Coming soon: a new BlackBerry operating system, BBX. It’s a combination of the existing smartphone OS and QNX, the system for Research in Motion‘s tablet. The new OS will be optimized for smartphones, tablets, and other mobile goods. “The whole company is aligning behind a single platform,” said RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis. READ MORE
One of the criticisms leveled at the Windows Phone 7 platform is that its announcement wasn’t much of an announcement. We in the tech press may have heard about it to death, but the general phone-buying public didn’t get the message. READ MORE
A company issues its quarterly report. Its earnings are solid, but lower than what analysts expected. So a bunch of people sell the stock and its price takes a beating. It’s a familiar story and one that was played out today: Apple announced earnings of $7.02 per share yesterday. That looks great compared to last year’s $4.64 per share, but not so great compared to the average $7.29 analysts had predicted. It was the first time since 2004 that Apple failed to meet analysts expectations. READ MORE
Crowdsourced driving app Waze just got a big boost of confidence on both the financing and user fronts. The company has raised $30 million in growth funding and its user base has now hit the seven-million mark. Waze, a free app, provides turn-by-turn directions and enables users to crowd-source traffic information. The company had raised $25 million in funding last December. READ MORE
Displaying a firm grasp of the obvious, Dell CEO and founder Michael Dell says today’s tablet market is “an iPad market.” Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit, the PC maker added that Android tablets have not done “fantastically well.” According to Dell, Android tablets didn’t offer a compelling reason to buy over Apple’s iPad. Microsoft’s anticipated Windows 8 platform could be just the competition that Apple needs, notes Dell. READ MORE
Not only is Google going around buying people stuff to get them comfortable with Google Wallet, the company is beefing up its mobile payment platform with special offers and loyalty programs from retailers such as American Eagle Outfitters, The Container Store, Foot Locker, Guess, Jamba Juice, Macy’s, OfficeMax and Toys“R”Us. READ MORE
Google’s earnings reports showed that the company’s mobile division continues to contribute to revenue. Mobile search may make Google as much as $2.5 billion this year, but analysts have questioned where the portable version of the search engine will fall in the company’s revenue stream long-term. READ MORE
After you screw up, you apologize. To sweeten the deal, you might give a gift. That’s how Research in Motion is playing it, after millions of customers lost e-mail and BlackBerry Messenger service last week. RIM will make the apps available for free over the next few weeks in the BlackBerry App World. Worth about $100 together, the apps will be available until the end of the year. READ MORE
If you’re among the thousands of users who’ve run into trouble trying to download and install iOS 5 on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch–or if you’ve installed it without a hitch but now your device is malfunctioning–you may be able to set things right by following the procedures outlined on Cult of Mac. READ MORE
The past couple of days have been unkind to iPhone and BlackBerry users. Research In Motion is struggling with a BlackBerry outage that spread across the globe. Apple launched its upgrade to iOS 5 for iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches, only to receive widespread complaints of crashes, non-working downloads, and even bricked iPhones. READ MORE
