Mobility Digest » Blackberry

New BlackBerry Organizer App Presta Helps People Get Things Done

Kristofer Brozio — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:06:08 +0000

Do people still use BlackBerries? I can’t remember the last time I actually saw someone using one. Anyway, if you’re one of the few and you need some organization on your life then you might want to check out this new app called Presta that helps keep you keep organized and get things done.

Karta Mobile Inc., the leading provider of mobile apps for Getting Things Done has announced the immediate availability of its new BlackBerry productivity app Presta™. Intuitive to use and easy to get started with, Presta is designed for everybody who wants to get things done on the go quickly and easily. With Presta users can effortlessly organize their to-dos, projects, commitments, lists, priorities and reminders directly from their BlackBerry smartphone.

Presta sports a stylish touchscreen interface, comes with a free trial from App World and is supported on all BlackBerry models with OS 5.0 or better, including OS 7. The touchscreen capabilities allow owners of touchscereen BlackBerry models like the Torch 9800/9810 and the BlackBerry Bold 9900 to perform all frequently-used actions with just a tap on their smartphone’s screen. Presta also boasts full two-way sync with the BlackBerry native tasks subsystem ensuring that any to-dos entered externally are accessible from Presta as well.

While in itself not a complete implementation of David Allen’s Getting Things Done® like Karta Mobile’s flagship application Viira and the GTD Outlook solution the Viira Outlook Suite, Presta focuses on a core subset of the principles of GTD to provide a workflow that is often referred to as “GTD lite”. Presta comes to the rescue of many people who are looking for ways to effectively stay organized without the complexity of feature-rich productivity apps or the learning curve often associated with time-management solutions.

About Karta Mobile Inc.
Karta Mobile Inc. is a Vancouver, BC company that specializes in the design and creation of mobile-based personal productivity applications. Karta Mobile’s flagship BlackBerry app Viira is the leading GTD-based productivity application on the BlackBerry platform and has received numerous media reviews and positive testimonials. Karta Mobile has announced the upcoming availability of the GTD Android version of Viira.
Company website: http://www.kartamobile.com

Bubble Gum Air: 2m BB Downloads, Now Available For WP7 and iOS

David K — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:41:43 +0000

The same developer behind Crazy Survival has ported their game Bubble Gum Air to Windows Phones and iPhone and it’s still free. Here’s the description:

The game, that has rocked BlackBerry applications market and more than 2 millions of downloads are the best proof for that. 8 weeks in the Top 100 List of Blackberry Free Applications.

Bubble Gum Air is a game for each and every person who wants to relax, to laugh and to spend some good time! So there is a monkey. The monkey loves bubble gums. They are tasty and … help the monkey to fly. But there are birds, angry birds. And angry birds don’t think that it’s a good idea for monkey to fly. So they attack every time that they can. The main aim of a player is to escape from the angry birds but, if the clash is unavoidable, the monkey can hit the angry birds with its paw. The more time you manage to escape from the angry birds the more point you get, if you manage to kill a bird or two or three or more you will get some extra points.

FEATURES:

- for all ages;

- funny; – beautiful;

- interesting; -

adorable sound and design; -

Scoreloop Leaderboard, will you be the leader? Help the monkey Fly!!!

And let’s see it in action:

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You can find it for Windows Phones here and for iPhone here.

BlackBerry PlayBook Goes on Clearance

Kristofer Brozio — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:02:40 +0000

Here’s a deal for you, sort of. Personally I wouldn’t want one but I know we have BlackBerry fans out there. You can get the 16gb, 32gb or even the 64gb for $299.00. Yeah that’s any of them for the same price. Why you would want to but the 16gb for $299 when you can get the 64gb for $299 is beyond me though?!?! You would think they would have different prices on them, but then again it is BlackBerry and I’ve never really understood them at all…

ON SALE: $299 (16GB, 32GB, 64GB)
SAVE: $400 (64GB), $300 (32GB), $200 (16GB)
SALE ENDS: 2/4/2012
BlackBerry PlayBook – the world’s first professional grade tablet
Discover a truly uncompromised tablet experience with the BlackBerry PlayBook. At less than half an inch thick, with a 1GHz dual core processor, it’s both ultra-portable and ultra-powerful, so you get high performance at every turn: stunning multimedia, true multitasking, and access to the whole Internet – no exceptions.

http://store.shopblackberry.com/Product/BlackBerry-PlayBook/PRD-38548-001?iid=OTC-wtbpbus-dec22

Let’s Discuss the 2011 Tech Fails

David K — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 04:50:01 +0000

The mobile markets really heated up in 2011 but with that came some epic tech failures. Let’s go through a bunch of them and you can sound off on how big they were. In no order:

*HP WebOS/TouchPad and the little engine that didn’t

*Blackberry’s implosion – no phones on the horizon and it’s worth more for its parts

*And while we’re on RIM, the Playbook needs to be priced at $100 if they want to move any devices

*Windows Phone fails to gain ~~significant~~ any traction and Verizon shelves are empty

*What ever happened to the iPhone 5 and the retina iPad?

*Android opened the doors to malware

*And then the PlayStation Network showed us what vulnerability really means

*Remember the HTC Status Facebook phone? Neither do we

*How about that HTC bug that opened the door to key logging?

*Speaking of, Carrier IQ anyone?

*I have no choice but to mention Qwikster…I mean Netflix

*And while we’re there, the HP PC spinoff that wasn’t

*Anyone have an Android tablet that’s not a Kindle Fire? Oh it’s on Ebay…I see

*Remember the AT&T merger with T-Mobile? That’ll cost them…

* And Flash finally gives up on mobile…even though Android still demands it

I’m sure I missed a few and I’m sure you’ll remind of that. Some of these are clearly bigger than others and some of them are game changers. But please, I’ve said enough already. Discuss amongst yourself in the comments.

In Defense of the Blackberry

Doug Simmons — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 20:08:01 +0000

Man, writer’s block already? Looking at the title I just typed I’m now realizing this article is going to be pretty tricky unless I’m completely tongue-in-cheek about it. If any of you are in the mood for a challenge, let’s see if we can try to defend Blackberries and their general value to society.

Hmm. Should have just combed Google Reader to reblog something instead.

Well, think about it from your company’s perspective: It may be in their interests, and therefore yours if you believe what’s good for the goose is good for you, to be able to invade your privacy and apply all sorts of Windows-like policies to your phone from not watching Youtube to shutting off your camera, reading even your BIS email (if your IT department knows the tricks, from what I’ve read it’s doable) and text messages, see what websites you go to, prevent you from going to others, get your location on GPS, phone logs, PIN messages, BBM, your installed apps (if they let you use any) and any data they transmit, force you to use wildly complicated passwords in order to turn on your phone each time with a 30 second idle timeout, and to give you a phone that, to you, is so lousy that you only use it for email and stick to your personal phone, and personal phone bill, for all the other things the likes of Apple and Google came up. Data bills are expensive, and because compared to iPhone users Blackberry users barely use a drop of data, that’s money saved which the company can theoretically give to you in the form of a Christmas bonus. And that’s money you can use to pay off your personal phone bill (along with taxes on the bonus)!

Top notch encryption for privacy from outsiders including the feds, unless you’re using the phone in the Middle East and China where RIM bent over to anyone who asked. No balls.

Are you the type who likes to take a little holiday because your email crashes and no one in your company can work, so because the BES sounds like something that’s not dependent on RIM to stay alive (and pass data through), largely why it’s such a corporate darling, you may not get outages too? Turns out that’s not a problem apparently, with BES email indeed relying on Waterloo for some reason, which fails for days at a clip. That’s funny, Waterloo, for you history buffs.

Also, ooo wow, they’ve now got a couple devices with touch screens, when writing emails there’s only one extra button you have to press in order to produce a period, you can even make the mobile web less excruciatingly intolerable by running Opera Mini and check your Gmail with its awesome web interface (which by the way I recommend over adding a personal account as BIS if you’re concerned with privacy on your company phone, also the Gmail Blackberry app is gone).

Though similar things for Apple and Android devices are emerging that are pretty good, you’ve got to admit, nothing quite yet holds a candle, from the perspective of The Man, to the Blackberry Enterprise Server which by the way is in closed beta testing to do what it does with Blackberries to iPhones and Androids as well. That’s how much people hate using Blackberries, that RIM’s actually spending their trump card accommodating companies, even ones paranoid about their emails getting into the wrong hands like banks, on the smartphone competition they’ll never catch up to, even if they manage to deliver those BB10 phones before RIM goes under. I see that as both smart and desperate. Just gotta wait for that LTE chipset because what good is a Blackberry without LTE.

The rapidly growing list of companies that are experimenting with non-Blackberries include some you wouldn’t expect, like Bank of America and Citigroup. These banks as you may know if you watched the Goldman Sachs Senate hearings like to keep their emails to themselves, yet according to Bloomberg 80% of the Fortune 500 companies are testing the iPhone waters including Procter and Gamble, General Electric and JPMorgan Chase. You may recall Chase from the Enron scandal. I’d say it’s among companies one might think would find device security paramount, certainly over employee convenience. Wait a second that article is over a year old. This isn’t just beginning to happen folks.

Speaking of which, that’s another great feature RIM provides. All you had to do was follow my advice to short RIMM back in August of last year, only fifteen months ago, and put, say, fifteen grand into it, right now you’d be able close the position for at a solid $52K, if you couldn’t resist letting it ride deeper into the ground to this point. Given that RIM is in such a bleak state though, even though the Blackberry brand is a dog brand, some are calling it a good buyout target, which would give it at least dead cat bounce so on the record I’m advising now to close any RIMM positions you’ve got, long or short. You know what, screw that, I’m still calling it a sell.

As of now, for every Blackberry user who signs onto Facebook, ten non-Blackberry smartphone users sign on, a ratio that’s getting darker and darker for RIM. That’s probably great for your company as, because no one wants these things anymore and vendors still have inventory to unload, including three year old models like the 9700 which goes for one cent on an upgrade, they’re probably a lot cheaper than buying you a proper smartphone. But in the 9700’s defense, one might use that carriers are selling this phone that’s over three years old as an argument that the Blackberry is a timeless device. If that’s true, though not great for RIM in terms of not being able to sell new devices to the same customers (the ones they haven’t lost yet) over and over like everybody else, that’s more money saved by your company.

Maybe the reason their battery life is so good is because people tend not to use it unless they absolutely have to, keeping that two inch half-VGA screen from eating up the battery, along with the marginal data use. So that frees up employee time to leave their Blackberry in their goofy looking holster instead of being able to run even a Google email app anymore. Oh so RIM’s got this Torch thing now, maybe they’ll catch up finally. Nope; sorry RIM, you’re too late. You dun goofed.

I swear to God I set out to write this defending the Blackberry without being completely sarcastic but I just got sidetracked too heavily by how much it sucks. Though if you’re stuck with Blackberries at your company, I recommend trying to squeeze out a 9900 from IT as, though only relative to older Blackberries, it’s not that bad. And hey, according to AT&T it’s 4G! Just don’t run some sort of speed test app (assuming you can find one on the Blackberry App Store), you’ll spoil the placebo effect.

Doug Simmons

Before I Had My Current Phone I Had…

David K — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 05:14:50 +0000

Just saw this picture on Twitter and it made me think about my phone history.

I went from a Samsung flip phone to a Treo 600, to a Treo 650, a Verizon UTStarcom 6700 (with the antennae nub and slide out keyboard rocking Windows Mobile 5), then an HTC TyTn 8525 (yes Windows Mobile 6 upgrade) and sometime around then I got a Samsung Blackjack as a weekend phone and swapped my SIM into it on the weekends cause at the time it seemed so thin even if it wasn’t a touchscreen.

Next up was the HTC Tilt. It was like a mini laptop when you slid it open…or something. Follow that up with the HTC Fuze which was the last resistive screen phone I had but I liked that phone (until I put custom ROMs on it on a daily basis and ran it into the ground).

Then I picked up an HTC HD2 that was on TMobile but I SIM unlocked it and had it on AT&T even though that meant no 3G but that thing is solid as hell, great speed, capacitive screen and even today that thing has specs that anyone can appreciate.

And I’m carrying a Samsung Focus now. I went Samsung for my Windows Phone because I was into the AMOLED and HTC burned me a few times in the past between not updating the OS on Windows Mobile (I blame them as much as MS) and the pink splodge their cameras had forever.

Anyway, it’s a holiday weekend so it’s a great opportunity to share your stories. How did you get to where you are? And as much as it hurts…could you imagine if the iPhone never came out and the pressure never hit MS directly and I was still rocking Windows Mobile or worse yet…HTC Sense? Sorry but that overlay gives me shivers now. So cool to look it…so much lag.

T-Mobile is selling good number of phones for $0 on Dec. 17th and 18th.

Rama Uppugunduri — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:02:32 +0000

T-Mobile is selling good number of smartphones, tablets, and mobile hotspots for $0 down payment with 2 year contract and this includes phones that are 4G (HSPA+) enabled on December 17th and 18th only. The deal has good number of smartphones powered by Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 in addition to other devices including tablets, mobile hotspots and laptop sticks. Both the Windows Phones available on T-Mobile currently, HTC Radar 4G and HTC HD7 are for $0.

As per T-Mobile:

“Get a new phone for a $0 down payment, even one of our fastest 4G smartphones, when you switch to T-Mobile^®. Only at a T-Mobile store near you.”

The following list of devices (but not limited to) are available for $0 down payment with 2 year contract :

Samsung Galaxy S II
HTC Amaze 4G
BlackBerry Torch 9810
HTC Radar 4G
T-Mobile G-Slate
T-Mobile Sonic 4G Mobile HotSpot
T-Mobile myTouch by LG
Samsung Exhibit II 4G
BlackBerry Bold 9900
T-Mobile myTouch Q by LG
T-Mobile Sidekick 4G
Samsung Galaxy S 4G
HTC HD7
T-Mobile G2x With Google
HTC Sensation 4G
T-Mobile myTouch 4G Slide
BlackBerry Curve 9360
HTC Wildfire S
Samsung Gravity Smart
LG Optimus T
LG GS170
Samsung t359
Samsung t249
Samsung t259
Samsung t139 S
Samsung Gravity TXT
LG DoublePlay
T-Mobile Jet Laptop Stick
T-Mobile Rocket 3.0 LG Laptop Stick
T-Mobile 4G Mobile HotSpot

Update: Wait, it is not free as in free lunch, there is a fine-print that says you have to commit with $ for 20 moths and a downpayment price decided by the device you intend to buy then you would receive the mail-in-rebate for the amount you pay for .

That page has this fine-print:

“Device Pricing: Down payment & 20 monthly payments required; 0% APR and O.A.C. Samsung Galaxy S™ II: $199.99 down & $20/mo., total: $599.99; $200 mail-in-rebate card (“MIR”) avail. HTC^® Amaze™ 4G: $199.99 down & $20/mo., total: $599.99; $200 MIR avail. BlackBerry^® Torch 9810: $199.99 down & $20/mo., total: $599.99; $200 MIR avail. HTC^® Radar™ 4G: $99.99 down & $15/mo., total: $399.99; $100 MIR avail. T-Mobile^® G-Slate with Google™: $299.99 down & $10/mo., total: $499.99; $300 MIR avail. T-Mobile^® Sonic 4G Mobile HotSpot: $24.99 down & $5/mo., total: $124.99; $25 MIR avail. T-Mobile^® myTouch^® by LG: $49.99 down & $10/mo., total: $249.99; $50 MIR avail. Samsung Exhibit™ II 4G: $49.99 down & $15/mo., total: $349.99; $50 MIR avail. BlackBerry^® Bold™ 9900: $199.99 down & $20/mo., total: $599.99; $200 MIR avail. T-Mobile^® myTouch^® Q by LG: $49.99 down & $10/mo., total: $249.99; $50 MIR avail. T-Mobile^® Sidekick^® 4G: $99.99 down & $15/mo., total: $399.99; $100 MIR avail. Samsung Galaxy S™ 4G: $99.99 down & $15/mo., total: $399.99; $100 MIR avail. HTC^® HD7: $49.99 down & $10/mo., total: $249.99; $50 MIR avail. T-Mobile^® G2x™ with Google™: $99.99 down & $15/mo., total: $399.99; $100 MIR avail. HTC^® Sensation™ 4G: $199.99 down & $20/mo., total: $599.99; $200 MIR avail. T-Mobile^® myTouch™ 4G Slide: $149.99 down & $15/mo., total: $449.99; $150 MIR avail. BlackBerry^® Curve™ 9360: $49.99 down & $15/mo., total: $349.99; $50 MIR avail. HTC^® Wildfire S™: $49.99 down & $10/mo., total: $249.99; $50 MIR avail. Samsung Gravity Smart: $49.99 down & $10/mo., total: $249.99; $50 MIR avail. LG Optimus T™: $49.99 down & $10/mo., total: $249.99; $50 MIR avail. LG GS170: $9.99 down & $3/mo., total: $69.99; $10 MIR avail. Samsung t359: $19.99 down & $5/mo., total: $119.99; $20 MIR avail. Samsung t249: $19.99 down & $3/mo., total: $79.99; $20 MIR avail. Samsung t259: $29.99 down & $5/mo., total: $129.99; $30 MIR avail. Samsung t139: $9.99 down & $3/mo., total: $69.99; $10 MIR avail. Samsung Gravity TXT: $39.99 down & $5/mo., total: $139.99; $40 MIR avail. LG DoublePlay: $99.99 down & $15/mo., total: $399.99; $100 MIR avail. T-Mobile^® Jet™ 2.0 Laptop Stick: $24.99 down & $5/mo., total: $124.99; $25 MIR avail. T-Mobile^® Rocket™ 3.0 4G Laptop Stick: $24.99 down & $5/mo., total: $124.99; $25 MIR avail. T-Mobile^® 4G Mobile HotSpot: $24.99 down & $5/mo., total: $124.99; $25 MIR avail.”
You are not left there, you have to pay taxes, and $35 per line activation fee or $18 for upgrading. Here are the details about it:
“Offer valid Dec. 17-18, 2011; subject to change. Taxes and fees add’l. Not all plans or features avail. on all devices. While supplies last. Device Offer: Credit approval, $35/line activation fee or $18/line upgrade fee, and new activation of a qualifying postpaid Value plan on two-year contract (with up to $200/line early cancellation fee) req’d. EasyPay billing required for mobile broadband devices. At participating locations. Domestic only. Equipment Installment Plan: Subject to credit approval. Down payment & unfinanced portion req’d at purchase. Remaining balance paid in monthly installments. Qualifying plan req’d for duration of EIP agreement; account must be in good standing. Taxes, late/non-payment fees and other upfront and monthly charges may apply. Available only in participating locations; not available in Wash., D.C. Examples shown reflect the down payment & monthly payments of our most creditworthy customers; amounts for others will vary. Mail-In Rebate: Activation of qualifying plan req’d; must remain active and in good standing at time rebate is processed. For mobile broadband devices, mail-in-rebate card requires qualifying mobile broadband plan with EasyPay billing. Limited to specific models; supplies may be limited. One device per eligible account. Rebate provide in the form of a VISA card. Allow 6-8 weeks for processing. See rebate form for details. Device and screen images simulated.”

After reading the fine-print, I feel like it is not a good deal at all especially after this line “Down payment & unfinanced portion req’d at purchase. Remaining balance paid in monthly installments.” in the fine print. If you say $0, it should be $0, why with strings attached and when we pay downpayment outright, it doesn’t make it as $0, IMHO. What do you think?

Thanks Ken for pointing me to the fine-print.

Source: T-Mobile Zero Down Page

If Barnes & Nobel Can’t Compete With B&N They’ll Follow Borders Lead

David K — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 03:28:47 +0000

Retail is feeling it from every side. The internet has made it so easy to price shop and browse from your home without ever going into a brick and mortar store and even if you go into a store every phone can give you price comparisons on the go. But with the holidays coming up I wanted to do the right thing and support an actual store. So I went to that crazy store called Barnes & Noble where people get a coffee, read the magazines and leave without buying anything. I wanted to go old school and browse some books and toys for my kids . While I was there I couldn’t locate a book I was looking for – they only had it in paperback but I wanted a hardcover so I pulled out my phone and of course, there it was on bn.com. OK no problem, I can get that book online. No biggie. Of course, that made me take the stack of books I was holding and hit the search button and do a little real time scanning and the bn.com pricing was almost always given back automatically. Except that if I buy it online at bn.com I get the same exact book I’m holding for some percentage off – often above 20%. And it’s free shipping. In fact, in NYC it comes to you same day by a messenger for free.

I was expecting to lose a few dollars going to the store and I was accepting that in my head but as I stood there and I realized I was losing over $25 for books I actually didn’t need yet (since they’re holiday gifts) and I could get them the same day if I order it online in any event…well I did what was rational and ordered online. If Barnes & Noble was offering prices that compete with bn.com then I would have pulled the trigger. And that’s accepting the fact that Amazon often beats bn.com (accept then you need to have Prime shipping or else the ‘free’ means they wait 4 days to begin the shipping process to really teach you a lesson).

Bottom line is that brick and mortar stores need to learn from their online affiliates and compete in todays real time price comparing world. They don’t need to beat the web. They still have an experience factor that deserves a premium. But if they’re going to get a large premium compared to their online site then they’re writing their own obituary and not learning the lessons of Borders (despite buying part of them). At a minimum you have to go Best Buy style and offer in store pickup and give the same pricing store of web. Of course, Best Buy is also in trouble but that’s for another day…

King of Smartphones–Gadget Show Poll

Rama Uppugunduri — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:52:37 +0000

Gadget Show is conducting a poll for King of Smartphones. The poll is between Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S, HTC Sensation XL, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Apple iPhone 4S, Nokia Lumia 800 and Blackberry Torch 9860.

Currently Nokia Lumia 800 is leading the poll with 51.44% votes with distant second by iPhone 4S with 19.56% votes and Samsung Galaxy Nexus is securing 3rd place with 17.58% votes. Let us see how the result would turn out into once the poll times out.

via: WMPoweruser

NeverWet coatings let your device survive up to thirty minutes underwater!

Doug Smith — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:41:59 +0000

All smart phones share a common enemy, water. We have all had it happen to us, or someone we know. My wife dropped her phone in the lake and it died even after quickly grabbing it out. There are even toilet “incidents” that have caused the untimely demise of demise of a device or two. Actually, some studies suggest that 19% of people drop their cell phone in a toilet. If you are constantly around water with your device and do not like to lock your device up in one of those bulky waterproof cases, then check out NeverWet by Ross Nanotechnology.

All you have to do is spray on NeverWet and wipe off the excess. That’s it. They claim to be able to make an iPhone survive over thirty minutes submerged in water. Definitely great news for us, bad news for all the wireless carriers that no doubt make a fortune from the unfortunate effects of water damage.