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Posts Tagged ‘mobile’
10 Ways BlackBerry Beats the iPhone
Like a child star making the inevitable transition from puberty to probation, the two biggest names in the smartphone game also suffer from some serious identity issues. The BlackBerry is by nature a business device trying desperately to appeal to consumers, while the iPhone is the ultimate consumer trinket clamoring for acceptance in the corporate world. Neither one is categorically better than the other. Each excels at certain tasks and falters when it comes to others. Which one you should purchase depends wholly on the features your lifestyle requires. And with that little disclaimer out of the way, here are ten areas in which the BlackBerry spanks the iPhone.
1. Choice of Carrier
We’re not sure where AT&T is getting its claim of having "more bars in more places" (maybe the same wishing well where Microsoft got its "people-ready software"), but in our experience, in locales all over the country, AT&T’s coverage is plagued by more holes than a Swiss cheese dartboard. Unfortunately, with the iPhone, you’ve got no other choice (at least for now). BlackBerry, on the other hand, is available on every major U.S. carrier, and loads of smaller ones, too.
2. Choice of Device
Apple makes one iPhone — a few more if you count the older models and various capacities that are available. But, they all look almost exactly the same. You know what that sound is when you put your ear up to a seashell? It’s not the ocean. It’s the resonating echo of the world’s collective sigh of disappointment when the iPhone 3GS was announced and not a single cosmetic change had been made. For those interested in such luxuries as "options" and "individuality," we count no fewer than nine vastly different BlackBerry models, including touchscreens and QWERTYs, clamshells and candy bars.
3. Multitasking
One thing’s for certain, the iPhone is all about choices. For example, should you browse the Web, or should you send a text message? Should you play a video game, or should you update your Facebook status? Unlike BlackBerry (and the Palm Pre), the iPhone doesn’t allow third-party (and many first-party) apps to run in the background, thereby forcing us to do things one at a time. Read an e-mail. Close. Update Twitter feed. Close. Listen to Pandora. Close. Meanwhile, BlackBerry users get to walk and chew gum at the same time — and that Bubblicious smells mighty good.
4. Multimedia Messaging (MMS)
Maybe multimedia messaging (MMS) isn’t important to you. Then again, how else are you supposed to convince friends of how adorable Mr. Peepers looks in the mini-sombrero you bought for him on your vacation? Yes, MMS is on its way to the iPhone by the end of summer, but what’s that? Another two months? The fact that this feature hasn’t been available on the iPhone since launch is laughable; it makes you wonder how slowly AT&T will be to add new services and technologies to future iPhone models. For BlackBerry users on AT&T, it’s a non-issue.
5. Tethering
Much like MMS, the ability to use your iPhone as a laptop modem was announced as part of the 3.0 software update — it just wasn’t actually included in it (for American iPhones, anyway). Unlike MMS, however, AT&T isn’t even venturing a guess as to when tethering might be available. What’s more, AT&T PR folks won’t confirm if tethering is going to be allowed on all iPhone models or if it’ll just be for the 3GS. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce from the title of this article that, yes, tethering has long been possible on AT&T with several BlackBerry models. Hey, even Watson could have figured that one out.
6. Better E-mail and Corporate Integration
With the release of it’s 3.0 operating system, the iPhone made some inroads toward being taken seriously as an enterprise device. But, its continued lack of offline access to e-mail should be a red flag for business users (not to mention anyone who wants to read and respond their e-mail in the middle of a flight or while on the subway). And, the fact is most CIOs and corporate IT managers still view Apple’s phone as either a security vulnerability or a toy. RIM’s platform is practically classic at this point. Buy a BlackBerry and there’s a 99.9-percent chance it’ll work with your company’s e-mail. Pigs will fly before the iPhone gets that kind of deployment in the corporate sphere. Remember, the folks holding the keys to this castle are the same one who wet their pants at the very thought of upgrading your work computer past Internet Explorer 6.
7. Keyboards Options
Smartphone keyboards are kind of like your Senior Prom: Touching is good, but getting touched back is even better. You could do one-handed ‘Dance Dance Revolution’ on your iPhone all day and never know without using your eyes if you’re actually pressing keys or not. Some folks don’t mind such a one-sided relationship. A recent patent application filed by Apple hints at the possibility of haptic feedback on the iPhone touchscreen someday — then again, that idea could already be dead and buried in the Apple patent graveyard. Whether you’re tapping on a physical QWERTY keyboard or catching a buzz off of the Storm’s tactile touchscreen, BlackBerry is the partner that gives back.
8. Memory Card Slot
Internal memory on all BlackBerrys is meager at best. The Cadillac of iPhones, on the other hand, has 32-gigabytes (GB) of built-in memory, making its lack of an expansion slot a near non-issue. But, imagine being able to instantly double your iPhone’s capacity with a 32GB SD card. That extra beef sure would come in handy with the new video goodies on the 3GS. Plus, there are plenty of situations in which an SD memory card slot would be nice: instantly moving media between a variety of devices, for one; or, printing photos at a kiosk without your PC playing middleman. The iPhone’s Big Gulp hard drive is nice, but the microSD holes on BlackBerry are convenient and (almost) endlessly expandable. Internal or expandable, McDonald’s or Burger King, Seacrest or Satan — we’ll leave this one to personal preference.
It’s a trend more troubling than Capri pants on men: Apple’s total boycott of removable batteries across its entire product line. Stripping us of the right to bear backup batteries for our cell phones is something only Apple would ever have the hubris to do. Yes, a built-in power cell begets a smaller form factor, but at what cost? How useful is a trimmer iPhone when the thing goes limp after five hours of talk and there’s not a thing you can do about it? The reality is, there are going to be times in life when a power outlet isn’t immediately accessible. And in those times, it’s sure nice to be able to swap a backup battery into every BlackBerry model available.
10. Sports to Go
Though probably not a deal breaker for the ‘World of Warcraft’ set, sports fans should be aware that AT&T has crippled the Sling Media app for iPhone. If you’re not familiar with Sling, it’s a set top box that allows you access to your home TV and DVR over the Web. If you purchase a season pass to watch your favorite games on TV, you can watch them via Sling even if you’re 1,000 miles away from home. With a Sling app for both iPhone and BlackBerry, it stands to reason you can catch live games virtually anywhere. Oh, except that AT&T only allows iPhone users access to Sling over Wi-Fi, while BlackBerry users get to stream over Wi-Fi and 3G. Smells rather discriminatory to us.
10 ways Google’s made Android more awesome
The latest version of Android (1.6 or Donut) has debuted for developers, and while Google isn’t calling it a major change, it does bring a good few difference to make the OS a lot more compelling. So here we run down the 10 reasons Android 1.6 is going to make your Hero/Galaxy/Magic even better in the coming months:
1. Quick Search box
One of the major changes with the new Android update is a new ‘Quick Search’ box that essentially exposes all elements of the phone to find the file or whatever you need, meaning you can look for a contact, application, bookmark or extend the search out to the web.
Applications developed for Android 1.6 can also take advantage of this framework too, meaning you can look for elements within them in the future too, which will be handy when your menu list gets as long as your arm. Some of you may think this is a little like Apple’s new Spotlight feature on the iPhone – you’d be right, as it’s pretty much identical. But Google = search, so it makes a lot of sense to put it on Android too.
2. Faster camera and improved gallery
Google is also improving the way you interact with your media in the Donut upgrade, as it’s pretty basic at the moment.
The main difference is starting up the camera (which currently takes an age) will be 39 per cent faster, with processing up to a quarter faster, meaning you can move on to the next snap much quicker.
And when you inevitably take oodles more rubbish photos you’ll be able to delete multiple pictures with the new upgrade, which will make life a lot easier.
3. Easier to get to the camcorder
One of the problems the Android OS faces is the fact it has a very limited camera interface, and that’s been slightly addressed in the 1.6 upgrade.
The camera screen now allows you to toggle between the camera and the video recorder with a little touchscreen button, meaning you don’t have to mess around in the menu system when you want to capture something funny your cat’s doing in real time.
4. Text to speech
Android’s picked up a new function thanks to a speech engine called Pico, making it possible to talk to your phone and make it do things.
The new speech synthesis engine will even be able to recognize accents within different languages, making those from the more obscure regions with odd dialects as audible as anyone else.
If you’re using legacy devices such as the G1 and the Magic, you’ll need to download a new element to bring the voices to the phone, but we assume Google will make this obvious when the time comes.
5. Checking your power
If you’ve ever wondered where all the power has gone on your Android phone, with the battery running down faster than Usain Bolt, then this feature will please you.
The new function won’t be able to stop the problem by itself, but it will give you a list of all the running applications and how power-hungry they are.
So if you find that Twidroid is nabbing all your battery, perhaps you can turn it off in the evening rather than watching the wibblings of your drunken friends.
6. Gestures
This is something we’re very excited about, as it means that the phone will now be able to respond to more than just your touch.
The idea is that the OS, as well as the applications contained within it, can respond to your gestures. This presumably means not only will the accelerometer be able to control applications as it does now, but that certain finger squiggles on the touchscreen will be recognized to start or interact with programs.
7. More screen resolutions
You may not know this, but Android is only set up to work with HVGA screen resolution at the moment (the same as the iPhone, but only 320 x 480 pixels).
This means that the likes of LG can run roughshod over the Android devices with pin-sharp WVGA screens (800 x 480), making video and menus look amazing.
But the new upgrade will see more screen resolutions supported, meaning QVGA for the budget efforts and higher resolutions for the more advanced versions.
Not only that, but developers can now specify which screens can be used with different applications. We’ll be interested to see how this is marked in the Market, but basically if something is only meant for a four-inch plus screen, this can be achieved.
8. Prettier Market
The Android Market might be a good place to go and get a glut of applications, but it looks very basic at the moment, and deciding what to buy can be very hard.
However, the new upgrade looks to address that, with new categories differentiating between applications, games and the mysteriously titled downloads.
Within each will be the same options to choose between free and paid for applications, but the bonus is you can now see screenshots as well, making it a lot easier to choose the right one for you.
9. CDMA
It may scare you to know that some regions can’t actually use Android phones because the handset is incompatible with the mobile phone signal.
The UK is fine because we run on GSM (Global System for Mobile communications), the most popular standard for mobile phones in the world. However CDMA (Code division multiple access), the technology behind a few networks in the US and other regions, is not supported.
But never fear! Google has added CDMA compatibility to the new 1.6 upgrade, meaning more countries will be available for the G-wave, and it will now be able to run on other networks too.
We’ll be interested to find out which regions this applies to, as CDMA is a pretty broad term, but more countries means more developers, which in turn means more awesome applications. And we all like that.
10. VPN
Interested in browsing the old corporate intranet, but stuck with a stupid Android phone? Worry no more, as the new 1.6 upgrade offers a range of ways to interact with your corporate VPN.
L2TP/IPSEC pre-shared key based VPN, L2TP/IPsec certificate based VPN, L2TP only VPN and PPTP only VPN are all in the list, and if you don’t know what any of those random letters mean, ask your IT department. They’ll look stressed at having to add a new phone to their support list, so you’ll know you’re right.
