March 6th, 2008

Exclusive: iPhone DevCamp's Raven on iPhone SDK and what it means

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 4:19 pm

Categories: Apple, BlackBerry, News

Tags: Apple iPhone, Developer, SDK, Apple Inc., Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, RS, RZ, Russell Shaw

Just a few minutes ago, I had a most enlightening email conversation with someone who knows as much about the new iPhone SDK, and its effects/potential, as anyone who doesn’t work at Apple. And probably know more than most who do.

That’d be Raven Zachary, who you may know as key force behind the iPhone DevCamp, (group-and-grin from 2007 SF event in pic) as well as an analyst and perhaps THE key thought leader in the third party iPhone developer community.

Raven had some thoughts on the new iPhone SDK. I know you are here because you want to know what he thinks.

Comin’ at ya!:

RS: Your overarching thoughts on SDK?- is it what you hoped for in terms of flexibility, ease of use, etc?

RZ: This is what the development community was hoping for - a platform that allowed developers to build native applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. In terms of openness, it looks to be something in- between what Apple does today with the iPod Games market and the Mac. Developers can write almost anything, but will need to distribute the software through the iTunes App Store, with Apple taking a 30% revenue share for distribution, billing, and marketing, basically. Developers wanting to distribute free applications through the App Store will be allowed to do so, as well.

RS: How does SDK functionality change the game for 3-party iPhone devs?

RZ: 3rd party development for the iPhone up until now was web-based through Safari, and a small number of people in the hacker community working on unofficial apps. We’re now going to see an entire new market created around native applications, and providing functionality not possible through web development. You’ll see iPhone development for web-based applications, just not exclusively.

RS: Are you troubled by the Apple “control” issue, i.e. they reserve right of approval?

RZ: No, because it seems that Apple will only limit this in extreme situations. Steve Jobs was quoted in the Q&A session with the media that they would even allow VOIP applications, although limited to Wifi and not over the carrier network. What we don’t have here is Apple review of all source code, which would have been time consuming and expensive.

RS: In SDK, what’s cool?

RZ: Everything, pretty much. Apple has provided a large sandbox for developers while still providing for data security.

RS: In SDK what’s missing that ought to be there?

RZ: There are still a number of unanswered questions from today’s announcement, such as hardware and peripheral connectivity, but these will be answered by Apple in time.

RS: Any other thoughts?

RZ: Don’t underestimate this market and the disruption on RIM (BlackBerry). Kleiner Perkins is putting $100m into the iFund, and this platform has a very exciting future, and one with plenty of commercialization opportunities for 3rd party developers.

February 18th, 2008

BlackBerry-Motorola patent infringement fight makes little sense to me

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 11:00 pm

Categories: BlackBerry, News, Predictions and Observations, Regulatory

Tags: Research In Motion Ltd., Phone, Motorola Inc., E-mail, Telecom & Utilities, Keyboards, Handhelds, Wireless, Online Communications, Hardware

Just within the last few days, BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion and Motorola have sued each other for Patent infringement.

Motorola’s big issue seems to be a feeling that in most of its 8xxx series models, RIM’s method of storing contact info in wireless emails, and its ability to recognize incoming phone numbers are tantamount to infringement.

RIM fired back, accusing, by implication, Motorola’s Q email phone of offering thumb keyboards awfully similar to several BlackBerry models.

RIM also says that Motorola’s patent royalty fee structure is “exorbitant.”

I have to tell you that some of the capabilities each company is suing each other about seem rather established, and yes, generic to me.

Hate to use the “t” (as in troll) word, but this really sounds like a neh-neh fight you sometimes see in and around sandboxes.

What do you think?

February 12th, 2008

BlackBerry: looks like buggy data routing system upgrade caused crash

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 3:51 pm

Categories: BlackBerry

Tags: Research In Motion Ltd., RIM BlackBerry, Handhelds, Hardware, Russell Shaw

BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion has just said an early investigation is pointing to a problem with an upgrade of a data routing system as having precipitated yesterday’s three-hour service disruption and resulting slow email thruput.
That said, RIM had a reason for this undertaking.

The upgrade was part of an ongoing effort to expand capacity for long-term growth, it noted.

IMHO they need to do better to provide redundancies so that there’s fallback. Redundancy, more colloquially expressed as Plan B. And Plan C.

Anyway it appears everything in the BlackBerry services universe is back to normal.

More as we learn more.

February 11th, 2008

Exclusive: BlackBerry outage indicated by IP address connect refusals

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 6:24 pm

Categories: BlackBerry

Tags: IP, IP Address, RIM BlackBerry, Outage, Network Technology, Networking, Russell Shaw

A representative of BlackBerry traffic analysis solutions provider Zenprise softwarei just got back to me with the scoop of some diagnostics that are pointing to at least one problem likely at the root of  today’s bad BlackBerry North American services outage:

Basically there are two paths (IP addresses) in North America to connect to the RIM network.  According to diagnostic tests run by Zenprise software, one IP address was refusing connections to come through causing enterprise users to be impacted.  A few points to note:

* Any users on the working IP address experienced little to no service interruption

* Organizations that reported intermittent email activity are the result of switching between the two IP addresses.

Still working on learning more. But the problem does seem to be dissipating as I report this.

February 11th, 2008

More details about the major North American BlackBerry outage

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 3:05 pm

Categories: BlackBerry, News

Tags: RIM BlackBerry, Outage, Handhelds, Hardware, Russell Shaw

This from BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion:

BlackBerry subscribers may be unable to send or receive messages. Subscribers may also be unable to register their device, roam in another location, or use other services such as Internet browsing.

BlackBerry Internet Service subscribers may be unable to use the BlackBerry Internet Service web site or perform activities such as creating new accounts, accessing their Internet mailbox, integrating third-party email accounts, or viewing email attachments.

Devices may not receive new service books. BlackBerry Connect and BlackBerry-enabled devices that require a new PIN may be unable to receive the PIN.

BlackBerry Enterprise Servers may be unable to connect to the BlackBerry Infrastructure.

Wireless service providers and device resellers may be unable to use BlackBerry administration web sites or perform activities such as creating subscriber accounts or provisioning services for subscribers.

You know, starting to think this stuff is happening a bit too often.

February 11th, 2008

BULLETIN: "Critical Severity" BlackBerry outage

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 2:24 pm

Categories: BlackBerry

Tags: RIM BlackBerry, Outage, E-mail, Manufacturing, Handhelds, Online Communications, Hardware, Russell Shaw

Note: This is a mirror post from my BlackBerry Beat blog. Important enough news to spread through both blogs, IMHO.

Sounds serious, and it is.

As an AT&T Mobility BlackBerry subscribver, I first started to pick up something wrong when I sent some photos of me swimming in a spa pool yesterday to some of my other email addys.

They aren’t getting thru.

But it’s not just me. Reuters just moved this:

E-mail service of Research In Motion’s BlackBerry smartphones experienced a “critical severity outage” on Monday, the company told clients in an e-mail.

“This is an emergency notification regarding the current BlackBerry Infrastructure outage,” stated an e-mail from RIM support account manager Bryan Simpson. The e-mail said the outage affected enterprise clients and “users of the Americas network.”

BlackBerry forum Pinstack has more.

Do you have more info? Who’s being affected out there?

February 8th, 2008

Four reasons why new survey shows mobile market momentum shifting to iPhone, BlackBerry

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 4:56 am

Categories: Apple, BlackBerry, Mobile, trends

Tags: Apple iPhone, Mobile, Smart Phone, RIM BlackBerry, Survey, Smart Phones, Handhelds, Cellular Phones, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology

According to a survey of 4,182 cell phone users, releasled today by ChangeWave Research, it seems that the march toward PDAs and related smartphones will quicken in the next six months.

This pace, which favors the Apple iPhone and newer models from BlackBerry, seems to be coming at the expense of older models, especially from Motorola.

What these stats tell me is that with the one-year anniversary if iPhone coming in less than four months, and BlackBerry’s advanced new features having been present for at least that long, consumers are eyeing the termination of their two-year contracts as an especially appropriate time to upgrade devices and perhaps to switch carriers as well.

Let’s look at three of the charts that ChangeWave released today:

iPhone market shares will increase just slightly- perhaps reflective of the “I’ve got mine already” factor- but BlackBerry market share will grow a bit more dramatically.

A lot of that slip is due in fact that Motorola has not been as dynamic in the smartphone space as rivals RIM (BlackBerry) and Apple (iPhone).

And finally:

This slide evokes two takeaways,  for a total of four in this post:

Most of these manufacturers also offer, or will offer, smartphones. The fact that iPhone and BlackBerry are tracking as more likely buys over the next six months tells me at least in part that these other companies are not doing a great job at positioning new devices as  functionality rivals to such models as the BlackBerry Curve and the iPhone.

Whoa. Palm, which makes the Treo smartphone, has some issues with user satisfaction.  What are they, Treo-owning readers?

February 7th, 2008

Move over, iPhone: touchscreen BlackBerry imminent, clues say

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 1:03 pm

Categories: Apple, BlackBerry

Tags: Touch Screen, Apple iPhone, Disclosure, Electrode, Voltage, RIM BlackBerry, LCD, Patent Abstract, Touchscreen Liquid-crystal Display, Pixel Element

A new BlackBerry Patent application published this morning strongly points to a touchscreen BlackBerry- similar to the touchscreen iPhone.

It’s also important to note that although most BlackBerry Patent applications are only published 18 months after they are filed, this one has only a four-month gap. These shorter gaps often occur when adaptation of proposed technology the patent describes is imminent.

The Patent app I am referring to here is System and Method for Integrating A Touchscreen Within an LCD.

The Patent Abstract describes what’s being proposed:

A touchscreen liquid crystal display, method for using a liquid crystal display as a user input, and a mobile electronic device are provided. The touchscreen liquid crystal display comprises: a liquid crystal display having a viewing surface and including a plurality of parallel first electrodes located on one side of a liquid crystal containing area and overlapping with a plurality of parallel second electrodes located on an opposite side of the liquid crystal containing area, the first and second electrodes overlapping to form an array of liquid crystal pixel elements, at least some of the first electrodes being displaceable towards the second electrodes in response to external pressure applied to the viewing surface; a driver circuit coupled to the first and second electrodes for driving the electrodes for selectively controlling a display state of the display pixel elements; and a measurement circuit coupled to the electrodes for measuring display pixel element voltages for at least some of the display pixel elements formed by the first electrode, and for each display pixel element for which a display pixel element voltage is measured, comparing the measured voltages to reference voltages and determining a relative force of the external pressure on the viewing surface based on the measured voltages.

Follow along for more explanation from the Patent Application’s literature.

Read the rest of this entry »

January 31st, 2008

Midwest, western Pennsylvania outages on AT&T EDGE network

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 4:45 pm

Categories: AT&T, Apple, BlackBerry

Tags: Network, AT&T Corp., EDGE, Outage, Russell Shaw

Reports have been pouring in for the last several hours.

Devices such as the iPhone and BlackBerry, both of which run on AT&T’s not so edgy EDGE network, are really having a rough patch with connectivity today.

As BlackBerry board Pinstack reports via Engadget:

We’re getting reports from all over that AT&T customers are having trouble with 3G and EDGE data. A majority of the complaints are coming from the Midwest / Chicago areas, where things seem to be down entirely, but we’ve also heard from folks as far away as Florida. Team Engadget hasn’t hit any snags in New York or Vegas where we’re currently situated, but let us know if you’re having troubles wherever you might be — and what color crayon to use for this fancy “threat level” printout we’ve got pinned to the wall.

Is your device, and connectivity, affected?

January 17th, 2008

Seen today: Comcast truck repainted with Digital Voice pitch

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 12:42 pm

Categories: BlackBerry, Comcast

Tags: Comcast Corp., Voice, Cable, Network Technology, Broadband Internet, Telecommunications, Personal Technology, Networking, Russell Shaw

I was sitting outside a chic French bakery this morning, munching on a croissant.

I then look across the street, see that Comcast truck, whip out my BlackBerry Curve and take that pix.

So why have I done this?

It’s no secret that Comcast is aggressively pushing their Comcast Digital Voice product.

What is new- at least in my hometown of Portland, Oregon- is that rather than the standard, generic Comcast livery, we’re starting to see trucks repainted with a common for Comcast Digital Voice.

Even when you have deep pockets like “Comcash,” repainting your trucks must not be an undertaking that is done lightly. It’s got to be rather labor-intensive.

“So what’s your point, Russ?”

My point is, that in fairly affluent neighborhoods, Comcast feels that they must grow horizontally with new services rather than vertically with cable tv and broadband Internet. I mean, except for people newly moving into a given area, there probably aren’t all that many prospective new Comcast broadband and/or cable subscribers out there.

But Digital Voice? You bet.

December 23rd, 2007

Vote: XBOX vs. Wii, iPhone vs. Moto Q, iPhone vs. BlackBerry Pearl, etc.

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 5:38 pm

Categories: Apple, BlackBerry

Tags: Apple iPhone, BlackBerry Pearl, RIM BlackBerry, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo Wii, Handhelds, Game Players, Hardware, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology

Today, when I should be doing laundry and packing for my Christmas Holidays trip, I’ve been having entirely too much fun today on Product Clash.

The premise of this new site is simple. You can read side-by-side specs for two devices in any of several categories, including Cameras, Cellphones (that’s the category shown above) Computers, Gadgets, GPS, Home entertainment, Peripherals and Portable Media.

Then, if you have completed the free registration process, you are able to vote on your favorite device among as many of the compared pairs as you wish, as well as offer comments about the reasoning behind your vote.

Just checked a few minutes ago. As of time of this post, here are the eight “Clashes” with the most votes:

26 XBOX 360 vs Nintendo Wii

24 iPhone vs Motorola Q Black

23 iPhone vs Blackberry Pearl

21 iPhone vs BlackBerry Curve

20 Playstation 3 vs Nintendo Wii

19 Motorola Q Black vs Samsung BlackJack

19 Canon EOS 400D vs Nikon D80

17 Motorola RAZR v3 vs Samsung MM-A900.

Terrific idea for a site. And OBTW did I mention that Product Clash offers links where you can order any of the available listed products?

December 18th, 2007

Consumer Reports: iPhone 64, BlackBerry Curve 61. Baloney.

Posted by Russell Shaw @ 4:02 am

Categories: Apple, BlackBerry

Tags: Apple iPhone, Consumer Reports, BlackBerry Curve, RIM BlackBerry, Handhelds, Hardware, Russell Shaw

OK, let us break this one down, at least according to the way the testers at CR see it in the January, 2008 issue. Here are some of the quantifiable criteria CR applied to both devices:

Performance:

Listening: A tie.

Talking: A tie.

Ease of Use: iPhone wins.

Talk Time: iPhone 8 1/4 hours, BlackBerry Curve 6 1/4 hours. iPhone wins.

Messaging and InSync: iPhone wins.

Sensitivity (I guess that means to your touch, heh): A tie.

Features:

Broadband speed: iPhone and BlackBerry Curve each tie with “Low,” largely due to the fact that both use AT&T Mobility’s S-L-O-W EDGE network.

Camera: 1.9 megapixels for each. Another tie.

Excu-u-u-se me, but the way I read these criteria, iPhone’s only directly comparable advantages over the BlackBerry Curve are in messaging and talk time.

Having messaged on both, I don’t see a distinct advantage one device has over another. Maybe you do but I do not.

And I have seen many reports that the iPhone’s talk time in the wild-and not in the lab- is more like six or seven hours.

Most everything else cited in these metrics seem to be pretty even.

And oh yes, the price. iPhone is cited at $400, BlackBerry Curve at $200.

So let me get this straight: how does a device with practically matching scores on the criteria that matter earn more eval. points than a device that costs half as much?

Oh, and as Alexander Wolfe writes on InformationWeek.com:

Haven’t the Consumer Reports testers read all the service complaints on the various iPhone user message boards?