TamsBlackBerry – the BlackBerry blog

Coming from Austria, yours truly has a healthy dislike of government agencies – wherever the government gets involved, idiocy and bloat usually follow suite.

Travelers and gadget heads in the USA will soon enjoy even more of the above-mentioned. PCWorld reports the following:

Buying your next laptop computer or smartphone online could suddenly get a lot more expensive if a little-known U.S. Department of Transportation proposal to tighten rules around the shipment of small, battery-powered devices by air goes through, says an industry group opposing the move.

Airline passengers would be affected too, as rules banning spare lithium-ion batteries in checked-in luggage would also be extended to alkaline and nickel metal-hydride batteries, argues George Kerchner, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Portable Rechargeable Battery Association.

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For air travelers, this means that you are no longer allowed to put batteries or accumulators into checked luggage – which is just insane. More on that can be had at the URL above.

P.S. This is a non-political blog. However, I think that the Terrorists have already won their “war” with us – air travel is such a hassle nowadays that many evaluate taking the train more and more. One can always circumvent security measures if one really wants to.

WebKit is the browser engine used by almost every mobile device – except for Microsoft and RIM’s current devices. It thus is interesting to see which mobile company does all the work…

neugierig.org performed an analysis and ended up with the chart below:

Not much to add here…

RIM’s BlackBerry handhelds are known for their insane email capabilities – unfortunately, they stop short of syncing read/unread status to IMAP servers.

This limitation is highly annoying, as it partially defeats the purpose of IMAP…but could be lifted in the near future. BlackBerryLeaks have received a PDF detailing the new features of BIS 3.0. Among them is read/unread sync:

Our image comes from Engadget, who ask why there is no direct IMAP support. The answer for this is short and sweet: reliability. One of the reasons why RIMs devices are as reliable as they are is their ability to sync up with a server even in unreliable networks – once you are connected to the IMAP server directly, this advantage is gone…

Amazon has just sent out a few invites to developers who indicated “interest” in the Kindle – it offered a further form, offering you to “apply for a place” in the Kindle developer test program.

Amazon has now posted an FAQ for Kindle developers – the most relevant questions are below:

# What APIs are available to me in the KDK?
The KDK is comprised of two sets of APIs:

* Java version 1.4 Personal Basis Profile (PBP) APIs for mobile devices.
PBP JavaDocs can be found at http://java.sun.com/javame/reference/apis/jsr217/.
* Kindle custom APIs which complement the PBP APIs and provide UI components, JSON and XML parsers, HTTP and HTTPS networking, secure storage, and other features. Other APIs like audio and dictionary access will be available in a future release of the KDK.
KDK JavaDocs can be found at http://kdk-javadocs.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html.

# I’ve already built a Java Micro Edition (J2ME) application. Can I port it to Kindle?
Yes. You should be able to modify existing Java applets and J2ME software to run on Kindle.

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As of now, Tamoggemon has not been accepted – stay tuned!

When it comes to synchronizing mobile devices with a Mac, thousands of users trust Mark/Space’s products every day. This is for good reason, as they are among the most reliable ones on the sync market.

Unfortunately, OS5 upgrades broke compatibility – no more. Jacky Macapanpan has just informed us about the following:

An update to The Missing Sync for BlackBerry provides compatibility with phones running BlackBerry OS 5.0 or later – new BlackBerry phones such as the Bold 9700 and Storm2 9550, and phones updated to 5.0 such as the Curve 8900.

The Missing Sync for BlackBerry offers the most robust syncing of contacts, calendars, music, notes and much more – wirelessly and automatically. When a BlackBerry phone is near a Mac, sync happens – even when the phone is in a jacket pocket or bag.

This is a free update to current customers.

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Further information can be had via the URL below:
http://www.markspace.com/products/blackberry/blackberry-sync-mac-software.html

The life of a touchscreen BlackBerry can be painful – the devices are not too popular due to their operating system. Let’s be honest: Rim OS is not really well suited to touchscreens. While Austria’s A1 seems to have balked at the thought of the Storm2, other carriers are more adventurous:

Verizon ad
First of all, Verizon runs an ad featuring the Storm 2:

VodaFone UK
mobilenews claims the following:

T-Mobile shifts 10,000 BlackBerrys per week during Christmas quarter, as BlackBerry Storm 2 9550 debuts on contract and Curve 8520 on prepay

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We’ve heard loads and loads of reports about an upcoming operating system from RIM for ages – and I proudly present you the latest bit of info.

Mobile Business Briefing now claims the following:

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Reports suggest that Research In Motion (RIM) is preparing a new touch-based operating system for its BlackBerry smartphones as well as new devices that support the platform. The Canadian vendor is believed to be working on a reworked, Web-friendly BlackBerry operating system (WebKit browser), as well as a new 3G Pearl 9100, Tour2 and a hybrid keyboard-touchscreen device.

“From what we’ve heard, RIM appears to be on track to close the gap with Apple, (Motorola’s) Android and Palm on the browser experience,” TD Newcrest analyst Chris Umiastowski wrote yesterday, according to Reuters. “We are not changing our estimates at this time, but we believe there could be upside to our numbers for the May quarter.”
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Given that the browser found on BlackBerries is a total joke (the devices are among the largest users of Opera Mini), RIM would be stupid not to invest effort into this side of its platform.

As usual, our friends at BrightHand’s have just released their mindshare stats.

The top-ten is below – as always, the position in brackets refers to last month’s place:

1. HTC HD2 (1)
2. Samsung Moment, Android (3)
3. Nokia N900 (2)
4. BlackBerry Curve 8530 (new)
5. Nokia E63 (9)
6. BlackBerry Bold 9700 (6)
7. Motorola Droid, Android (4)
8. BlackBerry Bold 9000 (returning)
9. Nokia E71 and E71x (returning)
10. Samsung Omnia II (10)

Apple’s announcement to use a micro SIM in its iPad caused quite a bit of waves in the mobile industry – no other box has used this smaller format so far.

The illustration on the left shows the site difference – and CNET reports the following:

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The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), which sets the standards for SIM cards, tells us that except for the size of the plastic around the chip, micro SIM cards are identical to the SIM cards we normally find in phones.

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This means that you can cut existing SIM cards to size – have fun, tinkerers!

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Justin Ormont

RIM’s OS5 has been rolled out to all devices which will ever get it – the novelty value is gone, but the show must go on.

The Boy Genius now claims the following:

One of our most-solid BlackBerry connects has just dropped word that internally, RIM is starting to work on OS 6.0.

We can’t reveal details about the OS at this time, but in addition to molding what is OS 6.0, we also know that RIM is working on OS 5.2 which should debut sometime this year.

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As of now, all of this should be considered unconfirmed – but it sounds sensible to me…

Rumors of an upcoming Pearl-like device have been circulating for some time – the images below have now hit Twitter:

BrightHand goes on to claim the following:

T-Mobile and More
New leaked images of this BlackBerry show that there will be a version with support for T-Mobile 3G network. This isn’t surprising, as this carrier has been a strong supporter of the Pearl lie since its inception.

Previous reports have indicated that an AT&T version is in the offing as well.

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As of now, no further information is available. However, we will likely find out more at the MWC…

Bluetooth 2.x is getting somewhat old in the tooth – it has been around for over two years. Its successor Bluetooth 3.0 has been certified for some time, but has not hit the road so far.

It looks like this will change in the very near future – the Bluetooth SIG has just certified a Samsung phone with a Bluetooth 3.0 radio:

Further information can be had at the URL below:
https://www.bluetooth.org/tpg/QLI_viewQDL.cfm?qid=16289

The folks at Strategy Analytics have provided us with quite a bit of interesting information in the past – the latest is a report that handset shipments have risen by 10% on a year-to-year basis.

Looking at the figures reveals the following distribution:

Unfortunately, things don’t look too rosy for the “market leader”:

“Nokia has outperformed in smartphones, but longer-term challenges still remain, including below-average share of the high-growth touchscreen market and a tiny presence in the influential US market,” the research firm said in a statement.

via MBB

Don’t ask me what the mobile FireFox team is doing – but it most certainly isn’t helping their market share in mobile. Vendors like Opera have made a killing off Windows Mobile and Symbian…and the folks at Mozilla’s have just released their first final FireFox mobile version.

Believe it or not – it is targeted at Maemo:

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Firefox is currently supported on Nokia’s Maemo5 platform and is available for download on the Nokia N900. Users can download and learn more by visiting Firefox.com/mobile. Visit the FAQ for more information.

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Even though I don’t want top be accused of mindless ranting, one question comes to mind: WTF. Why does the Mozilla Foundation release its first-ever browser on a platform which essentially has 5 users world-wide? And why not on a platform like WM?

Ideas, anyone?