Recently in BlackBerry Category

Image Credit: The New York Times
The Gray Lady's Brad Stone has a 3 pager in today's paper on everyone's favorite new holy war: RIM versus Apple. It comes complete with a cute historical reference to RIM's headquarters:

STEVE JOBS, Apple's chief executive and field general, has Napoleonic dreams of global conquest for his 10-month-old wonder gadget, the iPhone. So it may be fitting that he's encountering his most serious resistance in a city called Waterloo.  That is where, 70 miles west of Toronto in Ontario, 19 nondescript, low-rise office buildings comprise the headquarters of Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry.

Well, I, for one, have welcomed our Canadian overlords, having ditched my iPhone for a BlackBerry after 3 and a half months of swerving, sweating, and getting annoyed at the coolness of Apple's $400 screen.

In March, Mr. Jobs announced that Apple would take the rare step of licensingMicrosoft's corporate e-mail technology, to allow iPhones to connect directly to business computers -- a dagger aimed at the heart of R.I.M.'s strength in the corporate market. In Apple's quarterly conference call last week, Apple executives said that one-third of Fortune 500 companies were interested in giving iPhones to their employees.

I'll go out on a limb here and actually praise Microsoft for delivering a great product, Exchange, and RIM for leveraging it for the on the go email user (sadly, most of my mobile use is email, Instant Message or an even cooler feature, RIM's peer-to-peer BlackBerry Messenger follow, but I use email more than anything). Also, the calendar. Ah, the calendar. I can add an appointment and invite a friend and it hits their calendar and mine, I can edit it on my Mac and it hits the phone in the same way. Yes, ActiveSync does that but at what cost?

London's Sunday Independent reports that a yet another mobile phone study has found that using one of those helpful little gadgets will kill more people than smoking or asbestos.

Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take "immediate steps" to reduce exposure to their radiation.

The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, is the most devastating indictment yet published of the health risks.

It draws on growing evidence - exclusively reported in the IoS in October - that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. Cancers take at least a decade to develop, invalidating official safety assurances based on earlier studies which included few, if any, people who had used the phones for that long.

I guess if they're right, the answer to "where you at" will be "in the hospital, fool!"

It was brought up on the podcast last night, so I thought I'd mention it.  There are a lot of rumors floating around about the BlackBerry 9000 series coming out later this year.  A lot of people seem to think that it'll be a touch-screen iPhone killer, but if RIM wanted a touch-screen device they'd probably have one by now.

 

I'm not much for speculation on the subject, but here's my wish list for the 9000 series -

 

• Bigger Keys, Please -  Some of the rumors (the ones that still include a keyboard) do show us a BlackBerry with larger keys than the current 8000 series.
• More Resistance from the Pearl - I'd like it if the pearl (the little scroll-ball that was introduced on the 8100) weren't quite so easy to roll.  Too often when I'm trying to click on something with it I end up clicking on something next to it, below it, above it...
• Streaming Video - Whether it's YouTube or Hulu, I'd love to be able to pull it up on my BB when I'm not in front of the computer.
• Easier Memory Card Access - The Curve and Pearl series have the memory card slot externally for easy access and hot swapping (sounds dirty).  The 8800 series (I have an 8830 and Andrew has an 8800) have it under the battery cover.  On the 8830 you can access it with the battery intact, so it's just annoying that I have to semi-dismantle the phone to change memory cards.  If Andrew wants to?  That battery's coming out.
• Camera - Aside from being fun, cameras can be used for business applications.  For instance, some Samsung phones have a business card scanner.  The camera will actually pick out the contact info and add it to your addressbook.  That'd be super cool on a BlackBerry. 
• More Screen - I'd like a little more size to the screen even at the expense of a larger overall size for the unit.  If the new BB were thinner it would be very easy to deal with a little extra height and/or width.

 

I think those could all very possibly be features of the next series of BlackBerry.

 

Now, who has an extra $600 that's weighing them down?

It may seem shocking to some people, but TMZ had an awesome post with a pseudo-conspiracy theory about Research in Motion (the folks who make the BlackBerry), Will.i.am and Barack Obama.

 

Here's a snippet

 

-----

Barack gets the Black vote -- BlackBerry that is!

Research in Motion -- the maker of BlackBerry -- is teaming up with Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am's website, Dipdive.com.

While the folks at RIM haven't officially endorsed Barack, Will.i.am is a fierce supporter of Obama. The Dipdive website has so much Obama content, it might as well be run by his camp!

-----

I like the thinking - BlackBerry doesn't want to explicitly endorse anyone, so they partner with one of the most vocal Barack Obama supporters there is - I mean we've all seen the "Yes, We Can" video, right?  It's a great double-whammy for RiM, at the same time offering a backdoor endorsement for the younger, hipper Democratic hopeful and making another move into the "fun" territory that is controlled by the Sidekick and the interloping iPhone.

 

Well-played, RiM.

In the "ok, ok, we admit we should have done this last year" department, Apple announced that not only will they release the SDK, but that they've licensed Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync for iPhone. Interestingly enough, Steve, who just over a year ago announced that there would be no SDK and that the only push option for iPhone would be Yahoo!, passed the buck to Phil Schiller to make this announcement.

The Taliban wants mobile networks shuttered during evening and early morning hours so they can't be tracked by U.S. forces. From Ars:

The towers and offices of mobile phone operators in Afghanistan are being pressured to shut down operations at night by the Taliban. The former rulers of Afghanistan and current insurgent group held "talks" with the four major mobile companies in Afghanistan today, and gave them three days to go dark for 14 hours per day--or else.

The reason for the threat is the Taliban's belief that American soldiers and rebels within Afghanistan are using mobile phones to track down remaining Taliban members. "Since the occupying forces stationed in Afghanistan usually at night use mobile phones for espionage to track down the mujahideen, the Islamic Emirate gave a three-day ultimatum to all mobile phone firms to switch off their phones from five in the afternoon until seven in the morning," Taliban spokesperson Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters, ironically via mobile phone (and presumably during daylight).

No word on whether or not this will trigger a flood of tourism by Americans looking to get away from their BlackBerry email while on vacation. I can imagine the commercials now..."Kabul: where you can really get away..."

Despite the reported outage today...I think I had a few minutes of non-connectivity, but I sent myself an email just a few minutes ago and it worked.

According to Reuters, AT&T is rolling out high-speed data access is 80 new markets.  This is great news for anyone who does a decent amount of web surfing on their handsets. In addition to simple surfing, higher data speeds offer a lot of other advantages: If you're using a web-based navigation system, for instance, the maps and directions can load that much faster, helping your navigation keep up with you so that you don't blow past an exit while you're waiting for the screen to load. If you're like us, however, and you use your wireless service to provide internet access to your computer this is far more exciting.  The main reason that a person would use their cell service, whether it's with a laptop aircard or by tethering their BlackBerry (that's us), is to enhance portability.  I mean, having your compact little notebook is great until you have to plug in or lurk at a Wi-Fi hotspot when you want to go online. With added wireless broadband coverage more customers in more places can get a higher level of internet usability on the go. More portability with less loss of functionality? Yes, please!

This is a topic that came up in the Beyond411 Application Review.

When you load an application on a BlackBerry it generally requires certain things from said BlackBerry - access to the Internet, access to phone information (address book, etc.) and sometimes access to your GPS location (if you're using a turn-by-turn navigation application, fr'instance).

The majority of application will ask you questions when you first run them (The Application has requested access to you GPS Location) followed by the option to allow or deny that access.

In the event that something still doesn't work or you accidentally answered "No" to something you can manually set those permissions. This is in the event that your BlackBerry is not under the control of a BlackBerry Enterprise Server ( BES) . The BES issue is something that I'm going to leave alone because the focus of these reviews is to make the BlackBerry approachable to non-business users. These people wouldn't (usually) be on a BES administered device to begin with.

Anyway, getting back to the point, these permissions can be set manually so that you can tell your BB "Hey, if <insert app name here> wants the Internet, let <insert same app name here> have the Internet, ok?"

This will, in theory, give the app whatever it needs to function properly.

How do I change these settings? Glad ya asked!

On a BlackBerry with a Pearl (the little ball)

ex: 8800/20/30, Curve 8300/10/20, Pearl 8100/20/30

Go to Options (this is the little wrench). On some GSM BB's (at&t, T-Mobile) you need to enter Settings (little gears) to find options.

Select Advanced Options

Then Applications

Then highlight whichever app we need to monkey around with and press the Menu key (left of the Pearl, has a bunch of dots on it).

Select Edit Permissions

Press the Menu key (yes, again)

Select Reset Firewall Prompts

Now you're going to be looking at Connection, Interactions and User Data.

All three of these need to be set to "Allow."

Once they are, press the Menu key one last time and select "Save."

Once you're done "Please Wait"ing (try it and you'll understand) turn off the BB, wait about 30 seconds and power it back on.

You're set!!

If your BB still has the wheel

ex 7100i, 7130e, 8703e, 8700c/r

Go to Options

Advanced Options

Click on the app

Select Edit Permissions

Set Connection, Interactions and User Data to "Allow," click the wheel and "Save" and then power cycle (turn the BB off and then back on) once the waiting is done.

I hope this helps, and it will be added to the App Review page as well.

Just like "Lost Souls" (JC Sackett knows what I'm talking about), this application suffers from great concept, poor execution.

Beyond 411 is a BlackBerry application that starts off as a free way to search for phone numbers, but goes Beyond 411 to offer a slough of other options.

Sounds great ("concept"). Have you used Beyond411? Once you leave the familiar realm of looking up a business (and this is after you get past a semi-unfriendly interface) you get slapped in the face by how well it does(n't) get the job done.

When you first run the application it seems promising; you're prompted to enter a "home," "work" and an "other" address. These addresses are used when you look up a business - basically, it will look for matches near to the selected address.

You can also select what Internet connection the application will use to search for these results, but there's really no good reason to take it off of "default."

Click "Save" and you're ready to (try to) use Beyond411.

The home screen is a little daunting and lacking in direction.

In the upper-right corner it will say "home." By clicking on this you can select one of the default addresses that you've already entered or select GPS to try and use your current location as the area around which to look for businesses (this is only an option on certain BB models and will not work on, for example, the Pearl 8100).

After selecting your location you start typing (presumably the name of a business you want to find) and Beyond411 will start guessing the business that you're looking for - very cool.

When you've finished typing a click of the Pearl will display a menu, with "Yellow Pages (selected location)" highlighted. Click again and you begin your search for the nearest Sushi restaurant, or whatever painfully addicting product you need to find.

When your results are displayed you can click on the name of the business and you are treated to a new menu:

Directions to (1st listing)- Click here to get directions from your location (whatever location was selected when you started your search) to the selected listing. This will give you a MapQuest-esque list o' turns from point A to point B.

Call- If your listing has a phone number attached to it, clicking here will call it for you (tres self-explanatory).

Map- Gives you a map based on the address for the listing.

Add to address book- Add the listing's address to your BlackBerry address book.

Set Current Location - This will change your "other" address to the address for this listing.

Email Business Info- The info for the listing in emailed to whatever address you enter. This one is pretty darned cool.

Tell a friend about Beyond411 - Select a contact from your address book and send them an OTA (Over the Air) download link for Beyond411.

And this, for me, is where the coolness ends.

After you enter your search criteria and click the Pearl, another option given to you is White Pages - if you've entered a person's name as opposed to a business the application will launch Google and run a search for residential listings based on that name and your selected location. It's a little more time-consuming (you need to wait for it to launch your browser and load Google) but it's certainly easier than trying to enter effective search criteria for your own Google search.

Web Search- In theory, this would launch a regular old Google search for whatever. This consistently times out and gave http errors. I checked my coverage (fantastical) as well as my Application Permissions* and try as I might, it wouldn't work.

Loading up my Internet browser, navigating to Google and entering in the same search terms worked like a champ.

Edit Settings- This is where you can edit your default addresses or change the Internet connection that Beyond411 uses to connect to the Internet.

The next set of options are based upon your location, as opposed to any specific business or person you may be searching for.

Weather- In theory? Gives a forecast based on the selected location.

Shopping - In theory? Places to shop.

Movies- Find showtimes and theatres.

Sports - In theory? Sports scores and game times? Maybe? If it had worked I would totally be telling you.

If you do not have anything in the search field you will be given one more selection:

Local Info - This pulls up a new screen with all of the above options along with an option for driving directions (here you can get directions or a static map). These directions did work...on about the 5th try. More weirdness to the directions is that they pull up via Yahoo! as opposed to Google. I only mention that as "weirdness" because everything else seems to be based on Google search results - it seems weird (to me, at least) that it would switch to a different database to pull driving directions.

Also, "Sports" is divided into categories for each sport (NHL, MLB, etc.).

There is also a Reverse Phone Lookup. Cool! Except that it doesn't work. I was thinking that my test phone numbers were all unlisted, so I tested it: I ran a white pages search for a name (I was feeling generic and used "Smith").

I then took the phone number from one of those listings and input that as my search criteria for the "Reverse Phone Lookup." Where's the beef? Here it is; there was no indication that it was even trying to find any info based on the number I entered. Granted, the little arrows in the upper-right of the screen started flashing, but that isn't much help. Those arrows indicate network activity, so it implies that it's trying, but on a BB those arrows go off all the time. So it could be trying the reverse lookup...or I could just be getting an email. Then, after it (presumably) failed it just sat there on the same screen. There was never any kind of notification that the search failed. I hate that. A lot.

Lastly, there is Mobilize Web Page. Pretty cool idea - enter a website and the application will try and optimize it for a mobile device. Who cares? The BlackBerry can already do that for you. Point of fact, almost all cell phones automatically (try) to convert web pages to a mobile-friendly version. The only phones that don't are generally Windows Mobile devices. If you have one of those you probably are not going to be downloading an application for a BlackBerry. Just an assumption.

As before we are leaving (relative) objectivity and jumping into my opinion of Beyond411.

I'm impressed by the 1st part of the application - the ability to find, call, and even navigate to businesses.

The White Pages search is very Ok. A little clunky but generally easier and faster than trying it on your own.

Everything else (beyond the business listings) seemed to be a cluster-f***. I'm just not impressed by the execution. At all. I would much rather have 3 options that work flawlessly than have 30 that kinda-sorta work. That's just me. I'm a stickler for quality and presentation.

There's also the issue of errors: the errors were plentiful and varied, but there was no offer of any kind to view details or potential troubleshooting steps to take. It frustrated the heck out of me. I even went so far as to delete and re-install the application (twice) to no avail. My BB's firmware (this is the phone's operating system, like Windows is for your PC) is totally up-to-date. And we aren't talking about having the latest firmware for a phone that was discontinued 3 years ago. My BB is the 2nd-newest model available from Sprint.

My overall view on Beyond411 is that it is about halfway done. If it had a big fat "Beta" after the name I would be much more forgiving. Which is to say, I would Bbe forgiving. When I download an application onto my phone I want it to work. Not just work, but work properly. A cell phone, especially a BlackBerry, represents a significant chunk of change to me. Anything that I do to it is not something I take on lightly. The BlackBerry is not a toy to me.

Like I said from the start; The underlying idea is amazing. It really is. The execution is what's not floating my boat. This essentially Beta (test/pre-release) software doesn't meet my admittedly high standards for a final version and doesn't leave me feeling especially confident in subsequent releases of the app. If a new version is released I will try to test it out with as little bias as possible. I will not, however, be going into a new release with the same excitement and optimism as I did with this initial installation.

Guys, please turn me around. I would like nothing more than to be entirely blown away by the next release.

For information on the guys behind Beyond411:

http://thebogles.com/blog/ - Not much info about the company or the guys behind it (kind of disappointing).

To download Beyond411 navigate your BlackBerry's internet browser to:

http://thebogles.com/b411.jad

Please, The Bogles, make me eat my words with the next release.

*Application Permissions -

BlackBerry Apps often make requests for information from or access to the BlackBerry. For an application like Beyond411 it needs access to your GPS (if you want to use your GPS location as the center for your searches) phone information (to make calls, add to addressbook, etc) and access to the Internet (do I need to explain why?). Most applications will ask you questions upon initial setup that will take care of this, but I went so far as to manually tell my BB to let Beyond411 do whatever the heck it wanted. And it still wasn't enough to get the rock-solid results I demand.