The Associated Press has launched their new Mobile News Network application for BlackBerry. This application is provided free, and can be downloaded at bb.apnews.com.

Some commentary:

“Developing an optimized version of the Mobile News Network for BlackBerry users has been a high priority for us, and we are delighted to bring this community a seamless, single client application for mobile news across 1,000 trusted local sources,” said Jeffrey Litvack, general manager for mobile and emerging products for AP.

“More than 20 million Americans accessed news on their mobile devices in July, up 58 percent from 13 million from the same month last year,” said Mark Donovan, senior analyst, comScore M:Metrics. “BlackBerry owners, in particular, are voracious consumers of news, with 40 percent accessing news on their device.”

Source – BlackBerryNews

This is probably not a big surprise to many, but AT&T has delayed their release of the Bold due to further testing. According to RIM’s co-CEO Mike Lazaridis “the phone is still undergoing the certification process in which AT&T tests all new handsets to make sure they work well on its wireless network.”

Lazaridis claims that the purpose of these tests are to ensure that the Bold doesn’t have the same problems as the iPhone when it first came out. I’m with Lazaridis on that one, more testing means it can only be better once it’s released.

“There’s great scrutiny, as you might know, on that network and a certain device. So I guess everyone wants to be sure on every last test,” Lazaridis said.

Read more from the Associated Press.

September 29, 2008, 10:12 AM —  CIO.com —

BlackBerry users have no shortage of free applications for their smartphones. A Google search for the terms “Free BlackBerry Apps” turns up pages and pages of possibilities. But who wants to sift through all the garbage to find the good stuff? Lucky for you, we already weeded through the pile to identify the software that’s worth installing and using.

Over the past few months we’ve offered several lists of BlackBerry software downloads– free software, open source apps, RIM executives’ favorite downloads–and we don’t plan to stop anytime soon.

This week, we’ve got an innovative mobile news reader; a feature-packed, BlackBerry-specific instant messaging application; a great way to track your BlackBerry’s performance and usage metrics; a unique local search utility; and a piece of software that can provide all the hockey-related news and information one could desire.

Applications mentioned in article:

• Associated Press Mobile News Network
• AIM Instant Messenger
• myBoxTone Insight
• Poynt
• The Hockey News Mobile

Read the whole article at ITWorld.com.

According to the Associated Press, AT&T will be the exclusive carrier to the new BlackBerry Bold. This will not be good news to a lot of people who have been waiting for the Bold to come to their carrier. After reading that the Bold will possibly be released to other carriers after AT&T’s exclusive launch, this is a big disappointment.

But hey, I guess that’s why they call those rumors right?

According to T-Mobile Germany, the cost of the Bold without a service plan is roughly $680.00. The Bold with a service plan comes to about $190.00. AT&T had no comment as to the planned release date for the Bold, but others like Peter Misek or Deepak Chopra think it will be released in mid-September.

Click here for the whole story.