BlackBerry redoubles iPhone challenge As part of its ongoing effort to reinvent the BlackBerry as an iPhone-battling consumer-friendly handheld, Research in Motion has announced a bevy of new after hours services for its corporate email baby. A year after his other half announced a new Facebook app for the BlackBerry, co-RIM CEO Jim Balsillie turned up at the CTIA …
It probably does it the same way MySpace for the iPhone (launched months ago, incidentally) does it: by not rendering any of the actual pages, and instead presenting the information from them within a useable native UI.
Indeed, the MySpace iPhone app is quite nice… at least, compared to actually having to use the MySpace site, at any rate.
Rim once again trying desperately to stave off the creep of many flavors of smart phone into the markets it monopolized for so many years. Keep it up guys, maybe if you follow the M$ playbook and make piss poor knock offs of the technology and ideas for mobile devices that every other manufacturer is doing. You can then take back your hallowed space in the smart phone arena. Heh who am I kidding fat chance of that happening.
Coat please, mine is the one with the Treo in the pocket.
Yep, Rim is getting better. They had to be dragged screaming and yelling. Doesent that just make you want to buy one. :-)
While I think RIM makes a good product, I do not see it as a real leader for the future. A good follower, yes, but not leading.
Just a thought.
en
that I hate Blackberries not because they are over hyped pieces of 'look at me' -ness, nor because they aren't as good as some other things people love to hate (such as Windows Mobile 6 and Palm OS), nor because they are Canadian (which should be reason enough) and not even for their stupid corporate name which sounds like a gay pasttime, but because they use their own proprietary network to route all messages when there is abso-bloody-lutely no reason at all that this should happen.
I feel better now I have that off my chest. PS Agree totally with the sentiments of Mr Dickinson (if that's his real name) about the smart flip phone. I once had an awesome Kyocera Palm OS flip phone which I foolishly traded in on a preposterosuly large HTC Titan because the Titan had a colour screen and did Office... which I used about never.
Mine's the one with the 'Crack the Uncrackable' Blackberry-cracking 3-pound hammer in.
Mebbe. But how many people actually DELIBERATELY downloaded it? It suddenly appeared on mine one day - can I get shot of the sodding thing? Can I berryberry... It can be hidden, but not uninstalled, it seems. Any suggestions, folks? (Voda 8310, if it makes a difference)
Trying to catch Apple's App Store boat when you're swimming with no legs and a hand behind your back (look at the development platform for BB) is a bad move.
If RIM want to go down that area they need to revise their whole offering in that area, announce it and deliver on it. In the meantime they should concentrate on what they do best. This sort of move makes it look like they are afraid of the iPhone.
Yeah, i had a blackberry before i got my iphone...
The idea that to get full functionality from it i would need to run their proprietary windows-only app, and interface it with a proprietary mail system (exchange, notes or groupwise?), or use their cut down bis service...
I don't want to pay extra for the proprietary mail server, the windows license to run the blackberry server on, not to mention the costs of all the hardware for running this...
Their service is quite fast for receiving mail, and the phones have good battery life, but i don't want to cache my imap password on their servers, or have to buy expensive software and servers myself... I already have IMAP, i should be able to run my own blackberry server on any system i want and interface it with my standard imap server...
Incidentally, there is an open source alternative to the microsoft activesync used by the iphone (z-push), but activesync doesnt work as well as the blackberry service seems to (battery life is terrible because it just polls repeatedly).
ok, I understand now - the term "Proprietary network" was actually meant to refer to the (non-BlackBerry) proprietary OS, (non-BlackBerry) proprietary Mail server - perfectly clear now. I guess we can ignore the (non-BlackBerry) internet and (non-BlackBerry) cellular networks :)
RIM now have Blackberry Unite available, this is basically a cut down version of BES that will talk to POP/IMAP servers rather than Exchange/Domino/Groupwise.
Of course it still needs to be on a machine which is running 24/7 to get your mail, but you can use a client OS rather than a server one, although it still needs WIndows.
Dear Only Me,
All emails to a blackberry go via RIM's servers in Canada. As these are black boxes and transfer data between devices, thereby forming a proprietary network.
Even if this were not so :
- they are still 'Look at me' devices to bolster egos or make up for inadequacies on other areas
- they are still over-hyped
- they are not as good as many other offerings
- RIM sounds like a gay pasttime. Can we all vote to call Blackberry users 'RIMmers' from now?
- They are Canadian
So please stop waving your little blackberry about, pull up your zipper, and move on quietly.
Love Heart because you may not have got enough hugs as a child. So here's one for you. NB That is not an invitation to RIM me, just so you know.
"- they are still 'Look at me' devices to bolster egos or make up for inadequacies on other areas
-they are still over-hyped
- they are not as good as many other offerings"
Are you talking about the BlackBerry? That sounds more like the iPhone. The only other smartphone I like is the Treo (PalmOS, please!) and, oh yeah, it has the same BlackBerry keyboard.
Whats wrong with Canadians? I for one am happy that these fine devices aren't from the US, at least that means my BIS isn't stuck with draconian US rights to read all my e-mail thinking I'm "Terry Wrist".
@AC FaceBerry - the icon that appears on your main screen isn't the app itself; it just means your service books have been updated and now include the app. Clicking on it will direct you to the "download link". I'm not about to bloat my BB with that thing!
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