Posts Tagged ‘blackberry’

Smartphone Multitasking Fail

When Apple announced that it was going to offer multitasking (some time ago) I was a bit nervous about the experience. I was not sure I was a fan of the idea because I’ve seen others try it and fail miserably. I’m not sure about Android, but I know that I’ve used Blackberries and Windows Mobile phones that try to multitask (and can, I suppose) but it degrades the experience dramatically. What I’ve seen on iOS 4.0.x has been better than those of old, but certainly not idea. However, my bad experience came to a head today.

I have an iPhone 3GS and have noticed it’s been considerably faster at doing some things (which is good!), but after a while it slows down. Last week I did the upgrade to iOS 4.1 and noticed the phone was noticeably faster and have watched it slow to a crawl until today when I couldn’t stand it (after the fact, it might’ve just been the reboot that caused the speedup). Turns out, I just needed to kill some apps. Okay, easy enough to fix this time. I just killed off the apps I didn’t need running all the time, and voila! things are back to normal. But.. therein lies my problem.

You see, I really don’t want to have to deal with that crap. I want my phone to receive/place calls, texts, emails, and occasionally (okay, I might be addicted) play a game or two. Navigation, browsing, using Facebook and playing music is cool too, I suppose. But, the thing is, I don’t want to go into some manager every day or so and kill off apps so my phone doesn’t get dog-slow. We’ve gotten used to having to do things like that on our PCs that we don’t even think twice about doing it on our phones. But I say this is wrong. I don’t need another thing in my life that needs manual intervention and management to stay running properly. I don’t do those things at the same time on the phone’s small screen anyway. Heck, I can barely multitask on a 30-inch monitor.

This is not to say that there’s anything inherently wrong with multitasking on phones. It’s all cool. I’m just fed up with what seems to be the status quo.

How about Android users out there? I’ve only heard second-hand that it’s a pretty similar experience. Doing some searching/surfing around the webs suggests it’s similar, but no one rags on it too badly (after all, that’s what Android was touting before it came to the iPhone!).

Okay, done with the rant.

P.S. In spite of fear of coming off as a huge fanboy, was Steve Jobs right all along when they didn’t do multitasking from the beginning and only wrong by introducing it in its current state? :)

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Filed under Rants : Comments (1) : Sep 14th, 2010

BlackBerry = Single Point of Failure?

RIM/BlackBerry is starting to make me angry. We’re now in the midst of the second multi-hour outage in a week. Last week we lost (BIS) email in North America. In fact, it was for most of the morning and spilled into the afternoon in my timezone. Today, apparently mail hasn’t been delivered for some time and I only noticed when my email seemed suspiciously quiet. This time, however, it’s everything. Phone calls and text messages seem to go in and out with no problem, but anything using the BlackBerry data services seem to be hosed.

Now, I understand that large systems like the BlackBerry Internet and Enterprise Services are complicated and eventually go down. Really, I do get it. What goes up must come down. However, the whole thing is starting to get frustrating to me and I’m ready to give up.

First, there’s a right way and a wrong way to deal with outages. For me, a majority of the frustration could be alleviated with a simple notification or a way to know that something is up. During these outages, there was nothing on BlackBerry or my wireless carrier’s websites, no automated text messages, no nothing. I simply had to realize that email was quieter than normal and check out crackberry.com (an unofficial, yet useful site). Not exactly confidence-instilling. After the incident we got a bit of a “my bad” (I still have yet to find the official statement) from RIM, but just crickets to the public during the outage. At least when Gmail had a system-wide outage earlier this year they were up-front about the issues.

Second, the outages happened all over North America. Yes, multiple several-hour-long outages affecting an entire continent within a week. The sad part is, we come to expect it. Something needs to be done. I can understand that with an IT system this large there will likely always be issues, but something needs to be done to segment pieces from one another. A single issue may cause a system-wide outage occasionally, but not three times in two months is unacceptable.

These outages, of course, come along with having a centralized message delivery system like the BIS/BES. I’m ready to give up and now am on the brink of going on the market for a non-BlackBerry smartphone that will connect directly to my mail servers (the others are mocking us..). It’s a sad day that it’s come to this. I really do have quite a love-hate relationship with my BlackBerry (Tour). It’s a solid phone, a great interface, and great management features. I just can’t constantly think of it as a single point of failure that I have no way of knowing whether or not it works except by sending stupid test emails.

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Filed under News : Comments (2) : Dec 23rd, 2009

Obama’s “Secure” Blackberry

Okay, I guess I was behind the 8 ball yesterday when I talked about Microsoft wanting Obama to be on the Microsoft platform due to “security risks” with the Blackberry. It’s official, they’re going to let him use a standard Blackberry with an upgraded encryption package. The device will be available to Obama to communicate with keep in touch with personal friends and his senior staff. The device has an upgraded encryption package of some sort that allows him to send encrypted emails from his device to the mail client on the other end (I imagine PGP or something similar) so the mail is encrypted while traveling throught he wireless carrier’s network as well as through RIM’s network. This is all standard stuff in terms of securing communications, but it brings to light another perspective.

The device that the President is allowed to use is a standard-issue Blackberry (which model, I’m not sure) with an upgraded encryption software to meet the satisfaction of the security-conscious within his administration. Yet, the device proposed by Microsoft that is certified by the NSA costs around $3,300. Certainly Obama didn’t pay $3,300 for his Blackberry + encryption software! Perhaps Steve Ballmer would like to retract his statement of a few years ago about the iPhone being the most expensive phone in the world..

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Jan 27th, 2009

President Obama to Switch to Windows Mobile?

Obama’s addiction to his Blackberry has been a point of interest to a lot of tech blogs during the election season as well as so far in his Presidency. Obama has made it clear in the past that he would really like to keep his Blackberry, but has not been allowed to thus far. Randy Siegel of Microsoft has cited the fact that data going from the email or PIM server has to pass through RIM’s network as a reason to not choose the Blackberry platform. The reason is that RIM is based out of Canada and the President’s data would have to cross to foreign soil and can’t be trusted. Microsoft is suggesting that Obama use a Sectéra Edge, a Windows Mobile based device that has been certified by the NSA, something that RIM can’t say about their devices.

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Jan 26th, 2009

RIM Begins Looking for Apps for Its “App Store”

RIM has announced it is looking for software developers to create apps for its answer to the Apple App Store. RIM, the maker of Blackberry announced in October that it was going to launch a central store to buy applications for Blackberry devices similar to the Apple and Google stores which has helped the platforms’ popularity. Having the store would mean that users would have just one place to go to get new applications as well as updates for those applications. Giving developers easier access to users makes the platform much more attractive and will help embed Blackberries into businesses as well as create a more pain-free experience for consumers. Applications that are submitted will have to go through a review process, much like the Apple store.

RIM and Palm seem to have settled in to do battle with Apple over the smart phone market. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer seems to think Apple should be the one adapting its own strategies and laughed it off before it was even released. Obviously, RIM has a lot more to lose than Microsoft if they lose their share of the smart phone market place (well, they have everything to lose..), but Ballmer doesn’t even seem to be taking the iPhone seriously. Time will tell on whether or not this new store from RIM will help the Blackberry, but it certainly helped the iPhone and iPod Touch. As long as RIM can release a good SDK and keep the developers happy, RIM’s new store should help them get entrenched in the market even better than before. The store was promised to be launched in March of 2009.

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Jan 23rd, 2009