A year ago RIM announced that push APIs had become available to its Alliance Program members now its finally taking action. RIM are now offering a brand new feature for the BlackBerry app developers – Push notifications. Developer teams are welcomed to use the BlackBerry Push Service in their own apps bringing live updates to the mobile.

The BlackBerry Push access comes in two packages – Push Essentials the free one and Push Plus with a number of tiers that reflect different options and price points.

With Push service you will be able to receive immediate updates on all your Push-enabled apps such as weather, email, all kind of news, etc.

You can find additional information about the Push Service here.

If hearkened to the world of beguiling mobile phones, then would have witnessed a loud wham some time back. Well, Tata Docomo and Research In Motion have recently unleashed the Blackberry Curve 8520 smartphone in India. Enticingly, the latest in the Blackberry Curve family proffers phone bugs a reason to ‘do the new’ with a myriad of eye-catching features.

The alluring smartphone offers users a stirring mobile experience with effortless mobile access to email, messaging, social networking sites and mobile internet. Among sturdy multimedia features, the handset features a music and video player alongside camera with video recording.

“Tata Docomo recently rolled out its BlackBerry solution and has received an enthusiastic response. When we launched our BlackBerry services, we had promised our subscribers that we would bring them the best products and services. Living up to that brand promise, we are launching the stylish new BlackBerry Curve8520 smartphone for our customers. The major attraction of theBlackBerry Curve 8520 is that it brings the exceptional BlackBerry smartphone experience within the reach of a larger population,” stated Pradeep Dwivedi, Senior Vice President, Tata Teleservices Limited.

Showing off its satiny and glossy body, the swanky Blackberry Curve 8520 comes integrated with an innovative touch-sensitive trackpad, which makes scrolling and selection quite smooth and easy for a great navigation experience. Whereas, its dedicated media keys that are smoothly emplaced along the top of the handset offers users a facile and convenient way to control their music and videos.

“The BlackBerry Curve 8520 is a sleek, stylish and approachable smartphone with a compelling mix of features. We believe this amazing new model, with its new trackpad navigation system and integrated multimedia features, will attract a broad range of mobile customers to the BlackBerry services offered on the Tata Docomo network,” remarked Frenny Bawa, Vice President India,Research In Motion.

In addition to a highly tactile full-QWERTY keyboard for comfortable and accurate typing, the 8520 smartphone subsumes full HTML browsing, built-in Wi-Fi and offers nearly 4.5 hours of talk time and 17 days of standby time.

Users can snap up the tempting Blackberry Curve 8520 for Rs. 14,990.

Research in Motion (RIM) has unveiled its BlackBerry App World in India. After being launched on April 1 globally, this app store from RIM underwent a lot of changes beginning with its name. BlackBerry smartphone users can download the BlackBerry App World on their phones by visiting www.blackberry.com/appworld in the mobile web browser. BlackBerry App World is available on BlackBerry handsets running BlackBerry OS 4.2 or higher.

Note that an active data service connection is required to download the BlackBerry App World. Data charges will be applicable on downloading the app.

The BlackBerry App World has a range of various applications available as free downloads and paid ones too. Hungama MyPlay, CNBC TV18 Moneycontrol, Mundu Radio and Arromatics are few Indian-centric applications.

Like App Stores from Apple, Android, Nokia, Microsoft and Samsung, BlackBerry App World has Categories, Top Downloads, and other features. The Recommend function where users can recommend the application just like Apple asks to rate apps by stars is interesting.

BlackBerry App World features include:
Front Page Carousel – BlackBerry App World showcases several applications on its front page carousel, making it easy for users to browse through a select number of featured applications. Featured applications vary from time to time, helping users discover new applications for practically every aspect of life.
Top Downloads – The “Top Downloads” area on BlackBerry App World lists applications that are the most downloaded.
Categories – BlackBerry App World features a variety of application categories. Categories include games, entertainment, IM and social networking, news, weather, productivity and more.
Search/Filter – BlackBerry App World includes a keyword search with filtering capabilities.
Reviews – Applications on BlackBerry App World can be reviewed by users and those reviews are reflected in star ratings. Users can easily access and read reviews, see screenshots and read a description of each application before they download it.
Recommend – BlackBerry App World users can recommend applications to other people through email, PIN, SMS message or BlackBerry Messenger.
Application Storage – BlackBerry App World includes a folder called My World, which keeps track of applications the user has downloaded. It is a personal storage space that allows users to uninstall and re-install applications.
Application Archiving – users can archive applications to a microSD card or built-in storage memory on their BlackBerry smartphone.
Update Notifications – Users are notified of updates to applications they’ve downloaded on BlackBerry App World.