tOMPSON’s blog

On Friday I had the opportunity to meet and talk to some RIM employees at the BlackBerry Technical Seminar for IT Professionals in Vienna. I attended mostly to Track C which focused on application development for BlackBerry devices. Tariq Tahir and Michael Weitzel did a great job and learned a lot about the fundamentals behind the BlackBerry platform. A lot of ideas for new applications and improving existing solution came to my mind.

In one of the breaks I also had the opportunity to test the BlackBerry Storm. First it was a bit unfamiliar to me that the devices makes a difference between just touching the display and “pressing” it. For clicking I had to “press” and this made the whole display go down a bit and to give some kind of vibrating feedback. This is very different to the surface of the iPhone because the whole display part of the BlackBerry Storm “moves” like a big button. I tried to type some text with the virtual full QWERTY keyboard but soon I realized that it will never be possible to type as fast on the Storm as with a real keyboard. The RIM employees said that I should hold the device in portrait mode and to use the SureType keyboard because it has bigger buttons and the text-finding-intelligence has been improved a lot - but I am no SureType-guy.

Since I read the latest reviews of the BlackBerry 8900 Curve (aka Javelin) I am sure that with the Bold I got the right device for the next couple of months.

This is a up to date screenshot of the “Instant Messaging” folder on my BlackBerry Bold. From left to right:

• BlackBerry Messenger - classic, no BlackBerry is complete without this one. My most uses IM at the moment. Safes a lot of SMS costs.
• twibble - one big plus of using twitter is that it allows me to publish from my BlackBerry to the web - therefor I am using twibble, I tried twitterberry but had some problems with it
  
• facebook - the BlackBerry facebook app allows me to make status updates and upload fotos directly from the Bold
• iSkoot - on my search for a free BlackBerry Skype client today I found iSkoot, great Skype client, I am using it mostly for chat, though voice over IP works too
• ICQ - allows me to stay in touch with my old ICQ friends. Provided by RIM directly under mobile.blackberry.com
• MSN Messenger - another native BlackBerry app provided by RIM

With all those instant messengers added the BlackBerry Bold really is a communication monster - I am very satisfied with this device.

Looks like the Storm is the step of RIM trying to hit the consumer market.

On Saturday I finally got my BlackBerry Bold. On Wednesday last week, while I was in Croatia on vacation, I got a call from the Mobilkom shop telling me that it had arrived. I bought a 8GB micro SD card and updated the OS to 4.6.0.150 - now the Bold is ready to serve me.

After using the Bold now for three days I am really impressed:

• the screen is great - crisp, bright and sharp
• WiFi is works perfect - best for watching youtube vids
• The camera is better than the one of the curve, even with the same resolution
• Battery Life is good. First load on Saturday morning and now (three days later) it seems I will have to load it again overnight. This is quite good for playing around a lot with the gadget.

Now I have to fill my SD card with music and videos and test the entertainment qualities of the device.

It seems that RIM changed the behavior of their BIS servers. Today I read on BlackBerryNews that they are experiencing their BIS mails getting to them with less latency.

I wondered yesterday about the same fact and after reading their post I tested my mail server. The email came to my BlackBerry within seconds. I looks like finally RIM uses the IMAP IDLE command for push email instead of polling the IMAP server every five minutes. I am really happy about that! BIS users had to wait a long time for that.

Now my BIS account is working better than my BlackBerry Professional account because it brings in the mails with the same speed and shows HTML rendering. For my Professional server there is still no update available that allows to activate HTML rendering.

As RIMarkable and BlackBerryCool say the Bold is now available on the T-Mobile Germany site. Interesting. I registered for an update per email as soon as the device is available but I did not get any information. There is also an article saying T-Mobile Austria launches BlackBerry Bold but it is not available in the online shop until now.

I am wondering how long it will take until I see the first Bold live in action and even more when it will be sold by Mobilkom Austria. I hope it will be earlier than the internal date 1st September.

Finally the BlackBerry Bold can be found in the online shop of my carrier A1:

I heard that it will take some time until it is available - official date is 1.9.08. One month left and my pre-order will be delivered! (I had to read about this on BlackBerry Cool - you are fast simon!)

A lot of BlackBerry sites already predicted it today: The BlackBerry Media Sync application allows to sync BlackBerry devices with iTunes. The 30 Megs download is available here. My download is already running and I am curios about how good this stuff works - will it sync PodCasts?

Sweet!

This week Boy Genius had tow great new posts about the BlackBerry Bold:

• BlackBerry Bold review: we’ve been rockin’ it for a month
• BlackBerry Bold vs. iPhone 3G: yeah, we definitely went there

So if you got some minutes take the time and read through those two. They have to some some very different things:

At first glance, the first thing you’ll see is obviously the gorgeous screen on the 9000. We can safely say that this is the best screen we’ve ever seen on a mobile device. Hands down.

Contra:

It’s now July 15th, and even running the latest 4.6.0.93 build, we’re still pulling the battery out a good 10 times a day. Why? Between the constant java errors, and the BlackBerry completely losing service and informing us it’s “Searching for Network…”. That’s why.

Seems RIM has to do some major improvements to the software of the device! Whereas this sounds good to me:

With the latest software version, we can safely say we’re getting as good or better battery life than we did with our Curve. Yes. Isn’t that awesome? Thanks to 1500mAh battery and a crap load of engineering on RIM’s part, they’ve finally got it nailed down.

I am still wondering when the first Bold will be selled officially.