polo. However, every once in a while (mainly during shopping festivals with super discounted prices), I’d step into Bloomingdales or Harvey Nichols and treat myself to a couple of nice shirts or even a blazer ( if they’re still called that). Now here’s the thing- different people have different opinions on my purchases. What one person absolutely loves, gets laughed at by another. In the world of fashion, there is no science and there are no analytical benchmarks to prove one thing is better than the other. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.

The intro above might seem a bit strange on a tech website but serves a purpose- it’s required reading for the Porsche Design BlackBerry P9981 that I am reviewing today. Ever since it was officially unveiled, I have read countless opinions on how sexy or how ugly the P9981 is. I too, considered the device unattractive when pictures of it were leaked on the web a few months back. But then I held it at it’s launch event in Dubai and suddenly, my opinion started changing. And after playing with it for a few days, my beloved Bold 9900 suddenly feels cheap.

Packaged in a nice box that is almost the size of something you get when buying shoes, the P9981 prepares you with what it has to offer right from the magnetic latch of the packaging. The top layer has the phone and the charging dock nicely cuddled up while going a layer deep reveals the Porsche branded battery (same capacity as the Bold 9900), your membership card and some manuals. Going deeper to the last layer unveils the premium headset, USB cable and four charging plugs serving different parts of the world. Interestingly, no holster is included in the package which tells you that this is not a device that you want to keep hidden inside anything. You can watch our unboxing video here.

The Porsche Design P9981 is essentially the BlackBerry Bold 9900 but in a chassis designed by the company that is associated with being über cool. Gone is the plasticy back and the brushed aluminum looking antenna band, replaced by real premium leather back cover and a shiny stainless steel band. Even the individual keys on the P9981’s keyboard are made of metal instead of plastic. Although it might not look very comfortable, the keyboard on the P’9981 is very easy to type on- not as good as the Bold 9900 but still pretty good. Above the keyboard, you have the four traditional BlackBerry keys and the trackpad- all of which are taller in size and easier to press. The hard metallic edges along with the leather back give the P9981 a feel that is like no other Smartphone. You know you’re carrying something that is premium.

This new enclosure is slightly bigger in size compared to the Bold 9900 but not much has changed as far as layout and positioning of buttons and connectors is concerned. The MicroSD slot has been moved a bit higher making it easier to manage your memory card and you no longer need to remove the battery to access it either. Other than that, all the other buttons and connectors are pretty much in the same spot as the Bold 9900. One change I would have liked to see is the notification LED moved a bit higher so that it sits between the top and front sides of the device- or possibly around the navigation pad.

A report by BGR that came out on Tuesday fired speculation that RIM has been trying to woo various smartphone makers to take over their company, Samsung in particular.

“Jim is going hard after Samsung,” told a source to BGR, with knowledge of the negotiations. As news of these behind the scenes negotiations came to light, RIM’s share prices jumped more than 10%.

However, Samsung came out with a statement yesterday, telling Reuters that they haven’t even been approached by RIM for any takeover talks. ”We haven’t considered acquiring the firm and are not interested in (buying RIM),” Samsung spokesman James Chung said.

While Samsung has claimed that they are not interested in buying RIM as a whole, perhaps at the right price point (as share price of RIM tumbles further after this news of denial by Samsung), it is very much possible that Samsung may buy part of RIM’s patent portfolio.

The Porsche Designed BlackBerry P’9981 has officially landed in our office and like any fashion product, it has it’s share of fans and critics. It will take us a few days to properly use the device and give our honest opinion but until then, enjoy the unboxing of this deluxe item designed by Porsche Design and RIM.

Please note that the onboard memory on the P’9981 is 8GB and not 4GB as mentioned in the video.

It’s a crazy world we live in and considering this is 2012 then why shouldn’t you expect the world to come to an end? Don’t fret though, there’s an app to help you prepare for the apocalypse! Well not really. Crazy Survival World Trip is a game about surviving what clearly must be the end of the world and seeing the world.

Your hero is a stick figure that you control via a set of four buttons on the screen (tested with a BlackBerry Torch 9860), right, left, jump and crouch. The goal is to score points by avoiding a myriad of falling objects such as meteors, rocks, missiles and fiery objects from the sky. You gain points by jumping over or crouching under these obstacles and grabbing health points and stars that make you grow to twice your size. You get to travel to all seven continents and in each continent you have 15 levels of difficulty to overcome.

The gameplay is quite simple and straightforward and you get a free version to try before considering paying for the premium. The thing that annoyed me about the free version was that in between the controls are advertisements and I found myself accidentally touching those while trying to play the game. The advertisement opens up a window in the browser that interrupts your game and you can see why that would be annoying. The controls themselves sometimes get stuck if they are pressed for too long and you cannot press two buttons at once so you cannot run to one side and jump over something, you have to run there, stop then jump.

The levels are quite challenging and it certainly gets much harder nearing the end of your visit to that continent. The graphics are nothing to write home about- you can’t expect a Crysis-like game with superb graphics for a measly $1.50. I reckon Crazy Survival World Trip is a decent game to keep you busy on a short flight or when you’re heading home from work on the bus or metro. It has nothing flashy like outstanding graphics or sound but you don’t need those in a game to make it decent enough to play. Give it a go, but be warned about the free version, the ad in the middle of the control buttons is just inexcusable.

In a recent attack on the Indian intelligence agency by a group called “The Lords of Dharamraja” it was uncovered that RIM, Nokia and Apple all gave backdoor access for selling their products to the 1.2+ billion population of India.

“As of now we start sharing with all our brothers and followers information from the Indian Militaty (sic) Intelligence servers, so far we have discovered within the Indian Spy Programme (sic) source codes of a dozen software companies which have signed agreements with Indian TANCS programme (sic) and CBI,” wrote Yama Tough, one of the members of The Lords of Dharamraja.

Turns out that these backdoor accesses were agreed upon by all three companies for actually spying on the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC). Looking at the leaked military documents by the hackers, and as pointed out by ZDNET, RINOA SUR (RIM, NOkia and Apple) platform was successful.

Earlier in the year it was revealed that Lords of Dharamraja were indeed the group that was behind the Symantec source code release. And whatever the intentions of such hacker groups are in reality, some interesting things like this do surface from time to time.

You ever wished you had one of those cool ninja swords to chop your fruits with? Well you’re in luck, there’s an app for that! Fruits and Ninja is a simple but addictive game that involves chopping up fruits for no reason whatsoever. All you have to do is swipe your finger across the screen when a fruit or fruits appear and they’re sliced. There are no complicated controls or directional buttons, it’s an easy to grasp slice and dice game and it has reached the top of the heap in App World.

In the free version all you get is the Classic mode where they mix fruits and bombs on screen to make it more of a challenge. You have to slice the fruit and avoid the bombs, miss three fruit and its game over, slice a bomb and its game over too. The free version has advertisements but otherwise you get the classic mode and a high score section where you can gain bonus ninja swords and score achievements. You can also view the local and online scores and follow how much others have scored in the game.

In the paid version you not only get the game without advertisements but Classic, Arcade and Zen modes to play. The Classic mode is no different to the one in the free version above. In Arcade mode you have to score as high as possible and you are given 60 seconds to do so. Slice as many fruit as possible while avoiding the bombs. In this mode you do not lose if you miss three fruit and it’s not game over if you slice a bomb. Slicing a bomb in Arcade mode knocks 10 points off your score. You also get bonus points for combo slices, cutting several fruit with a single swing of the blade. In Zen mode you get 90 seconds to cut as many fruit as you can, scoring points for slicing fruit in singles and in combo but there are no bombs to worry about.

While the game is repetitive it can be quite addictive and the bonus high score achievements do give you a challenge and extend the game’s life. The graphics are smooth and so is the gameplay. For a $0.75 game it does offer more bang for your buck as you get three modes to play while the free version is still great value for nothing, offering you the Classic mode which is quite challenging in itself. After the less than stellar game I reviewed last week, it’s good to see the Blackberry platform get some decent apps to tinker with and Fruits and Ninja may not be much, but it’s a game you can pick up at any time and enjoy. Grab it free or pay a little and get more, it’s worth it.

Press Release:

Porsche Design and Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced the availability of the elite new Porsche Design P’9981 smartphone from BlackBerry® in the United Arab Emirates.

Instantly identifiable as a Porsche Design product, the exclusive material choices for this unique smartphone include a forged stainless steel frame, hand-wrapped leather back cover, sculpted QWERTY keyboard, and crystal clear touch display. The customized Porsche Design P’9981 comes with an exclusive Porsche Design UI and a bespoke Wikitude World Browser augmented reality app experience. The handsets also include a premium, exclusive PIN that easily identifies the user as having a P’9981 smartphone.

“The P’9981 smartphone from BlackBerry is a milestone product for Porsche Design,” said Dr. Juergen Gessler, CEO Porsche Design Group. “It is a representation of the iconic Porsche Design styling philosophy and RIM’s technology-driven focus, which combine to deliver engineered luxury and performance in a smartphone for the discerning consumer.”

“With the Porsche Design P’9981 smartphone from BlackBerry, we are delivering a perfect collaboration between style and function,” said Sandeep Saihgal, Managing Director, Middle East at RIM. “It’s an exceptional, modern smartphone, and its styling is unlike anything else in the market today.”

Powerful hardware and software
The Porsche Design P’9981 is built on a performance driven platform that features a 1.2 GHz processor and Liquid Graphics™ technology, which enables a highly responsive touch experience with incredibly fast and smooth graphics. It also features HD video recording, 24-bit high resolution graphics, advanced sensors enabling new augmented reality applications, and built-in support for NFC (Near Field Communications). It comes with 8 GB of on-board memory, expandable to up to 40 GB with a microSD card.

BlackBerry® 7, the operating system for the new Porsche Design P’9981, delivers a highly refined and integrated suite of phone, email, messaging and social apps. It includes a next generation BlackBerry® browser, which provides a fast, fluid web browsing experience that is among the best in the industry, and comes with a number of pre-loaded applications that keep users connected and productive throughout the day.

The Porsche Design P’9981 smartphone from BlackBerry will be available at all Porsche Design stores in the United Arab Emirates, as well as authorized retailers.

For more information please visit www.BlackBerry.com/ae/P9981smartphone