Crave

RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530

(Credit: Sprint)

Right in the nick of time for the holidays, the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8530 is now available from Sprint for $49.99 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate.

Though an entry-level phone, the Curve 8530 comes with a pretty decent feature list, including Wi-Fi, an optical trackpad, GPS, a 2-megapixel camera, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. In addition, it will support the Sprint Navigation, Sprint Music Store, and Sprint TV.

If you're feeling it, you can purchase the smartphone in stores or through Sprint's business channel or telesales. The carrier will offer the smartphone in black, red, and royal purple.

Verizon Wireless released new desktop software on Monday to help its customers better manage the media between their cell phones and computers.

Based on Smith Micro's QuickLink Media Software, V Cast Media Manager is available as a free download and lets you transfer photos, videos, and music from your phone to your PC via USB cable and provides you with tools for organizing, editing, and viewing the content. With the software, you can do such things as touch up photos, create slideshows, and rip and burn CDs. In addition, V Cast Media Manager can help you sync your multimedia library onto a new phone.

Be aware, however, that the software is currently only compatible with a certain number of phones, such as the Samsung Rogue, LG enV 2, LG Dare, and RIM BlackBerry Storm. Verizon said it is working on bringing support to more devices in the coming months, including Android smartphones. To see a full list of compatible phones and to download the software, check out the V Cast Media Manager product page.

(Credit: Seesmic)

On Monday, Seesmic released an update to Seesmic for BlackBerry, a Twitter app that first debuted in late November.

Back then you had to download Seesmic from the company's Web site. Now you can get it directly from BlackBerry App World online or from the App World app on your smartphone.

Although Seesmic's interface is a bit light on features--like support for multiple accounts--it has added some enhancements that better integrate its Twitter app with the BlackBerry ethos. Chief among these are compliance with the BlackBerry's spell checker and auto-corrector, which will both help keep you from misspelling tweets or forgetting to capitalize an "i." The app has also become sensitive to keyboard shortcuts. In addition to the usual BlackBerry shortcuts T and B, to take you to the top and bottom of the page, are R to reply, D to send a direct message and F to retweet. Here is the full list of mapped shortcuts.

You can now vary your font size among small, medium, and large fonts. Seesmic for BlackBerry also lets you mark a tweet as a favorite in your timeline, but doesn't yet have a dedicated Favorites screen. In addition, Seesmic is now available for phones running 4.5 of the BlackBerry's operating system.The previous build, version 1.0.6 beta, only worked on BlackBerrys 4.6 and up.

You can view the change log for more details, and can try Seesmic's take on Twitter for free on Windows and Mac.

So you've got a new BlackBerry smartphone. You power it up, download BlackBerry App World, and find a gallery of apps waiting to fill up your phone. There's only one problem--figuring out which programs to download first.

Let us introduce you to our BlackBerry Starter Kit. We've assembled our top recommendations for productivity, communication, music, and business--if you intend use your BlackBerry for work as well as for play.

Keep in mind that our list of essential BlackBerry apps is far from exhaustive. We steered clear of games, and of applications for hobbyists and specialized communities in an effort to make our app suggestions applicable to as many new BlackBerry owners as possible. If you've got must-have suggestion of your own, you know the drill--leave 'em in the comments.

One of about 150 themes available at launch in BlackBerry App World.

(Credit: DreamTheme)

Starting Monday, BlackBerry devotees will have an easier time snazzing up their smartphones.

Themes are a new download category in the BlackBerry App World, both on the online catalog and on the App World app you can download to the BlackBerry. There were just shy of 150 free and premium visual themes at launch, including animated themes.

App World took a few extra seconds to update when we launched it this morning to check out the offerings. Otherwise, the minor application update was a smooth transition.

The limited-edition smartphone comes in a wine finish, and sports a custom leather strap and a branded Monocle "M" logo on the back.

(Credit: Monocle)

Research In Motion and $10-per-issue jet-set business editorial magazine Monocle have collaborated on a BlackBerry Bold 9700 that costs an astounding $1,500.

Well, it actually costs 950 British pounds, but that's just how bad the exchange rate is right now.

Read more of "RIM, Monocle collaborate on $1,500 BlackBerry Bold 9700" at ZDNet's The ToyBox.

Good news for BlackBerry business users who are pinching pennies: a free version of the Gwabbit contact manager for BlackBerry is expected to surface in the BlackBerry App World--and only in the App World--on Tuesday, December 8. The current version of Gwabbit for BlackBerry costs $9.99 for a yearlong subscription.

Gwabbit (formerly Technicopia) came out with Gwabbit the BlackBerry app back in May 2009, as the mobile version of its Outlook e-mail add-on. Gwabbit scans incoming e-mail for a signature block. If it finds one, the software compares the contents to your address book contacts. If there's no previous match, or if it looks like there's been a change, Gwabbit will prompt you to add or update the contact.

We were impressed with the convenience Gwabbit gives business users who build up their contact lists from their smartphones. Moreover, we noted how effectively and quickly Gwabbit processed the e-mails, but only so long as the sender's contact details are conveniently organized in the signature block. Gwabbit lacks the sensitivity to pull possibly relevant details from elsewhere in the e-mail.

How could Gwabbit's publisher give away its $10-a-year product for free? ... Read more

RIM's BlackBerry App World is slowly but surely gaining ground as a storefront for distributing BlackBerry applications. eBay is the latest major company to forge a presence in the storefront, in the form of an eBay app for BlackBerry auctioneers in the U.S. and Canada.

The official eBay for BlackBerry application, which was co-developed by eBay and RIM, includes features to search for, track, and buy an item from the smartphone. Unsurprisingly, the eBay app accepts PayPal payments--PayPal has not only been an eBay company since 2002, it is also currently the only payment system for purchasing BlackBerry apps through the App World.

(Credit: RIM/BlackBerry)

In addition to letting users search and buy, the eBay app will notify you of your bidding status, including when you've won or lost a bid. It can also schedule auction-related reminders in the BlackBerry calendar.

eBay's app isn't the first of its kind for the BlackBerry platform. Earlier this year, Bonfire Media released U.S. and international versions of its app, Pocket Auctions for eBay. Since Pocket Auctions doesn't include hooks into the phone's native calendar, and costs $10, we're guessing that most eBay fans will easily pick the free, official app over Bonfire Media's third-party offering.

We got a brief demo of the then-under-wraps eBay app at the BlackBerry Developer Conference earlier this month. We liked the ease of the PayPal integration, but we won't really know how well the app works until we've spent some time with it. Tune back for our first impressions.

The Twitter service with the cutesy raccoon mascot is making a new home on BlackBerry and Google Android phones. The free Seesmic, like its proliferate rivals, lets you read, manage, and compose Twitter messages much more flexibly than you can do from Twitter's Web site. We crash-tested both mobile versions as soon as we heard the news.

Seesmic on Android
Seesmic 1.0 for Android is available from the Android Market app, which is located on the smartphone. It takes up just over 1MB. The interface spreads four tabs along the top in both landscape and portrait mode, one each for the timeline, replies, direct messages, and your profile. There's also a ribbon on the screen that you can tap to refresh the feed. Click to open a tweet and you can save it as a favorite, retweet, or reply as a public "@" message or as a private posting. From the menu button, you can refresh, compose, or tinker with the settings.

Although Seesmic's Android interface is much more stripped down than its desktop AIR app for Windows and Mac, the app manages to remain flexible by giving you a choice over the kinds of notifications you'd like to receive, and over the partner services you'd prefer to use to send a photo, video, or shorten a URL.

Sure, it's blurry (blaming the BlackBerry camera), but squint hard enough and you'll see that Seesmic associated a picture with my account that's not actually my face.

(Credit: Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

The biggest flaws we've noticed so far? ... Read more