As you know, RIMM finally released the long awaited LinkedIn app for the BlackBerry. The new app allows you to keep track of all your connections on LinkedIn as well as discover new connections in your network. Let’s take a look at what this new app has to offer.
Upon first opening LinkedIn, you’ll be greeted with the Sign In screen. Just enter your info. If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, you can sign up for one here too although not sure why you would even download the app if you didn’t already have a LinkedIn account.
After sign up, there is an initial setup screen that will ask you if you want to integrate LinkedIn with your BlackBerry Messages App and the BlackBerry Contacts App. I chose not to integrate either as I don’t really want the app adding extra entries into my well organized contact list or have it sending random messages to my inbox.
This is the Network Updates Screen. Here you will see all updates made by your connections. If your connections have linked their account to Facebook or Twitter, you will see those updates here as well.
This is the Search Screen. From here, you can actually search through you current list of connections or if you scroll down a little past your connections you’ll see the following:
As you can see here, you get search results from anyone who is in your LinkedIn Network. That means anyone who you have or haven’t made connections with yet will be on here. the “1st” and “2nd” icons you see on the right had side tell you how deep their connection is to you in your network. That’s a very nice feature to have.
The Connections Screen is just that. This is your “friends” list of as LinkedIn calls it, your connections. From here you can click on each individual profile and get detailed information on that person. I’ll refrain from posting up what the profile screen looks like as it gives some pretty detailed information about each person.
The invitations Screen shows you any pending invitations you may have to join someone else’s network. As you can see, I have none. No one wants me in their network.
The Messages Screen shows any messages that you connections send to you. Again, I have no messages. No one loves me.
Not really sure what the Reconnect Screen is for. I have no idea who any of these people are who showed up on this list nor does it tell me if they even exist on my network or any of my connection’s networks. I’m guessing that they have to be linked to you somehow by your current list of connections but at this moment in time, it makes no sense to me who they are. The icon used for this tab sums it up best with the question mark. Steve Matchett, Adrin Gray and Alieth Guanche; who the heck are you?
That pretty much concludes the tour. As you can see, it does basically everything you would need the LinkedIn app to do. It has a very similar layout to all of Rimm’s other apps like the Facebook app, Twitter app, and Myspace app. Unlike those other apps though, for some reason the LinkedIn icon is stickied to my app switcher and will not disappear, even after sighing out and shutting down the app. I don’t mind seeing it there if its running in the background but if I already logged off and closed, I expect it to disappear which it doesn’t.
As of writing this, I have already deleted it from my BlackBerry as I find little use for the app in my daily life. I visit LinkedIn very rarely and if I do, its only to look up some information of find potential contacts for business use. Other then that, I rarely ever use it or find a need to have it on my BlackBerry. For those however who frequent LinkedIn a lot, you may find this app very useful as it does a very good job integrating with LinkedIn.
