Spare a thought for those poor crackberry fans....not content with having a whole load of their "thunder"...ahem...stolen and a rammy with self-proclaimed King of exclusives, BGR, they now have to sit back and watch us iPhone users get our AppStore and 500 plus apps on day one. Never mind chaps, you can console yourselves with the latest and greatest Blackberry app...Menstrual Calendar...oh boy, I hope this is available in iTunes soon.
Looks like Shaun enjoyed immensely his Curve experience...not. It is unlike Shaun to take such an apparant dislike to a device without good reason. Some of his comments I can agree with although I didn't ever notice any slow down or applications gobbling up free RAM in the manner he suffered. I did however find the whole email set up, push email aside, hopelessly unsatisfactory even for my own basic needs.
It's a funny thing the "crackberry" thing as nobody else, as Shaun points out, seems to get it or wants to get it. I struggled with the Curve I had for a while and couldn't get a decent enough level of quality 3rd party apps that I needed to make it a long termer. I was only after a couple of things too but such is the dearth of decent, in comparison to win mob or palm, 3rd party apps even that proved beyond me. Actually, it's quite good to read about Blackberry getting a wee kicking as for some strange reason it seems to escape much of the cross platform slagging that goes on between the iPhone, windows mobile and palm despite having an interface that is more "HAL" than 2008.
I suspect the majority of increasing sales are IT/Corporate based although when I was in London last year I was amazed at the amount of people using them out of hours and who plainly had bought them for personal use. It's an image thing for me....they are primarily known for push email and a lot of folk who don't know zip all about smartphones or people who don't know that win mob or palm can also do push email (probably more reliably and cheaper too) will just buy what they know or have heard or read can do the job. These are the same people who will associate "music" with "ipod" and "computers" with "Dell" and that is with no offence intended.
There is something special about the Blackberry interface, but also something deeply irritating that I struggle to find the words for. I cannot quite understand why it is so popular and why this popularity appears to be growing as each month passes by. After many hours of use, I found the OS to be basic, poor value and ultimately lacked flexibility. In defence of the often criticised Windows Mobile, my Samsung i780 has proved to be more stable, much quicker and more powerful that the Curve and that is true of most other WM devices I have used.
I enjoyed my time with the Curve last year but it was a bit lacking in certain respects for me, mostly application wise with no version of ListPro available. I also didn't like the way it handled IMAP mail accounts, or rather didn't handle IMAP...where are the Folders? Push email sounds great but if I am being honest with myself, I don't actually need it.
I see my chum Sheldon is still using his RIM smartphone though and he seems to be enjoying it. Possibly, out of all the platforms tried so far RIM is the one I'm least likely to go back to again yet it is probably the most stable and simple to use. I just didn't get on with the limited choice, at the time, of third party app support. Things may have improved since I don't know. The Curve I used had a great keyboard, possibly better than the de facto standard treo one but for some reason there was no dedicated full stop, something that grew to really annoy me.
What about this forthcoming clamshell Blackberry though? Looks rather tasty. I've always pined for a clamshell treo design again as I liked the 270 I had years ago.
Taken from jkontherun...
....update the BlackBerry platform the first half of this year to provide messaging and security enhancements. BlackBerry users will predominantly notice improvements to the messaging handling which will add HTML support along with integration of Dataviz' Documents to Go software to allow viewing of Office documents directly from email. These additions will eliminate the need to use third party utilities to provide the same functionality like many BB users do now. There will also be Lotus Notes enhancements for those who live in Lotus by IBM.
Sounds promising. Personally, I'll not be heading back to Blackberry until the native email application handles email in the same way that it is done on palm, windows mobile, symbian and the iPhone....ie with IMAP support and folder support. I don't think that is asking too much, for the supposed "email king" to offer decent IMAP features like the rest of the mobile platforms instead of just the rather paltry "saved" email folder.
I've been enjoying reading Mr Arts posts on his Blackberry experience and a lot of what he says reminds me of the failings I saw. There's an awful lot to like about them but the email set up is not one of them...tres frustrating.
Consider RIM's greatest claim-to-fame: Blackberry mail. As an uber-Treonaut, I have been smoking the hardiest Crackberries for years, and with ease. Blackberry server may push your email to you; but, only lets you answer it, forward it or delete it. In the consumer world, smartphone email is the desktop experience in your pocket. You use POP or IMAP via the internet (in turn, via your wireless provider), and have complete access to your personal and/or corporate mail. With Snappermail on Palm OS, or Pocket Outlook on WinMo, you can sync with all of your folders, manage which ones you want to sync with, move messages, manage attachments, etc. With Blackberry mail on a consumer device, this option has been co-opted by RIM. You are forced to pay extra so that RIM can shove your mail through one of their Blackberry servers. Not only is this a 100% redundant (and therefore, useless) additional step and expense; it also deprives the personal consumer of the existing functionality of the wireless web. You cannot access your folders, you cannot create/rename/move folders and their contents. All of that functionality is still out there...its just that RIM has decided that someone else (i.e. RIM) needs to control your email experience...and, charge you (a lot) extra for that loss of personal choice.
Viigo is a great little application and it is free at the moment. I would recommend this RSS reader to any Blackberry users out there. Feeds can be added via the online site which makes for easy managing and the app on my Curve was rock solid and quick to download feeds.
Various new features have been added.
Link from BlackberryCool.
Last month, I went to my first ever non-Palm smartphone (going all
the way back to the Treo 300). I am still getting acquainted with my
Blackberry 8830, and have this to say about that:
+) I have yet to experience a crash, reset or other form of instability from the Blackberry OS
+) Even with Bluetooth and GPS running continuously, I am experiencing approximately double the life of my (much larger) Treo 700p battery
+) The Blackberry uses mini-USB for charging; which means one less proprietary cable in my travel kit
+) The browser is fast, the device is light and slim, the screen is a delight of rich images
-) The vaunted Blackberry email is a half-assed joke next to Snappermail or Chattermail. There is no support of IMAP 4 (or access to your folders); and, you are forced to have your mail routed through a RIM-hosted Blackberry server: adding cost and complexity without adding value. In addition, the email UI looks like something from 'TRON' or 'THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN': this is absolutely your father's computer UI (include a pack of punch-cards, and the UNIVAC illusion is complete)
Well, I ain't going to argue on the email front...it is a joke and not a very funny one at that. If Blackberry did not do push email would they be absolutely hoovered as a credible mobile email solution?
Much as I liked having, well I thought I liked it anyway, push email on the Curve it was starting to have some odd side effects. I found myself constantly watching the Curve, just waiting for the LED to flash red to show me that an email was incoming. Invariably of course it was not worth reading yet that didn't stop me casting anxious eyes over at the Curve as it sat there at my work desk...I was almost willing it to start flashing red and then whooosh...I'd be straight in there.
Going back to using the 680 of late I felt obliged to try and replicate the push email experience so I set up Snappermail to check email every hour. Again, I found myself waiting for the alloted time anxiously just in case there was something remotely interesting. This is silly methinks so I have just gone back to manually downloading email when I feel like it and I feel this puts me back in control of things rather than the other way around.
Fortunately, I recently declined the option to get access to corporate email via the work server/enterprise set up thingy or whatever it is called and I'm sure this was one of my rare good moves, I really don't fancy getting bugged by some of these jobsworths out of working hours....there are people around who don't undertsand the concept of "working hours' and feel they have every right, for some reason, to contact you at any time. Well not me matey peeps..
If you let it, I think email can get on top of you and it's an unfortunate side effect of increased access via mobile devices.
Word on the grapevine is that the updated o/s will be available towards the end of 2007 and will be downloaded and installed OTA. Might be quite a big download that though.....Virtually all Blackberry software can be installed this way without the need to use any desktop installing via the Desktop Manager and I must say it works well. It's liberating not to be tied so much to the latter method if you want to demo out a few apps.
First up, all OS updates will be over the air - no Desktop Manager needed. While updating, which takes about two hours, you’ll be able to keep using your BlackBerry normally without any problems. We also hear OS 4.3 is due before the end of the year and will work on the BlackBerry 8700 and later - everything else is out of luck. BES admin software will also get a bit of a facelift, available for free beta download soon. BIS users can keep their eyes open for an upgrade to 2.5 also before the end of the year, including support for Microsoft Office formats.
