James posted the following in response to today’s question about upgrading and I felt it deserved a place on the front page-
My Treo 650 has been my exclusive mobile for almost exactly four years now, and, given that I’m unemployed at the moment, will probably stay with me for another six months. Cosmetically, it’s looking a little rough, but it works as good as new – very stable, even with some beefy third-party apps. I probably would have upgraded sooner, but there were a few reasons I didn’t:
1. Palm wasn’t putting out any devices that were significantly more compelling.
2. I wasn’t ready to drop all my investment into the Palm platform.
3. My wife, being fickle and having reception issues, ended up using all our upgrades over the past couple years moving up from a throw-away phone to a feature phone until finally insisting on getting a smartphone – a BB Curve.
I have found that I’m missing very little by not upgrading. I had a Windows Mobile phone provided by work and found that to be simply awful. The PIM apps are a pain to use, the browser is every bit as primitive as Blazer, and why is it that pre-installed Office document creation and management STILL doesn’t stack up to what was shipped on every Palm smartphone?
Having played IT manager for my wife’s Curve, I’m absolutely astounded by the popularity of BB devices and why RIM spent the last few years pounding Palm. I’m taking the Bold and Storm out of the equation because they’re so new and don’t represent the devices behind RIM’s success. BB’s interface is ugly and incomprehensible, and third-party development is the biggest joke in the smartphone world. BB’s success begins and ends with push e-mail. Take that away and all you have are doorstops and paperweights.
My Treo’s original battery still can handle two days of average use without a charge, the choice and capability of third-party applications are second only to the iPhone’s, and the PIM apps are comprehensive, flexible, easy to use and unmatched in the industry. I only get green-eyed over Wi-Fi and 3G. I really hope that the Pre stacks up, but I’ll get an iPhone 3G before I’d ever think of going to Sprint.
There’s something that puts me to think about BB: why is the 3rd party software so “primitive” (lack of quality considering the devices’ features) and so difficult to appear in the market?
iPhone just exploded, Palm had new applications by the minute, WM the same, Android is getting slowly there… the new PalmWebOS will certainly have thousands of applications fast… but BB…
I love the writing, but the BlackBerry comment is not quite what I have experienced. I would class BlackBerry PIM as up there with Palm OS, but I agree the third party scene is POOR!
@ RuiD
I’ve been puzzling over that myself. The foundation of BB’s success is based on the same principle that keeps the iPod on top: Do one thing REALLY, REALLY well.
BB started as a platform dedicated to receiving and sending e-mail and OTA PIM synchronization. And they accomplished that. Along the way, the big-shot halo projected by BB ownership drove every blinged-up teenager to want one, thus motivating RIM to come up with Pearls and Curves and what have you. Image eventually drove sales every bit as much as that single piece of technology – push e-mail – which remains strong enough in the face of competition to maintain market dominance.
But from my admittedly laymen’s perspective, looking at third-party development and overall stability, the BB OS is every bit as much a Frankenstein as Garnet, with software advancements forcibly stitched onto an OS only imagined as an e-mail platform. Judging by the server-side dependence of the platform, it clearly HATES on-board data and hasn’t a fraction of Garnet’s ability to manage it. I’ll give credit to RIM for having an OS that could upgrade to advanced wireless radio standards (3G & Wi-Fi) where Garnet couldn’t (yeah, I know that the TX and LifeDrive had Wi-Fi, but we’re sticking to the smartphone discussion here).
But it strikes me that BB OS is about to trip badly over things that are increasingly becoming important even though Garnet actually had them right a long time ago.
I’m trying not to sound like a hater, and I’m not trained or practiced in programming or electronics in any way. I don’t have a clue about the underpinnings of the BB OS. I can only go by what I see as a common user. My take is that in the race to create genuinely converged all-in-one devices that are increasingly able to take over the work of full computers, RIM may soon find itself in a position not unlike where Access and Palm were two years ago. They’ll come at the position from a different direction, without the same failings, but eventually I think BB OS will need some major update or complete re-vamp.
“The foundation of BB’s success is based on the same principle that keeps the iPod on top: Do one thing REALLY, REALLY well.”
I agree that older BlackBerry’s did one thing well, actually most did nothing well in my opinion:)
“But from my admittedly laymen’s perspective, looking at third-party development and overall stability, the BB OS is every bit as much a Frankenstein as Garnet, with software advancements forcibly stitched onto an OS only imagined as an e-mail platform.”
Garnet (Palm OS) was a great OS, but the hardware stank for many years- anything after the 650 actually.
The later BlackBerry’s (Bold, Curve 8900, not Storm yet) are excellent at the following-
Voice / signal quality
Media (music and video)
Huge battery lives
GREAT screens
Ultra stable
Decent web browsing
RIM needs to completely change the OS at some stage, I agree, but if Palm OS and Palm was capable of using high-speed mobile internet, producing good hardware and supporting their customers for the past 3 years it would be in a MUCH stronger position.
The thing with my Curve 8900 is that I have excellent PIM functionality, a brilliant media experience, call quality as good as a Nokia and a battery life that beats almost every other smartphone on the market. It is also highly practical thanks to the screen clarity in all conditions and the rather impressive camera.
Can a BlackBerry only do one thing well? Far from it- it does the core things well which are most important, and which account for 98% of the activities 98% of the public use. I’m not a fanboy, but I certainly appreciate how far RIM has come and how easily it seems to be able to beat the competition in specific areas.
RIM has succeeded because it built on what people like. Palm failed for a long time because it did not do the same, or could not in the case of Palm OS. webOS will hopefully change all of that.
@ Shaun
I don’t think the PIM on the BB is terrible, though I think that for data entry and editing on the device, classic Palm is still the champion. I’m probably living too much in the past and I’m still nostalgic for the “golden years” of Palm’s PIM and synchronization dominance. Mostly that comes with the fact that I’m a Mac user. Five years ago, with Chapura on my Windows/Outlook work computer and Microsoft’s in-house conduit for Entourage synchronization on my Mac, I was totally confident in the synchronization process – amount of data, level of detail, accuracy, and categorization.
Then Apple totally bolloxed everything by developing a system based on different calendars instead of utilizing categorization, and iCal doesn’t feed the bulldog in the corporate world. iPhone’s PIM doesn’t have nearly the ease of use or level of detail available in Palm’s. Microsoft has continued to drop the ball on bringing Entourage in line with either full Outlook or Apple’s calendaring system, leaving it in some ineffectual half-baked position between the two. And they’ve left device synchronization to sync services (gulp). Comprehensive and accurate PIM synchronization for Mac just doesn’t exist anymore for any mobile platform. PocketMac is a long con formulated by yellow-toothed, moustachioed villains. Missing Sync is just weak.
I guess my tirade doesn’t even address the BB’s current state of affairs. But I must note that RIM’s treatment of the Mac might be considered vitriolic if it weren’t for their stony silence on the matter. Is that because the company just doesn’t care about doing business with the Apple world. Or maybe the OS is just too unwieldy to make it play with the Mac and those are the very same underlying limitations that make it so hard for third-party developers to make any meaningful headway with the platform?
Of course, I have a REALLY bad feeling that Palm’s support for Mac on the Pre is about to make RIM look like Steve Jobs’ most favored lover. I’d love to have Murray chime in here.
I’m curious to get my hands on the Bold or the latest Curve. My wife’s Curve 8310 has thus far been a heartache wrapped in a headache.
“I’m curious to get my hands on the Bold or the latest Curve. My wife’s Curve 8310 has thus far been a heartache wrapped in a headache.”
So true- took a long time to change, but it happened.
“Then Apple totally bolloxed everything by developing a system based on different calendars instead of utilizing categorization, and iCal doesn’t feed the bulldog in the corporate world. ”
It is just dreadful isn’t it. Why do people put up with it?
I’ve found that the BB is really a fully developed OS with a lot of things that I loved about Palm OS 4. There are a ton of the kind of tweaks that I really love about the Palm.
I recently had a conversation with a developer who really likes to develop for the BB. He said the software tools to write in Java were really good. In fact some of them are the same tools that can be used to write for the iPhone & Pre.
I think the lack of development on the BB platform is twofold.
1) The typical user doesn’t demand the advanced capabilities that a power user wants.
2) RIM had some severe limits to access of the OS & system calls unlike Palm which let developers access almost everything. I see iPhone doing similar things until recently.