Research in Motion has officially announced the BlackBerry Bold 9780. Essentially a refresh of the BlackBerry Bold 9780, the 9780 will have twice as much memory as its predecessor, 512 Mb, and a 5 megapixel digital camera with autofocus. The BlackBerry Bold 9780 will also run BlackBerry 6 out of the box and will be released on multiple carriers next month.
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I have no doubt there is some user base that will find the BlackBerry Style to the perfect BlackBerry. I can only hope the have a friend that will politely slap some sense into them as this is one UGLY phone. The Style will be the second BlackBerry Running OS 6. Sprint and RIM have made it official that the BlackBerry Style 9670 is coming to Sprint for $99 after a $100 mail-in-rebate and on a 2 year contract. There are many better devices for $99 or less on Sprint.
Hopefully the Style will have a stronger processor than the Torch, but that is unlikely. The Style does have Wi-Fi and a 5 megapixel camera. Unless you really want a flip phone I would pass on this BlackBerry.
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So many have said privacy is dead and I have to admit I am of the same belief now. Encryption is designed to keep data private from all except government. The United Arab Emirates reported today the RIM has made the necessary changes to be compliant with telecommunication regulatory framework. The announcement lacked details as to what RIM has done to become compliant but the request was for RIM to provided access to encrypted message communication.
“Therefore all Blackberry services in the UAE will continue to operate as normal and no suspension of service will occur on October 11, 2010,”
[Source Yahoo News]
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Blackberry Curve 9330 users there was a leaked OS today. These download links only last for a couple hours so please download now and decide if you want to install later.
Brent wrote a great article about how to use Shrink-OS. Shrink-OS is designed to remove unwanted components of the installer to make more memory available to install your favorite blackberry apps or just increase performance.
DISCLAIMER: THIS LEAKED BLACKBERRY OS IS NOT SUPPORTED BY YOUR CARRIER, RESEARCH IN MOTION, OR SIMPLEMOBILEREVIEW. INSTALL AT YOUR OWN RISK, AND, FOR GOODNESS SAKE, BACK UP YOUR DEVICE.
Download OS 6.0.0.280 for the Blackberry Curve 9330
[Source BBLeaks]
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With Maryland being one of the most recent states to pass a hands free driving law, people are scrambling to find a good device. Effective October 1st, 2010 your mobile phone calls must be conducted hands free. This was passed by Governor O’Mally back in May. The actual name is Senate Bill 321. A summary of the law is as follows:
Prohibiting a driver of a motor vehicle that is in motion from using the driver’s hands to use a handheld telephone except to initiate or terminate a wireless call or to turn on or off the handheld phone; providing that a violation of the Act may be enforced only as a secondary violation; establishing penalties of $40 for a first offense and $100 for a second offense; prohibiting a driver of a school vehicle or a holder of an instructional permit or provisional driver’s license from using a handheld phone while driving; etc
Initially you can only receive a violation in conjunction with another moving violation, but that does not remove the need for handsfree equipment. Picking a good handsfree device is not an easy task. There are so many options from bluetooth car kits to wired headsets to bluetooth headsets. Fortunately for you, we have used a wide variety of handsfree devices and have compiled our favorite devices. [click to continue…]
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Engadget posted some updates on phones but the most shocking item was Verizon canceling the BlackBerry Storm 2. We have long talked about how BlackBerry devices are under powered and if Verizon is saying now to the device for the lack of hardware advancements (too much like the Storm 2) this could be a problem in general for RIM. Since this is a rumor I would not get concerned but it does raise the question, “What is the next touch screen BlackBerry for Verizon if the Storm 3 is cancelled?” For Storm 1 users like RIMarkable Robb waiting to upgrade to the Storm 3 the decision just got hard.
[Source Engadget]
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Amazon is putting the Kindle app on almost every device on the market and Research in Motions BlackBerry Playbook will be no different. I recall Brent not wanting to go with the Kindle due to DRM, but there are few devices that do not have a Kindle app. Personally I have never used the Kindle app on my iPhone, iPod Touch, Motorola Droid, HTC Incredible, BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Bold 9650, Windows Laptop, or MacBook. I have yet to find a reading experience that is as good as eInk, so for me I enjoy reading on the Kindle. The Playbook will get all the standard Kindle features including WhisperSync to keep devices up-to-date on reading location. I just finished Horns by Joe Hill on the Kindle which is a fantastic book and will start The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. The nice thing about Kindle is these titles are available on a host of devices [click to continue…]
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The only negative thing about the Research in Motion announcing the BlackBerry PlayBook is the device will not be available until Q2 2011. On the SMRPodcast we have talked at great length about underpowered devices coming from RIM, but the PlayBook is coming with a 1 GHz dual-core processor and 1 GB or RAM which are impressive stats given the current competition. Not to mention it will support current Adobe Air apps which means programs like Tweet Deck are ready to function. Engadget is reporting 16GB and 32 GB of storage on the PlayBook. Pricing is going to be critical. By the time the device hits the markets we will see if the specs on this are surpassed by Apple on the next generation iPad or the army of Android tablet manufactures. [click to continue…]
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I have been using BlackBerry 6 on my BlackBerry Bold 9650 for about 1 week now. If you ignore the big features that are part of BlackBerry 6 there are some rather small changes that make a world of difference in the experience of using the BlackBerry. I wrote about My Initial Thoughts Of BlackBerry 6 Running On The Bold 9650, and I covered some of the major advantages of BlackBerry 6 on a traditional non-touch screen device. When an operating system is upgraded it is the major advancements the create excitement, but minor changes that adjust how you do things can have a profound impact on efficiency. [click to continue…]
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On August 12 2010 Research in Motion (RIM) released their new flagship device, the BlackBerry Torch, on the AT&T Network. In general the BlackBerry Torch is an amazing looking phone and the update to BlackBerry 6 operation system undoubtedly makes any BlackBerry a better device, see Rod’s article about BlackBerry 6 on the Bold 9650.
While RIM has maintained a dominant position in the US market and the the #2 selling smartphone manufacture in the global market. Despite this position experts have been predicting the fall of RIM, and this makes sense when you consider how fast Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android are growing in the smartphone market. It is not that RIM is losing market share to either company rather they are not gaining market share at the rate of Android and iOS
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