Mobile gadgets running Blackberry & Android OS'
Posts tagged BlackBerry
Switching is happening all over again.
Jul 9th
In February 2009 I left the Symbian UIQ 3.0 O.S for BlackBerry. Of course, some of my friends knowing me and using more or less the same Symbian platform ( UIQ 3.0 and/or S40, S60 Nokia) were skeptical: “BlackBerry is a professional platform, a closed and rigid environment, no way you can thrive under that rock” they said. What they didn’t know is that at the time R.I.M already decided to go forward with the plan to conquer a new kind of customer with the multimedia phones: the much-debated Storm 1, the Bold 9000, eventualy the Javelin and the Tour later on. Platforms are becoming more and more multimedia and social cause that’s where the money is today.
And that was exactly what made me go first BlackBerry and now, Android: while the UIQ 3.0 was great and rich in applications (O.K, maybe not so rich by today’ standards or by iPhone/Android markets standards), it lacked the new applications for the social media. The only reason I kept it until February 2009 is the hacking community. They “developed” the O.S much more than Symbian itself did and a lot more than the developers did. While BlackBerry had all these applications, it lacked the diversity one enjoys on Android and iPhone. In BlackBerry’s case, the developers deserted the booming wonderful community formed around R.I.M’s products. Or maybe I am wrong; I know there aren’t many developers pushing-out BlackBerry applications. The applications themselves are rare and expensive. The price is the main issue: while an average app for Blackberry is 2.99$ (price imposed by BlackBerry App World) , the others go as low as 0.99$. This happens EXACTLY because there aren’t many developers (anymore) and the remaining ones they profit on the fact that the demand surged. But even with this situation, the BlackBerry users aren’t benefiting much. For almost 2 years I look for a working Call Filter aplication. Because I was paying for it, I asked for a few features (existing already on Symbian S40 and UIQ 3.0 for years!) like:
- accept all calls
- reject all calls
- accept phone-book only
- drop unwanted calls and/or mute the ringer
- reject Black List numbers and accept White List numbers
- automatic profile switch based on time schedule
And that was about it. All of the above were supported by other applications, most of them free or charging very little money. And I’ve tried half of those while using the Sony-Ericsson P1i and afterwards, even on BlackBerry. On BlackBerry, I couldn’t find a satisfactory application. Most of them are very basic and extremely expensive – 19,95$ I had to pay for mCall Manager Light (sic!), the only one working as it should but without the scheduling. After I updated from 4.7 version OS to 5.0 OS, the app stopped working and when they did update it (3 months later) it wasn’t working properly anymore. This experience sums-up all my experiences with BlackBerry applications.
And then there is the support issue: being so fragmentary as it is, the BlackBerry application market is divided between some developers interested in keeping the customer happy and the rest. The rest don’t give a shit about the customer. It’s enough if you buy it once and never comeback ever again, 10$ from each customer is more than enough for a single application. I bet there are a lot of “developers” hitting the market only once with one single (bad) product and then move on to another platforms; from what I’ve been told developing for BlackBerry is neither cool or money-rewarding.
And now it’s time for a new challenge: the Android O.S. I’ve been playing for a few months with a T-Mobile Pulse but in order to enjoy the full-power of the new O.S, I had to go full way. And I chose the HTC Desire
. While it lacks stamina ( my usage will kill the battery in just a bit over 5 hours!), I have faith in the platform and its ability to deliver a better product later on with rooting, custom ROMs and Froyo later on.
(HTC) Desire vs. (BlackBerry) work, as in Bold 9700
Jun 14th
I knew I should wait some time before checking out another OS while using the BlackBerry. And I did for almost 2 years. But now the OS’ are refreshed much faster than years ago when I needed to wait more than a year to get “the next smartphone”. And now Android is on the high horse despite the rise of Apple’s OS No.4 and the new iPhone. While I never considered getting an iPhone, it was exactly why I didn’t, because of the lack of certain features like multitasking and easiness of using the sync features (read I hate iTunes). To make matters worse, I consider myself a power-user which means battery has to be strong and in iPhone it wasn’t. I still think it’s gonna be weak in iPhone 4 although they show faith in improved battery life.
And talking about battery life, that’s what’s keeping me in defecting to the Dark Side. No, not that D.S , the iPhone, but the other D.S – the Android platform as a whole. See, I live in a city. I work in an office full of power outlets, employing a laptop full of USB ports, I drive a car with multiple (Mini and Micro) USB connections&chargers but still can’t get enough juice for my newly acquired Desire. As I said before, the today’s battery technology is not up to par with smartphone usage around the world. There are going to be advancements like the fuel-cell but taking into account they’ve started research a long time ago, I can assume it’s gonna be another couple of years until it’s gonna be feasible and economically viable. So, what’s to do until then?
Google pushes Android towards the masses to be used with simpler phones, too. I think they never thought that the producers will be using the platform for smartphones only but rather to give the producers the ability to step-up the “features” game in the market, to provide them with the necessary tools to improve user experience thus shaping the tastes of customers and driving up the consumption by doing that. Apple did it with the iPhone, why Google couldn’t do it taking into account the huge audience? Simpler smartphones or entry-level smartphones like T-Mobile Pulse I used , LG Ally for Verizon network or Samsung Jet are designed to replace the small, inexpensive but featureless Nokias and Samsungs in those networks. By selling those to Average Joe, they’ll never have the “flat-battery-in-4-hours” issues they encounter in power-users usage but this doesn’t mean that the producers and networks aren’t aware of the sad situation we’re in.
Instead of an epilogue, I will ask this: how can one compare apples with BlackBerrys especially when we all know that forest fruits are so appealing and have so many “vitamins” over them apples?
A week without my BlackBerry Bold 9700
Apr 27th
Inspired by a search I did out of nowhere, I decided I wanna try to live without my BlackBerry Bold for a week and…use my T-Mo Pulse Android OS instead! I will continue to use the BlackBerry to receive my work phone calls but that should be it. I’ll also use it to send/reply to some of my work emails but will try to do so as little as possible.
I know there are some disadvantages:
- the lack of physical keyboard will slow me down when writing.
- the lack of work emails will be a definitive minus as I can’t find a good Exchange client; should be free, like the one I use in the BlackBerry.
- the battery life which is horrible in Android devices, on the Pulse included.
There are also advantages:
- the Pulse’ so much better for multimedia.
- the touchscreen is better for “on-the-fly usage” especially on apps not requiring data input.
- a LOT of applications to use and get accustomed with in a short period of time.
I just don’t know if i should update the blog regarding the way the things are going daily, or to write a single post after a week. What do you think?
RIM BlackBerry Twitter application goes officially on Beta
Apr 9th
As I expected, the BlackBerry Twitter application by RIM went officially on Beta! Which means waiting will be over soon. I will continue to use the leaked version (the same built after all) but I will sign-up for the Beta Zone – this is where you can get the Twitter application if you’re not lucky enough to be in a country using the BlackBerry App World.
Update {(d) leaked} RIM BlackBerry Twitter application
Apr 3rd
I’m glad to see they are working actively on this app! In my original review I was expressing my disappointment regarding the fact that RIM announced their Twitter application will be ready by the end of 2010!
Then Crackberry wrote the application will be available on March 31st, as some RIM employees reported at CTIA 2010. It turned out not to be true and RIM has apologized for that blunder but not it seems we’re not going to wait too long; a new version has surfaced just a couple of days ago.
This version 1.0.037 is a lot faster and brings some extra features like the lists. No lag when switching from the messaging section to homescreen or to the Task Manager – this one was really bad; I once clocked a 20 seconds lag…
This is what’s new in this version:
- create, edit and read lists
- edit your profile
- faster operation
- disable tweet and navigation bar
This is still in Beta – not being official and still encountering some lags but it means that the launch date is close!
Update: I wasn’t planning on writing about this but it seems that this is a super-app, like RIM likes to call it, a push application. I noticed it’s not running in the background (it didn’t on the first version either) but it will send notifications every time it will find tweets or replies/DMs depending on your rules you ticked in Options. If it’s so and it’s a pushed app, it’ll greatly reduce the energy consumption and the strain on your RAM – especially on BlackBerry which always had (and it seems like it will always will or at least as they will keep on running this Java platform/OS) memory issues.
So my BlackBerry has data & voice-calls counters after all! Sorta…
Mar 23rd
I’ve always been gutted that I can’t see how much voice minutes or data I’ve been consuming every month on my BlackBerry. For the voice part, I’ve been relying on my operator: it offered this service for free from the beginning and while, for a few years, the service wasn’t very exact ( a large number of subscribers used it almost daily in order to verify the authenticity of the initial reading) . But for more than 4-5 years now it’s quite OK and the readings are almost real-time. So it’s a good thing: I don’t have to install an application for that and I don’t have to keep it runnin’ in the background in order to know how much data I “eat”.
I can understand RIM’s reticence when it comes to implement a data counter: it’s not easy to see your customers are cutting-down on surfing the web when they see they consume tens of MBs daily because they stream music & video (an area at which BB sucks anyway). There is always the “unlimited data plan” with an asterisk – they might shut-down your data pipe as soon as you hit 200 MB.
I thought I found a way last year: the perfect data counter! I loved it. I used it with the Bold 9000 and if you read the review I hope you’ll use it too – it’s a very nice, simple and UI-clean application. I don’t use it anymore and not because it wasn’t good, but because I have a truly unlimited data-plan and because I wanna keep my RAM as free as possible.
Today I was surfing Crackberry as I sometimes do and I read this and thought: this guy has to have an IT policy on his girlfriend’s phone and that’s the reason he can’t run that app. Which was correct. A thing he also found out after countless call on his operator and reading pages throughly over the net. But he also found out that by going to Options/Status and typing ” BUYR ” (except for the “”, of course) you can find out if your smartphone and an IT policy in place or not. Mine doesn’t have one. And what else?
Data and call counters! Yes. Primitive, one-line counters but they’re there. And they’re kinda general. Why? Probably for the reason above: RIM doesn’t care although the feature’s been requested by a lot of people for YEARS! And if you know something about programing, you know that it might take a programmer a few days to come-up with a nifty solution. Or maybe a “dumbphone” solution: in – calls, out – calls, total counter, reset options and maybe, just maybe a date-set automatic reset.
Back to the counters: if you know about this trick and you have a new phone you can always write down the data when your subscription resets in order to find out roughly how much time you spent on the phone talking every month. With the data counter is a bit tricky, as it only tells you exactly how much data you ate until it reaches 1 GB, then good luck and good riddance.You can hit 1 GB in less than 2 weeks if you stream and watch YouTube…which luckily I don’t because Blackberry sucks at compressing videos.
But having those “one-liners” tells us the system needs those internal “applications” in order to function properly and so would we.
PS: Looks like a lot of people knew that particular code above; why wasn’t I aware of that? Well, maybe it’s because they only wrote about in forums and those aren’t claiming too high in ranks on Google.
