AT&T BlackBerry 8820 Will Be Locked Down Tightly

Jason L.
#1. August 16th, 2007, at 2:12 PM.

Do you know if the GPS would work if you unlock the device?

Ned
#2. August 16th, 2007, at 2:20 PM.

That should just about put an end to the blather and criticism about how VZ cripples their devices.

Morphius
#3. August 16th, 2007, at 2:24 PM.

I would love to hear what hellno has to say about this.

hellno
#4. August 16th, 2007, at 2:39 PM.

No Ned two wrongs do not make a right! In typical verizon fanboy fashion since at&t is rumored at doing something what verizon IS doing is now right, is now pro-consumer? verizon’s present and past crippling games go FAR beyond this rumor. As a RIM Blackberry FAN you too should find this rumor (if true) appalling and a insult, no matter which provider we are talking about.

This is wake up call time for RIM. RIM needs to open up a few well placed factory RIM stores to service and sell Blackberry’s direct to put a end to this horse shit of providers dictating what functions they can (or can’t) put in devices. Either that or RIM is going to lose much more to the iPhone and it’s newer brothers which will be offered soon enough. RIM allowing any other company to dictate designs and functions of it’s devices is the day RIM jumps the shark with the Blackberry.

autonomous GPS
autonomous independent company

Balsillie better grow a set and play hardball, perhaps his assessment: “The BlackBerry serves three different masters — the user, the carrier, and the CIO — and each BlackBerry released has to please some combination of each to be successful.” The first of those three masters is going to be pissed if the rumor is ever true.

gquaglia
#5. August 16th, 2007, at 2:42 PM.

And yet Sprint is so bad. Sprint’s GPS is wide open and free.

gquaglia
#6. August 16th, 2007, at 2:45 PM.

Research in Motion is not happy at all with the decision but backed down when AT&T threatened not to purchase the 8820 or any future BlackBerry devices if their demands weren’t met.

Oh no, hellno will cry if you do that! Like ATT would really refuse to buy any future BBs. The backlash would be suicide to their business unit and for the suit that made that ridiculous call.

hellno
#7. August 16th, 2007, at 2:54 PM.

Morphius, whats the options?

GSM customers churn to T-Mo?
cdma customers churn to Sprint?
Drop RIM Blackberry’s and churn to the iPhone?
Put the pressure on RIM to serve their number one master?
Put pressure on At&t to make sure this stay a rumor?
Put pressure on verizon to reverse course on the anti-consumer greed culture which has taken over the company and ruined any good that NYNEX or Bell Atlantic had?

This carrier dictation for the device manufactures is NOT a good thing and is like a virus ready to spread. As consumers this is something to put the big old NO to and for service providers this is nothing to be proud of, at least some smart consumers are on to your games.

hellno
#8. August 16th, 2007, at 2:59 PM.

for once gquaglia you are correct! Which is why I don’t believe the rumor yet either. At&t would refuse to buy all future BB’s? I call BS on that too. I agree let At&t do that and commit business suicide. Then I bet you’d never ever see a carrier pull such a stupid move again.

Simon
#10. August 16th, 2007, at 3:54 PM.

AT&T is RIM’s biggest GSM customer worldwide, and most of their customers are locked into plans. Sure, AT&T would be hurt by a few users cutting out for carriers that still offer BlackBerry service, but RIM would be hurt a hell of a lot more in the long term as users switch over to Windows Mobile or Palm which AT&T would still be carrying. In the long and short term, RIM would lose out.

Jason
#11. August 16th, 2007, at 4:10 PM.

The WLAN cannot be locked by a carrier, says RIM

hellno
#12. August 16th, 2007, at 6:06 PM.

Simon,

Many Blackberry customers will flat out refuse to switch over to Windows Mobile or a Palm. Most of us have been there, done that and know better than going back to either one of those messes. At&t’s rumored threat would backfire with each customer churning over to a provider which provides what customers want.

Brings back the main problem here WHY THE HELL do service providers have any say in what devices, with what functions, what applications, and what GUI’s we have on our devices? Service providers need to get the networks in order and stop restricting the consumer. Let customers do what we want on our devices, charge us for the service we use, and count your lucky stars we chose to continue using your wireless service over the other guys.

Remember this is all still a rumor. I believe boy genius before blackberrycool on this topic. The “New Pearl” cdma has GPS, the “New Pearl” GSM has Wifi
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2007/08/09/blackberry-pearl-2-blackberry-curve-8310-blackberry-8820-slides/#more-1524

hellno
#13. August 16th, 2007, at 6:15 PM.

Does Apple or At&t even have a reason to worry about the 8820 and the iPhone? Thought they both have their own audiences? As I mistakenly pointed out above IMO the Pearl and Pearl 2 are more competitor’s to the iPhone.

MichaelBB
#15. August 18th, 2007, at 11:55 AM.

I have an 8800 and went to RIM’s site and downloaded the BBMaps, this was supposed to be disabled or not allowed on the AT&T’s 8800, works fine, never had a problem getting satlelites or service. I live in upstate NY and we go quading on Windam Mountain, had the 8800 and the8830 from VZW the 8800 had the best signal and data connection. All this hype about locking down and all that is BS until the device is released and people play with it. Last word I got from the business sales rep was Aug 24th for release. But she also said that they will not have them in the warehouses till 2days prior to the release.

On another note it would be nice to see RIM open retail stores. and as far as AT&T discontinuing the BB’s nah never happen. I work for NYS and the agency I am with has over a thousand of these BB’s if AT&T were to drop them they’d loose a ton of money. There customer service has gotten somewhat better but still has a long way to go.

Someone will hack the OS sooner or later if they lock too many features down or sales will just drop and they will have warehouses full of these things

Roger
#16. August 18th, 2007, at 10:55 PM.

My 8703e with Bell Mobility in Canada has had it’s GPS functionality crippled by the carrier since the very beginning. I have repeatedly asked the carrier about enableing the feature, but no one at tech support knows what I am talking about…very frustrating when you have Blackberry maps installed, but GPS disabled…