Mobile gadgets running Blackberry & Android OS'
Posts tagged gsm
RIM BlackBerry Twitter application goes officially on Beta
0773 days
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
2779 days
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…
0791 days
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.
How To: Check Your Internet Speed on Your Android Phone
0803 days
Out of curiosity last night I wanted to see what’s the difference in speed between my Wi-Fi fiber cable connection I have at home and my GSM provider – a new provider with its new 3G data solution.
The program used on my Android Pulse is the new SpeedTest.com‘s Android application so many people are so fond of. I have to admit there is no point in checking my Internet speed unless it’s not performing up to the tasks at hand: streaming radio or video, reading web pages or downloading podcasts. I am not a speed freak and I don’t usually stream. But I just got BeyondPod to satisfy my “podcatching” needs, but that’s another story!
As you can imagine, the pictures 2 and 3 represent the 3G network speed, the others are the results of Wi-Fi tests. Yeah, we’re still a long way to go. Or the provider is. The program is self-explanatory, has only for tabs and you only have to fine-tune it in order to get your result quickly. The test takes around 10-15 seconds and I reckon the download packets are no more than a few hundred kbps. You can also chose which server to use in order to have an accurate test.
You can get the application in the Market using the Barcode Scanner.
How To: Back-Up Your Data From Your Blackberry
1811 days
Most of the BlackBerry users are not your “average Joe” when it comes to using a phone. A smartphone. Thus it’s important to recognize and fulfill the need of these users of backing-up data. I’ve seen many people complaining about loss of data when their phones died or got stolen or fell into the tub (yeah, we take our BlackBerrys with us almost all the time!).
This issue has been addressed by many, including R.I.M. I won’t go into detail too much when it comes to Desktop Manager. Everybody employing a BlackBerry knows it. It can stay like this for a long time when you open it, finally connect, back-up everything by going to Backup and Restore/Backup/Options or by going to Backup and Restore/Advanced for a selective backup.
The disadvantage is that you can’t just put your messages or calendar entries back without overriding all your system (apps, settings), when sometimes you just want to restore some messages. Another issue I ran into was coming from a Bold 9000 (1GB internal memory) to Bold 9700 (256 MB internal memory): I couldn’t restore anything previously backed up because the internal memory was too small.
I backup every couple of months but as a last resort.
Another program good at backing-up is Best Buy’s m:iQ Live. Available for all kinds of smartphones, it will backup most of your usual stuff: images, videos, contacts, calendar entries, messages and call logs. You can share them, access them on the web and restore all when you’re in trouble or you have a new phone. Multi-platform is a great advantage as you’re not tied to a particular OS and you can switch. You install the application especially designed for BlackBerry on the phone and backup in minutes. It doesn’t have to be automatic and it doesn’t have to run constantly in the background. It can be used from time to time when necessary. It also has a neat “status update” feature, so others can see it when visiting your section.
There here comes good – ole Google with Google Sync. It’s a broader solution, as it includes all kinds on syncs including contacts by Gmail, calendar entries by Google Calendar, news by Google Reader, pictures by Picasa, videos by YouTube and tasks by Google Tasks. Of course, not all are available for BlackBerry through a dedicated client but contacts and calendar entries are more than enough for me. Both contacts and calendar entries will be auto synchronized every three hours, unless you chose to do it manually (at least for the contacts). I keep the calendar entries on automatic sync because I use it a lot (and modify data a lot), while the contacts are synced once at the beginning. In time, I could try another sync every few months especially because Gmail has a tool of finding and merging the duplicates, thus allowing me to keep the hundreds of names under control. The application itself is self-explanatory, tiny, can be installed Over The Air (OTA) and works automatically.
Of course there are other backup solutions but these are the ones I use and never had an issue with. This combo-solution is the perfect opportunity to backup and keep it simple. And not pay extra for it, of course.
Twitter application by R.I.M – a follow-up
0827 days
As of Thursday, I used the new Twitter application by R.I.M. For 2 days I had the occasion of using every bit of it and make an idea regarding this early version.
Let’s not forget that since being announced by the early adopters lucky enough to be provided with a copy ( by R.I.M, by Crackberry and other sites/developers hand-picked by R.I.M) lots and lots of tweets and blog articles have popped-up over the Internet driving the people in search of a leak which appeared promptly. Of course, you can never tell if this was done on purpose by R.I.M in order to get as much feedback as possible, or that the BlackBerry community is really, really powerful and we’re benefiting from that.
I downloaded this leak and except for the fact that it will expire on March 31st, it’s THE Beta used by everyone. So, what are the PROs and CONs of THIS build ( it’s important to highlight this as many, many users are disappointed and complaining about quality, U.I, bugs, lags, etc):
PROS:
- its very existence; R.I.M is committed to offer best quality applications to their customers and is not relying solely on its developers.
- the application is built in order to offer as much functionality as possible, that’s why at this moment it does seem a bit overloaded with features
- the notification system is great, allowing one to close the application once it’s done with it. You can launch it, read the tweets by going to your time-line, replies, DMs, profile & search functions and then close it down. It will notify you with a little “t” in the notification bar on the home-screen and integrate the messages in the BlackBerry Messages Application.
- upon opening the DMs, they will be marked with a little check, so you won’t have to comeback to them again.
- the ability to send links from the BlackBerry browser to Twitter in one click AND the fact that this function is integrated with the browser menu options.
- upon choosing automatic refresh, when in foreground the application won’t just unload the new tweets into the time-line causing the fast auto-scrolling of previous tweets, but producing a small notification bar on top of the tweet one’s just reading and announces “new tweets available”.
- after running it for two days I didn’t observe and RAM or battery leaks.
- scrolling 20 tweets is fast and the loading time for the new ones (on WiFi and 3G) is 3 to 4 seconds; it’s OK.
- being a native app, one can change font/size by going to Options/Screen-Keyboard.
- sports a “conversation” feature allowing you to see your exchange of replies with someone else.
- includes the native shortcuts we’re all used to : “T” for “top”, “B” for “bottom”, “R” for “replies”. There are some more waiting to be discovered.
CONS:
- buggy, no caching so every time you go from one tab to the other it’ll lose time and data reloading everything
- upon exiting the application or even put it in the background, it will slow down the system causing unresponsiveness for more than 15 seconds at times.
- the Retweet function won’t work. There is a workaround by going to “Send To”, choosing “Twitter”, then “Tweet” and then finally editing and sending the tweet. Tiresome.
- OR if it’s true what some users are saying, the RT function does work but you can’t see your own RT (as in the official RT version), while others do. By logging in your web account, you can find your RTed tweet. So is this a feature?
- no separate notifications for Replies and DMs as we were spoiled by all the others developers of BlackBerry Twitter applications.
- this trial will end March, 31st. I inquired by sending a public reply to @BlackBerry and I got a DM saying they can’t comment on how or why is going to end, but that I should definitely watch them. It’s probably going to be another build and we’ll get to be Beta-testers again? We’ll see.
- lack of push notification. I guess in this kind of application push is not feasible having lots and lots of updates to pull.
- OR when closing the application it will start pushing the new tweets. It might also run in the background and not able to see it – there are some application behaving like this.
- support for tweeting a picture from the Media Gallery would be nice.
Piece of advice: to disable the Twitter application, go to its menu and log off! Yes, a lot of people don’t know how to do it!
