Every ounce of irony is intended on this one. Seriously I thought removable faceplates and such were not important to smartphone users. The last faceplate I had was on my Nokia 3650  and I don’t miss the flimsy feel. (or the flashing see through keypad I shamelessly sported)

I guess RIM thinks I am wrong. Kevin from CrackBerry snapped some shots of the upcoming line of battery covers for the BlackBerry Bold. I am finding it really hard to get excited about this one even though I am trying…

They seem to be popping up everywhere these days… And they seem to be improving. The latest iteration of Bold Clones comes to us from eVeek, a pay/free site devoted to BlackBerry software. In order to mark their one year anniversary, they have released (free, for a limited time) Precision, OSX and iBerry.

The OSX/iBerry clones are certainly worth grabbing, but it’s the Precision theme that really caught my eye. I’ve tried a few 9000 themes, to me they didn’t quite sit right… This is where precision seems to shine: it really suits the 83xx, complimenting what is already a very stylish phone.

The thing that sold me on this theme was the menu layout. It’s very similar (despite the lower resolution) to that found natively on the 9000.

The only thing missing from this theme is a custom TX/RX signal; you know, those little arrows indicating data is being sent or received. It comes with the stock blue arrows that seem somewhat out of place. Unsure if this was just an oversight or by design, however, is only a minor distraction to what is overall a very sharp theme. Head on over to this eVeek page to pick this and the other two up. Be quick, from what I understand, they may not be free for long! You can pick up the themes OTA from elecite.eveek.com/wap

Bplay just released four slick Star Wars themes that I thought looked really well done. I know I grew up on this stuff so I am a bit biased but see for yourself.

The themes are all in Zen format and feature one for Hans Solo, Anakin Skywalker, Boba Fett, & Darth Vader so far. The icons are custom and look awesome but they are the same in all 4 themes.

You can pick them up now for $5.99 each from Bplay

ANAKIN SKYWALKER THEME
BOBA FETT THEME
DARTH VADER THEME
HAN SOLO THEME

Since I am not a Lotus guru I can only read this and do my best to explain it to you. RIM and IBM have hooked up to create the ultimate collaboration tool for BlackBerry. It integrates a ton of things that I just had to copy and paste from the press release to get right. It looks like the Lotus version of BES is not only live and kicking but rather threatening to overtake the Exchange version with regard to features.

• Portals & Dashboards: IBM WebSphere Portal and IBM dashboard software lets businesses build Web sites and single screen dashboard views that deliver information, applications and processes personalized to the individual BlackBerry smartphone user.
• Social Networking: The BlackBerry Client for IBM Lotus Connections helps people tap into the collective knowledge of others and find the people and information they need for the task at hand while on the go.
• Messaging and Calendaring: BlackBerry(R) Enterprise Server for IBM Lotus Notes and Domino enables access to key email and calendaring functions as well as custom applications built with Lotus Domino.
• Unified Communications: The BlackBerry Client for IBM Lotus Sametime lets people access their full buddy list, send and receive instant messages, view presence information and convert an IM session to a phone call with a simple click.
• Business Intelligence: IBM Cognos 8 Go! Mobile business intelligence software is the industry’s first business intelligence solution designed specifically for the BlackBerry platform. It provides personalized secure business information in the right context to allow people to view and interact with dashboard-style reports to make informed decisions while they are on the move.

If you are interested in Lotus I recommend reading the full press release

Josep just sent me a link to a random blog in Spanish that announces the release of a BlackBerry blogging application / client for Typepad. The application installs on your Berry and lets you:

• Create content and post to your blog from your BlackBerry
• Save draft posts for editing or publishing later
• Take photos and upload them to your blog

You can find more info about it at this link

If you use TypePad you can download the client free OTA at the link below:
http://get.typepad.com/typepad.jad
Or you can install it using desktop manager with this link:
TypePad Mobile BlackBerry (zip)

I just wish somebody would develop a client for Wordpress. The developer would make quite a few people happy! (HINT!)

I just got a press release from WorldMate that I found really interesting. WorldMate is an amazing free service that lets you easily schedule your itineraries to display on your BlackBerry. They just added two features that I am sure many people will love.

The first feature lets you know when you and a friend of yours using WorldMate are in the same location. This is great for road warriors who are constantly tight for time. I am not sure how useful this will actually turn out to be but it just shows the innovation behind WorldMate.

The second feature lets you sync your itinerary calendar to your BlackBerry’s native calendar. This way the items also show up in the native calendar and not just in the WorldMate application.

You can pick up the latest version from www.wmlive.com. If you want to read the full press release I copied it after the jump:

Read the rest of this article

John Cox of InfoWorld got the details on the upcoming BES 5.0 while at WES. The information is not the most detailed but seems to focus more on a trend. RIM is trying to simplify the management, deployment, and maintenance of BES. Essentially making it as transparent as possible.

For example 5.0 will allow admins to monitor the status and what went wrong during an activation. It also finally does away with the management console application you had to install in favor of a web based GUI. My favorite is the fact that RIM is making it easier to create applications to be pushed out through the BES. It will also help with troubleshooting and deploying the applications.

RIM already has 10 customers running BES 5.0 so it is in production. Regular beta testing is scheduled for a couple of months from now and the full release will hopefully be out the door by the end of the year. Sadly as we saw with BES 4.1.5 these releases tend to get pushed back.

If you are a BES admin I highly recommend reading the full writeup on InfoWold.com

I just found another theme creation from MonkyBizIU sent to us by a reader. This latest is a iPhone knockoff theme in all Zen, Icon, & Today formats. The background is awesome in my opinion. The only problem I had was that the Today screen was really hard to read since the text was white on the background of the world.

The buttons are custom (obviously they originate from the iPhone) and they look damn good. The notification on email works which is a perk. The top bar is nice and glassy and the font is really easy to read. All in all a job well done and well worth a download. Its a great bPhone alternative.

Sadly there is no OTA download available so this is Desktop Manager only. You can pick up the download by heading to the theme release page on PinStack or just downloading the Zip directly.