Posts Tagged ‘Ipod’

Opinion: Android Devices With Good Phyiscal Keyboards Pose A Bigger Threat To The BlackBerry Than The iPhone Ever Has

July 9th, 2010 BBerryNews

Motorola Droid 2

I was having a conversation with a few friends recently all of whom know that I am really into smartphones, the BlackBerry in particular.  One of them had just gotten a new iPhone 4 and was trying to convince the rest of us, all BlackBerry users, that the iPhone 4 was going to crush the BlackBerry and put RIM out of business.  Being the smart Alec that I am I asked if he was using the term “crushed” loosely like when he said the iPhone would crush the BlackBerry, the iPhone 3G would crush the BlackBerry, and the iPhone 3Gs would crush the BlackBerry.

After my BlackBerry using friends and I stopped giving it to my iPhone buddy for being oblivious to reality when it comes to his iPhone fanboyism, one of them said that an Android device with a good keyboard would make them move off the BlackBerry a lot quicker than an iPhone ever would.  Everyone, myself included, agreed…

This post is not really meant to bash the iPhone 4.  The 4 is an incredibly cool iPod that you can often make phone calls from.  Android devices, however, are pretty darn cool themselves and the ones with “good” keyboards are of particular interest to BlackBerry users that simply won’t go to a device with a touch screen only, but, might be looking to make a move to another platform.

I know that the keyboard on the Motorola Droid kind of sucks, however, rumor has it that the keyboard on the Droid 2 is vastly improved.  HTC is starting to pump out Android devices with keyboards as well and we know from their work on some of their Windows mobile devices that they know how build slide-out as well as good QWERTY keyboards.

A June Nielsen survey of smartphone users showed that less than half of BlackBerry users, 47%, want their next phone to be a BlackBerry.  Although I doubt seriously that more than 1 out of 2 BlackBerry users will leave the platform when the time comes, many BlackBerry users have bought their last BlackBerry and I am willing to bet that the lions share of those that do switch will find Android devices with good keyboards more appealing than the iPhone.

That’s my opinion…  I’d love to hear yours.

Opinion: Android Devices With Good Phyiscal Keyboards Pose A Bigger Threat To The BlackBerry Than The iPhone Ever Has is a post from: RIMarkable

Related posts:

  1. 10 Reasons Why The iPhone Will Never Dominate The U.S. Smartphone Market
  2. Skype Mobile For Verizon Android And BlackBerry Devices Now Available
  3. Bluetooth BlackBerry Keyboards– Cool gadgets but not that practcal
  4. Android Catching Up To iPhone On Number Of Monthly App Downloads



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Old memory card vs new memory card

June 28th, 2010 BBerryNews
Got my BB last week. I didn’t realise it came with a 2GB memory card, and thought it just had internal memory, so I ordered a new 8GB memory card. However, whilst waiting for it to arrive, I have taken some photos/vids etc that I don’t want to lose (thinking they were saved into an internal memory).

Going to insert the new memory card, I discovered the 2GB memory already there.
Although 2GB of memory would be enough for now, I think in a year or so’s time, this might fill up. Although I don’t plan on using the BB for playing music, as I have a ipod, I usually end up with lots of photos, videos (and now probably apps).

Will I lose valuable apps, photo’s or videos if I insert new memory card? If so, is there a quick way to transfer them to the new memory card or phones internal memory? I just don’t want to lose them. I know I could transfer files from phone to laptop, then back again once new card in, but is there a quicker way?

Thanks in advance from a new BB user! :smile:

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Launch of Rogers Navigator on iPhone powered by TeleNav

April 21st, 2010 BBerryNews

The best navigation program on the market just made its debut on the Rogers iPhone. I am still waiting for confirmation if there is a dedicated “Navigate to Tim Horton’s” Button.  Below is the information provided by TeleNav.

Rogers Wireless today launched Rogers Navigator, powered by TeleNav, on the Apple App Store. Rogers Navigator transforms the iPhone into a full-featured GPS navigation device, so customers can easily navigate to restaurants and local businesses, avoid traffic congestion and travel with confidence. Rogers Navigator for the iPhone includes on-screen and spoken turn-by-turn GPS directions, speech recognition, more than 12 million business listings in North America, an online preplanning site, and Shake-to-Go™, a feature that provides guidance to a pre-entered home address instantly with a simple shake of their iPhone. Available as a free download from the Apple App Store, Rogers Navigator includes unlimited use for $4.99 per month.

Other key Rogers Navigator features include:

  • Full-color 3D moving map
  • Voice and on-screen turn-by-turn driving directions
  • Access to a directory of businesses and services across Canada
  • Real-time traffic alerts and one-click rerouting.
  • Shake-to-Go and Last Origin
  • Integrated iPod controls
  • Customized preferences

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Review: Audible For BlackBerry

March 12th, 2010 BBerryNews

Audible for BlackBerry

In 2001, faced with a 70-100 minute commute to work each way, every single day, I figured I needed to do something to make that time worthwhile. Remembering back to an account that I was given to test the usability of Audible audiobooks on the Compaq iPaq, I renewed the account, joined the Platinum Listener Club at Audible.com and have never looked back.

I was just a little bit shocked last night to see that I have 588 purchased books in my account all these years later. And no, I have not yet listened to them all, but between my wife and I, we have. This retrospect came about because my wife carries a Blackberry Tour 9630, and is trying to figure out ways to un-complicate her life, and not having to carry an iPod for Audible content would really help. In fact, I am in the same sort of situation myself, because there is not yet an application that allows me to listen to Audible content on the Android platform. It’s coming, and soon, I believe, but not yet.

Blackberry Support

While support for Windows Mobile and iPod/iPhone/Touch has existed forever, support for the Blackberry platform has not. It was released in 2009, while I was still carrying the Blackberry Storm. Invited to beta test the solution and then after initial release, I was not impress. The app was buggy, inconsistent, and unreliable. It was essentially impossible to download audiobooks directly to the device (remember the Storm has no Wi-Fi), and even when you got them on the SD Card, the player was prone to jump, skip, and forget where you were, if you stopped and came back later. In essence, unusable.

Trying It Out

It was with some trepidation that I went to www.audible.com/bb on the Tour and downloaded version 1.45 of the Audible Player for Blackberry. It loaded quickly, and in just a moment, I was able to enter in my user name and password. A little bit of clock spinning, and I was presented with a screen offering access to my Online Library or the Online Store. Checking out my Online Library, I was very please to note that all 588 books appears (in groups of 25, I believe) and I was offered the ability to sort by date, by title, or to just search. One of the things I detested about the previous version is that it always came up sorted by oldest purchase first, which is backwards for how we read books. The new version correctly sort for newest first. So far, so good.

Downloading

The Blackberry Tour 9630 also lacks Wi-Fi support. In the previous version, it was impossible to actually download a audiobook OTA. This isn’t so surprising, since using the Audible Format 4 (the level supported on the Blackberry platform and the one I prefer), each part of an audiobook will be between 80-120MB in size and in a large unabridged book, it is not uncommon to see 4 or 5 parts to an entire book. All that being said, it was supposed to be possible. I think it is a waste of bandwidth, as I prefer to just move the audiobooks to the device using USB, but I can imagine myself purchasing a new audiobook and wanting to get it immediately. To test it out, I downloaded the two parts of a recent audiobook purchase OTA (a total of 185MB in two files) and while it did take about 10 minutes, they transferred without incident and were then immediately available to play locally. I will also note that it is possible to stream a book direct from your personal Library at Audible.com, without downloading locally, and the player will also remember where you left off. That’s a nice feature, but a little hard to use on an airplane.

Listening

After testing the player repeatedly, stopping, starting and changing books, I am very pleased that the previous issues with skipping, jumping, and losing the bookmark seem resolved. My wife especially likes the ability to listen to the audiobook without having to have headphones plugged in. The speaker on her Blackberry Tour was very capable of playing an audiobook at an acceptable level. The only real issue I see now is that the 8 GB MicroSD in the Tour is just not going to be enough. Happily, that is easy to resolve.

Support

There are actually quite a number of Blackberry devices now supported with the Audible for Blackberry application:

  • Bold™ Series: 9000, 9700
  • Curve™ Series: 8300, 8310, 8320, 8330, 8520, 8900>
  • Pearl™ Series: 8100, 8110, 8120, 8130
  • Pearl™ Flip Series: 8220
  • Storm™ Series: 9530, 9550
  • Tour™: 9630
  • 8800 Series: 8800, 8820, 8830

I have a renewed hope now that I will soon see an Audible for Android application, and frankly, I can hardly wait. I had decided to stop carrying my iPod Touch in anticipation of this happening, and frankly, the books are backing up. If you haven’t tried Audible before, give it a try. Audible.com is currently offering a free copy of Thomas Friedman’s excellent book ‘Hot, Flat, and Crowded’ for new customers. I highly recommend it as a good place to start. Enjoy!

If you’d like to check Audible for BlackBerry out you can download it from http://audible.com/bb.

Review: Audible For BlackBerry is a post from: RIMarkable



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BlackBerry App World Up To 2000 Applications… Still Kind Of Sucks Though

July 8th, 2009 BBerryNews

BlackBerry App World has just crossed the 200o BlackBerry applicatoin threshold and, later this month, will be available to BlackBerry users in Italy, France, Germany and Spain.  The problem for RIM is that App World is still pretty lame, if you ask me.

The only reason that RIM came out with BlackBerry App World was because of the success of Apple’s App Store, which just turned a year old by the way.  If you are going to emulate the App Store, emulate the App Store.  Give me an interface that is easy to search, $0.99 downloads, and the  ability to buy applications from my desktop.

I don’t expect App World to host the ridiculous number of BlackBerry applications that the App Store does for the iPhone and the iPod, but, at least make the application pleasent to use.


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