Mobility Watch

Attention CrackBerry Addicts: BusinessWeek says RIM’s going to launch the BlackBerry App World April 1 at CTIA.

The iPhone guys have access to the App Store. The T-Mobile G1 crew can get their fix through the Android Market. What about all the RIM enthusiasts of the world? We’ve been told that BlackBerry App World is right around the corner and now that statement may finally be coming to fruition.

This could be falsified rumor, a sick April Fool’s Day joke, or a certified leak, but BusinessWeek is reporting that the BlackBerry App World will be ready for primetime on April 1st. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s next Wednesday. It also happens to be April Fool’s Day.

Despite that strange coincidence, the timing may be just right. BlackBerry App World’s launch will then come ahead of the official release of iPhone 3.0, being able to ride that positive press for at least a couple of months before its thunder is stolen again. Further still, that’s the same day that CTIA Wireless opens its doors.

Could this be one of the major announcements from Research in Motion at CTIA? It very well could be, even if the pricing structure has received some negative attention. This is a good step forward for RIM and it’ll make it easier for all the BlackBerry enthusiasts of the world to expand on what their Berries can do.

According to the BlackBerry App World developer FAQ, RIM will institute significantly tighter pricing restrictions than rival app portals–while the service will offer both free and premium applications, developers must charge a minimum of $2.99 for paid apps. While Apple’s App Store enables contributors to price their iPhone and iPod touch apps for as little as 99 cents, the policy has come under fire from some programmers for effectively discouraging development of more sophisticated and higher-priced downloads. Of course, the new BlackBerry App World pricing restriction potentially discourages the creation of some cheaper, simpler applications and utilities.

In addition, Research In Motion will expressly forbid downloading or running apps from the BlackBerry device’s microSD card slot. Electronista notes that such a restriction ostensibly cripples piracy but also limits the quantity and size of apps–no BlackBerry device offers more internal storage than the Bold, which boasts 1GB of flash memory. The rule also restricts the ability to transfer apps to multiple devices.

From Engadget: Finally, an honest to goodness picture of what may well be the sweetest BlackBerry RIM has pushed out to date. Featuring keyboard styling taken from its chubbier friend, the BlackBerry Bold, and the sleeker lines of the Curve 8900, this certainly looks like a recipe for success.

Mobilewhack.com has this tidbit of info: Verizon plans to add another RIM phone to its BlackBerry collection. This time we’re talking about the BlackBerry Niagara which is supposed to be smaller than the Bold but larger than the Curve 8900. The Niagara will offer 3G connectivity via EV-DO rev A, a 480 x 360 resolution display, A-GPS, a 3.2 megapixels camera, a full QWERTY keyboard and RIM’s software: BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 and BlackBerry OS 4.6. Now we need some pricing details and arrival dates and we’ll be good to go.

Other (old) info:

Additional features include:

* The OS actually we’re told is 4.7.1 (but possibly, possibly, be OS 5.0 depending on launch date).
* No Wi-Fi.
* Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support along with WCDMA support (bands not specified, but most likely 2100MHz).
* CDMA 1x/EV-DO Rev. A device.
* Release date unknown, but we’d say May/June if we had to bet.
* 3.2 megapixel camera (though we heard a rumor there might be a camera-less version, but that’s unconfirmed).
* The web browser supports JavaScript 1.6 (not huge news, but at least the browser is slowly improving).

There’s a lot of buzz on the net about the Blackberry 9630 Niagara, and if Rim, etc brings it to fruition, it may surpass everyone’s expectations.

Verizon Wireless and Research In Motion Ltd. have high hopes for the BlackBerry Storm, which they spent nearly two years developing as their big response to Apple Inc.’s iPhone.

My Nokai 9500 Communicator feels so much better now that this has come up.

But despite a marketing campaign that cost more than $100 million, the smart phone has gotten off to a bumpy start.

Some early buyers have complained about technical bugs with RIM’s first touch screen BlackBerry, although others say most new gadgets have problems that need to be ironed out.

People familiar with the matter say Verizon Wireless, is the exclusive U.S. carrier for the device, sold roughly 500,000 units in the first month after the Storm’s Nov. 21 launch.

That is a promising start, though well off the pace of AT&T Inc.’s sale of 2.4 million iPhone 3G devices in that device’s first full quarter on the market.

Some Storm owners have complained about everything from clunky software for typing on the touch screen to the device’s sluggish performance with basic tasks like dialing-by-voice or taking photographs.

RIM Co-CEO Jim Balsillie states buggy smartphones are the norm.

Do you agree with that statement? Are newly released smartphones expected to have bugs that that will take months and months of patches to make them work right? Should the buyer have lowered expectations for a technological device that costs upto thousands?

First Generation Nokia Smartphones are notorious for having a plethora of bugs, and I read that the iPhone wasn’t entirely 100% bug-free, either. Not that familiar with HP’s iPaq or Rim’s blackberry.

Smartphones at about.com had this to say about palm and winmo:

Palm OS: Cons
The Palm OS looks and feels dated–because it is. It has not had a major overhaul in years. The company says it is working on a new version of the OS that will combine elements of the current version (called Garnet) with elements of Linux, an operating system that runs on servers, personal computers, and some smartphones.

Windows Mobile OS: Cons
Windows Mobile is not always user-friendly. It’s easy to be confused by the operating system, partly because the environment can feel very familiar to, yet also very different than the version of Windows that you run on your PC. Windows Mobile can also be slow, sluggish, and buggy.

Seidio’s G1 Innocell 2600mAh replacement batteries add significant depth to phones, but also add significant life.

Seidio’s Innocell product description promises quite a bit: “This 2600mAh Super Extended Battery provides up to 140% more capacity than the OEM battery that came with your phone! If you are a heavy user or tend to go for long periods without the ability to recharge, this battery is the solution for you! ”

As big a ‘back’ as it has, and at $55, it had better come through with it’s promises.

My Nokia 9500 Communicator can hold a charge for two weeks at a time, so Seidio’s 2600 battery should be similar. Research on the web has few specifications, but what I did find sounds promising for Blackberry owners. According to others, Seidio’s battery requires a special back cover as well.

If it brings more extended life to your handheld, I wouldn’t complain about looks. On the other hand, if you’re one that’s constantly considering what other think of how your phone or handheld looks, then the Innocell 2600mAh isn’t for you. There are tiny, thin phones out there, like my Nokia 7380 or the teeny tiny LG UP3.

Would you use the ‘baby bump battery’?

BlackBerry named its first multimedia phone the Pearl, not because of the phone’s color (black), but because of its pearl-like trackball navigator, which was a radical change for BlackBerry users who know and love the scroll-wheel.

But someone at BlackBerry figured out that pearls are usually white.  So we have BlackBerry’s new Pearl model, that’s, well, pearl-colored.  It’s not a stark white, but a soft glossy white. 

And absolutely nothing else has changed, except there’s a MyFaves logo on the back, that the original Pearl model didn’t have.  (T-Mobile hadn’t officially introduced MyFaves when the Pearl came out, although the phone has had MyFaves capability from day one.)

And it’s selling on T-Mobile’s website for the exact same price as the black version - about $150 with a 2-year deal and mail-in rebate.  For now, it’s a T-Mobile exclusive.  (AT&T/Cingular has Pearls, but only black ones.)

Shall I remind you that, at this price, you could buy 4 BlackBerry Pearls for the price of one 8GB iPhone?  Naaaah.

BlackBerry, White Pearl, T-Mobile, Cingular Wireless, AT&T, iPhone

We wrote about Sprint discontinuing its Fair & Flexible calling plans for new customers around the first of the year.  The move became official Thursday with the announcement of Sprint’s new Power Pack pricing plans.  Other than the 7PM night & weekend rate start time, there’s no gimmick for Sprint to woo new customers - nothing like Cingular’s rollover minutes or T-Mobile’s My Faves.

Sprint also announced brutal news this week for its workforce.  That workforce will be shrinking by 5,000 this year.  It’s part of the hangover from Sprint’s merger with Nextel, which has been drawn out and painful.  The biggest challenge has been hanging onto Nextel customers.  They’ve been leaving for other carriers because Nextel hasn’t been able to improve service and coverage as quickly as those customers would like. 

Nextel has been fighting to keep those customers by introducing “hybrid” phones that allow Nextel customers to access Sprint’s voice network when Nextel’s own network is unavailable.  Sprint Nextel will also invest $8.5 billion in 2007 to add more cell sites and build out its WiMax wireless broadband network.  Chicago and Washington will be the first cities to get that new technology. 

But Wall Street doesn’t like Sprint Nextel’s overall outlook.  The problem for any wireless carrier is, once you lose a customer to another carrier, it takes two years for that customer’s contract to expire before you can hope to woo that customer back.  It’ll take Sprint $1.1 billion just to cover marketing and handset subsidies this year, to try to do it.  The fact that Sprint doesn’t usually get first crack at the flashy phones like BlackBerry’s Pearl or Apple’s iPhone doesn’t help.

Sprint Nextel and its employees are going through some difficult times.  We’d hate to see them cash it in and be merged with some other wireless company.  Even those of us who aren’t Sprint customers benefit from increased competition.  If 4 major carriers in the U.S. (Cingular, Verizon, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile) were to become 3 carriers, the loss of competition would almost certainly lead to higher rates for us all.

Sprint, Nextel, Verizon Wireless, Cingular Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile, Fair & Flexible, Power Packs, WiMax, Apple iPhone, BlackBerry Pearl 

[via CBR]

The devices pictured here are part of a family of VoiP devices that Cisco Systems has been marketing under the iPhone name for some time.  Well, since last month, actually.

Be that as it may, Cisco appears to have a solid claim on the iPhone trademark - it says it acquired the mark when it purchased Infogear in 2000.  And to hear Cisco tell it, there have been “extensive” negotiations going on with Apple, because Apple wanted to use the iPhone name for its new wireless phone/iPod device.  It appears papers were drawn up, but Apple never signed them. 

The lawsuit filed Wednesday is “silly”, according to Apple.  Their company spokeswoman says Cisco’s trademark is “tenuous” because companies other than Cisco have been using the iPhone name to market VoiP devices.  ”If Cisco wants to challenge us on it,” says Apple, “we are confident that we will prevail.”

Confident enough to risk a gillion dollars marketing its revolutionary wireless device under a name owned by someone else.  Could it be that Steve Jobs’ ego is speaking louder than his own lawyers?  It’s hard to imagine any sane corporate lawyer advising his client to do this, if Cisco’s statements are true.

Instead of iPhone, Apple should have picked another nice fruit name for their new wireless device.  Something catchy. 

BlackBerry!  Yeah, that’s the ticket. 

Apple, Cisco, iPhone, BlackBerry, Infogear, trademark lawsuit

[via Cisco, Mercury News]

It’s incredible.  All Steve Jobs has to do is get up on stage, dangle a phone in his hand with Apple’s name on it, and by the end of the day stock in the parent company of BlackBerry drops almost 8 percent.

The iPhone may be one very cool product, but it can’t and certainly won’t replace BlackBerry.  Analysts like Michael Gartenberg at Jupiter Research are grousing about iPhone’s shortcomings, which include no 3G (third generation high speed data) capability, no third-party software capability (no Slingplayer!), and no support for Microsoft Office attachments.  And why didn’t Apple include wireless download capability from iTunes?

Then there’s Larry Dignan of ZDNet, who says his own Motorola Q handset feels like an Edsel next to iPhone.  Dignan predicts doom not only for Motorola, but for LG and Samsung to boot.  And as for Sprint, Dignan says Cingular’s marriage to Apple is the next to last nail in Sprint’s coffin.  (Yes, I’ve read the reports about Sprint’s layoffs and gloomy outlook for 2007.  iPhone is not Sprint’s biggest problem.  Not even close.)

Jeez, remember how expensive the iPhone is, and all the things it doesn’t do.  Dignan seems to think phones like BlackBerry’s Pearl will be relegated to the trash heap by Apple’s iPhone.  I think the opposite:  People who wander into a Cingular store to see the iPhone might just fall in love with the Pearl and everything it can do.  Especially when they realize they can buy three Pearls for the price of one iPhone.

Don’t get me wrong.  iPhone is a game-changing product for wireless manufacturers and service providers.  It’s liable to be the new phone of choice for the likes of Paris Hilton.  But it offers no serious advantages for business people, who will remain attached to their BlackBerrys or Palm Treos.  And for non-business users, any phone over $200 is a tough sell.  Never mind $500 or $600.

Eventually I believe Apple will extend its product line (just as it extended its line of iPods) to include lower-cost handsets, that appeal to “the rest of us”.  But by then, the other manufacturers will have developed handsets to compete with the iPhone’s heightened coolness factor.  The game may be changed by Apple’s iPhone, but the game is by no means over.

Apple, iPhone, Cingular Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, Palm Treo, Motorola Q, LG, Samsung, BlackBerry Pearl

Yahoo’s been searching (Ha!  Searching!  Get it?) for ways to regain lost ground in its battle with Google.

Here’s one of Yahoo’s strategies, announced today at the Consumer Electronics Show:  A new downloadable app for wireless handsets, Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0.  At the same time, Yahoo is giving mobile users a new “experience” it calls oneSearch.

The idea behind oneSearch is to anticipate what a searcher is looking for, and provide the most likely results immediately.  For instance:  a Yahoo mobile searcher enters the name of his favorite sports team.  Yahoo’s oneSearch will respond by giving the final score of the team’s most recent contest, and the schedule for its next matchup.  Type in a movie name, and immediately get reviews and a list of local theaters where it’s playing.  Not a bad idea, since mobile searchers often don’t have QWERTY keyboards to help refine their searches.

Yahoo is making its new software available right away for a handful of Motorola, BlackBerry, Samsung and other manufacturers’ devices.  Go here to find out if yours is included.  Yahoo will also become the default search engine for Opera’s mobile browsers.

Interestingly, Google issued a release today announcing a deal with Samsung promising easier access to Google’s maps, mail and search apps for its handset users.  So using your Samsung handset you’ll easily be able to Google Yahoo.  Or Yahoo Google.

Yahoo, oneSearch, Go For Mobile 2.0, Samsung, Motorola, BlackBerry, Google, Opera, Consumer Electronics Show

 

[via Wireless Week]

 

 

Friendly advice:  Don’t go Googling the words “Bluetooth lawsuit” unless you’re prepared to sort through a zillion entries.

This is not the suit by Verizon Wireless customers complaining about their Bluetooth functionality being crippled.  Or the suit claiming that Bluetooth headsets are dangerously loud.  It is also not an identity theft suit filed by the Viking warrior Harald Bluetooth, for whom the technology was named.

In this case, a foundation set up to defend patents on work done by universities is suing Nokia, Samsung and Matsushita (Panasonic) for infringing patents related to Bluetooth technology developed by the University of Washington.  The foundation has apparently been negotiating with these firms for years to reach a settlement, without success.

Bluetooth was first developed by scientists at Ericsson in Sweden in 1994.  But it seems an undergrad named Edwin Suominen refined Bluetooth technology while studying at the university, and the control of the patents related to his work reverted to this foundation. 

(I’d like to say that I was doing something important when I was an undergrad, such as refining Bluetooth technology.  I’d like to, but I can’t.)

No comment yet from the companies named in the suit.  CSR, the manufacturer which makes chips which are involved in the suit, isn’t named as a defendant - but says that the suit is “without merit”. 

At this point I wouldn’t worry about your Bluetooth capabilities being turned off suddenly.  But users of BlackBerrys are still recovering from the stress caused by the recent threat of a service cutoff, related to a patent infringement lawsuit against the parent company RIM. 

These legal things can get awfully messy.

Bluetooth, Nokia, Matsushita, Panasonic, Samsung, Ericsson, BlackBerry, RIM, University of Washington,   Edwin Suominen

[via Newsday]

 

Although the BlackBerry Pearl dragged the email-centric handhelds into the 21st century as far as media capabilities are concerned, there still hasn’t been much in the way of online audio content available for BlackBerrys.

Quickplay aims to change that with a collection of streamed audiocasts (why would we call them Podcasts?) from Wall Street Journal, ABC News, MarketWatch, AccuWeather and a bunch of others.  Your BlackBerry “never sounded better”, they say.  For a lot of BlackBerry users, it’s the only “sound” their BlackBerry has ever made!

The software download and preview are free, but that’s all that’s free.  If you decide to take the service it’s $7.95 a month, and that doesn’t include data charges from your provider, if you’re not already on an unlimited data plan.  BlackBerry 7130e series, 8700 series and Pearls are supported so far.

QuickPlay, BlackBerry, 7130e, 8700, Pearl, Audiocast, Podcast, QuickPlayer

[via BlackBerry Forums Pinstack]

What are the chances that you, an educated wireless consumer, might walk into a Cingular store to buy a BlackBerry, and out of sheer confusion, walk out with a Samsung Blackjack instead?

RIM, which makes the BlackBerry, figures its customers are just soooo busy making multi-gazillion dollar deals that they’re not paying enough attention to know the difference.  RIM has filed an infringement lawsuit against Samsung in federal court in Los Angeles, claiming that Blackjack is just too close to BlackBerry.

Now wait just a minute.  It seems to me that if anyone ought to be upset here, it’s the blackberry farmers.  Talk about confusion - you could go shopping for sweet, luscious blackberries and if you’re not paying attention, wind up buying a sackful of wireless electronic devices.  The RIM people are clearly infringing on the blackberry farmers’ rights, and appropriating that venerable fruit’s reputation, without just compensation.

It’s time for an enterprising lawyer to contact the Blackberry Commission and settle the score here. 

BlackBerry, RIM, Samsung, Blackjack, Cingular, lawyers

[via Tech2]

It’s hard to get too excited about a phone that’s already been available on one carrier, getting extended to another.  However, we’ll excuse Sprint for getting excited about acquiring its own version of Verizon’s Motorola Q the other day, because Sprint doesn’t have very many “stylish” handsets in its lineup.  At least Motorola did Sprint a favor by offering its version of the Q in a different color from the Verizon version.

No such luck for Cingular, which begins rolling out its version of T-Mobile’s BlackBerry Pearl today.  Aside from a minor chrome tweak around the keypad and the Cingular branding, the two versions look nearly identical.

And they are - except Cingular’s version gets push-to-talk capability and TeleNav GPS, which can deliver turn by turn voice directions with the help of a Bluetooth GPS accessory.

Even the price is the same as T-Mobile - $199.99 with a 2-year deal and incentives from Cingular, with a required data plan. 

The Pearl’s look and feel, trim size, camera and multimedia capabilities and the pearl-like trackball control have generally gotten great reviews.  Still controversial is the Pearl’s hybrid SureType keypad.  You might want to give it a serious test drive before you commit to it.

[via PDA Street]

If you’re hooked on Skype you can now contact your contacts and IM your Skype buddies from your BlackBerry or Windows Mobile device.  EQO Mobile is a free internet communications platform, that not only transmits Skype but also Jabber, GoogleTalk, ICQ and other instant message and VoIP services to more than 400 different handsets.  BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices are just the latest additions to the lineup.

So if someone tells you they’ve gone Pearl Skyping, you’ll know what they’re talking about.

[via EARTHtimes.org]