I, along with 20 bazillion other BlackBerry Beta Zone members, recently received in invitation to download BlackBerry App World 2.0. Beta Zone seems to be a bit overloaded at the moment so I haven’t had the chance to install 2.0 yet. For those members that have BlackBerry App World 2.0 up an running, what differences do you notice?
BlackBerry Tops Mobile Web Browsing Report
Mobile web marketing outfit AdMob has released a report on global smartphone traffic for last month.
According to the report, 34% of mobile web traffic came from, you guessed it, a BlackBerry (and in most cases a Pearl). Running in a close second with 29% of handheld web access was global handset market leader (and our European friends) Nokia, and at the bottom of the scale it was another disappointment for Motorola who picked up just 1%.
Where the stats become a little more interesting is in respect of the iPhone where no actual figures were produced (iPhone pay off for a gagging order)?? Apparently iPhone traffic for February had “flattened” though, which falls in line with other reports that (now the hype and honeymoon is over) people have lost interest in the Jesus Phone.
Looking at mobile web ad requests in specific territories (which of course is what AdMob was most interested in) we can see that Motorola came top with 35% of all ad requests and, for my friends on this side of the pond, Sony Ericsson claimed the top spot in the UK with 37% of all ad requests.
Wi-Fi BlackBerry 8820 Coming On T-Mobile……Yet Again
For those of you (whoever you are) waiting with baited breath for the launch of the BlackBerry 8820 for use with T-Mobile’s Hotspot@Home Wi-Fi service, the wait is finally over….almost….we think! The Wi-Fi enabled BlackBerry 8820 was supposed to be available through T-Mobile last month, however a release date of March 24 in the retail channels appears to now be on the proverbial cards.
If you’re more fussed about a BlackBerry that sports some high speed local wireless access than you are about a camera, here’s where to put your money.
Does Exchange Support For The iPhone Pose Risks For BlackBerry?
We’ve all had a few days now to nitpick through the Apple iPhone SDK, and one of the elements which has of course interested most of us here in the BlackBerry world is the support for Microsoft’s Exchange Server mail platform. Does this entrance in to the corporate space really pose a risk to our trusty BlackBerry’s though? Having worked with a variety of mobile email platforms and smart devices for around seven years I would have to say ‘no’. Behind the glitz, glamour and hype of glass top screens, animated menu systems and Steve Jobs wearing those same tatty Levis, black polo neck and New Balance trainers there are several key factors which, at least for the moment, prevent it seriously impacting the corporate space which RIM so effectively dominate. [Read more…] about Does Exchange Support For The iPhone Pose Risks For BlackBerry?
Wireless Upgrade – Perhaps
A few of us have been trying to get our heads round some of the new updates to BES 4.1 SP5 this week. While we have covered the unknown territory that is HTML email, one of the other highly anticipated updates has been OTASL (Over The Air Software Loading).
For those that don’t know, this is the devices ability to receive firmware updates remotely rather than an IT department having to collect users devices to perform the upgrades centrally (as currently happens). According to RIM’s documentation you need to have Service Pack 5 on your BES and you need the latest 4.3/4.5 device firmware. What’s odd is that there’s nowhere on the BES to configure OTASL, leaving us wondering if this is purely an update which happens between the device and RIM’s own servers. Not ideal (unless you’re a BIS user) as this takes ownership away from the IT department, but it is early days and perhaps they’ll be a separate ‘device management’ console (as used to be in BES 4.0) to install which will deal with this. In the meantime, have a guess!
New Camera Patent Appears
It appears that an interesting new patent by Research In Motion is circulating the internet this morning – oddly enough it’s to do with locking down device cameras. It was big milestone when RIM first released the BlackBerry Pearl, and in doing so broke the traditional corporate mould of “cameras are not secure in certain work environments”. We all slept easy however when the IT policies on our BlackBerry Servers allowed us to lock out the ability to use to device cameras and memory cards.
Because we have the ability to action these security enhancements remotely from the BES, there’s been some confusion as to what this new patent represents. Let’s look at the patent more closely – this proposes that you have a removable key that physically locks in to the side of a BlackBerry, and when inserted the camera is prevented from working. This seems simple enough, but when we can achieve the same result remotely using the BES server IT policies, why would we want something physical that is bound to get lost or break in the process? It could be aimed at businesses that have BIS users, but generally camera paranoia only comes with huge corporate entities, so it’s unlikely RIM would physically build something to service such a small niche. Time will tell, and we’ll keep you posted.
