The Switch: Episode 2

Having the hardware covered a week ago, today I wanted to touch a little bit on the software on the Blackberry Bold. Hardware - wise the device is almost perfect. How about software then? Well... the first impression - as with the hardware - is it's extremely well implemented, with a lot of attention paid to the details.

I started my journey with the Blackberry installing the PC software in order to migrate my contacts stored in the Microsoft Outlook. I did not expect any difficulties here, and they did not happen. Both the installation process and the transfer went smoothly. On thing that can be noticed on the first encounter with the Blackberry PC software is it is designed to help you migrate from one device to a new one. These days we rarely start with smartphones from scratch. Usually we have a lot of data and meta-data to move, and sadly, very often we move the meta data manually. Re-entering passwords, Internet bookmarks, wallpapers, ringtones etc. People hate doing this (and this is one of the reasons companies like ZYB are sold for millions). Phone manufacturers generally do not care nor the carriers do so... At least with Blackberry migrating from one model to another one seems at least to be covered by the PC companion software.

The next day I was on a train spending some time getting used to the Blackberry philosophy and sending hundreds of SMSes notifying about my new phone number. SMS interface is very good. It works especially well in tandem with the address book. Little things like sending a message to the first ten contacts (alphabetically) and then having the address book positioned at the last picked entry matter. There is a very tidy delivery notification mechanism. No outbox / sent items / inbox philosophy. Just a flat list of all messages (composed / sent / received), with simple icons by every message meaning it has not been sent yet, it has been sent, it has been delivered. Getting rid of messages is very fast too, just by pressing the [del] key on the keyboard. No unnecessary re-confirmation dialogs.

Voice calls are a pleasure too. The sound quality is the best I ever had and the call progress screen is very well designed too. Again the devil in the details, like presentation of your own number (how often you have been asked for a number while having a conversation and had hard time spelling it?). It also shows very clearly if the sound is routed to your Bluetooth or speakerphone.

Selecting a contact to call from an address book (or home screen) is as easy as typing a few characters matching the entry and a filtered list appears. There is absolutely no lag in any operation. Everything is just instant. The Bold owes this to its very fast processor (clocked faster than 600MHz), but the underlying OS does not eat the CPU power, springing into action at every keypress instead.

You can assign speed dial entry to most of the QWERTY keys - press and hold will dial the number, and there are two user - defined buttons on the left and right side of the device. I assigned a key-lock function to the left one and a connection manager (where you enable / disable network / WiFi / Bluetooth and manage connections) to the right one.

But let us move now to the packet data and related applications. To be honest this is where my current disappointment has its roots. Just to be clear: I have not subscribed to any special Blackberry plan yet. My initial idea has been to use it as a smartphone, with a standard packet data plan. First thing I could not understand were two (virtually identical) Web browser applications sitting side by side. After examining their configuration options I found they differed in configuration, one being labeled as a "Hotspot Browser" and the other as a "blueconnect" (blueconnect is the name of a packet data plan offered by T-Mobile in Poland). It seems the Blackberry OS and applications really care which pipe they connect to the Internet. This has been shocking to me and I still find it hard to get used to after a month. Windows Mobile used to route Internet packets via the cheapest and fastest connection, meaning WiFi route was preferred over 3G / GPRS route and applications were agnostic of the route. This is not the case with the Blackberry and to be honest something I never expected.

First, on the browser (or even a bookmark) level you select the connection. Whether it is cellular packet data or wifi (hotspot). And then the device complains about a lack of packet data coverage when opening a bookmark, even if it is connected to a WiFi network. And what is strange, sometimes it does not complain, just connects. But very often a page that was displayed over cellular connection would not refresh over WiFi. Strange, strange, strange... Otherwise the browser is very good. I will not claim it is better than the Safari on an iPhone, but pretty comparable. Very fast zoom in / out and the little thumb trackball is fantastic for scrolling pages. Again a lot of attention to details. Like space key entering dots in http addresses (no need to use alt-M combination for a dot). And many keyboard shortcuts I love. G (ofr GoTo) brings Web address entry / bookmarks form), R refreshes the page, J refreshes with JavaScript enabled (for pages that need special care), I and O zoom In and Out, space scroll down a page and so on...

But the disappointments related to the weird design of packet router philosophy continue. I have to admit There was one factor that contributed heavily to my decision to get Blackberry - Google Applications. There are a bunch of them, designed for the Blackberry platform - Google Mail, Google Talk, Google Sync and Google Maps to name the most important ones. I have all of them installed. But this is where my real frustration begun:

• Google Talk does not work at all. It seems it needs a subscription to a special Blackberry service called BIS (Blackberry Internet Service), that among other things routes data packets to a [blackberry.net] APN. I will verify that soon, as the main conclusion now is the BIS subscription is [unfortunately] absolutely necessary to run the device to its full capabilities. One of them being Google Talk.
• Google Mail works over standard cellular APN (no need for BIS), but does not work over WiFi (says it requires a working data connection, not noticing the phone is logged on to my home WiFi...). That is just stupid. I cannot just take the phone out at home (where I have very bad cellular coverage, but plenty of WiFi) and check my email.
• Same for Google Sync, but it just fails to sync, saying nothing and coming to life only when I pick a cellular signal.
• And same for Google Earth.

So yes, the Bold has WiFi, but the only application that works over WiFi so far seems to be the Web browser. The Crackberry Forum lists applications working over Wifi, but I suspect many of them require the presence of BIS service. As far as I understand BIS works over WiFi and enables other applications over WiFi too. Pity was the sales person offering me the Blackberry did not explain that phenomena, claiming the BIS service is only for the Push Email functionality. I will report on that once my BIS service is activated, which, by the way is not that straightforward, as it requires a dedicated consultant meeting me in person. They better send a good one, as I feel I have a lot of down to the metal detailed questions...

The final and positive comment today is on the Media Player application. Kudos for integration with iTunes. There is a Blackberry Media Sync PC application allowing me to pick any or all iTunes playlists and synchronize them with the Berry. I popped in a 16GB micro-SD card and half of my entire music collection (and basically everything I listen to) has been transferred in a matter of minutes. Flawlessly.

The conclusion so far is I feel like the concept of data connections in Blackberry is unnecessarily complicated. It was so plain and easy in the Microsoft world: any TCP/IP worked. And here it does make a day and night difference if you are on GPRS (and what APN!) or on WiFi.

The second disappointment is there is no Skype or other VoIP application. The Bold has enough horsepower to run even the most demanding VoIP codecs. Hopefully it is coming sometime in future.

Stay tuned to the Episode 3, I will update my report when the BIS service is finally enabled for me. They promised 72 working hours to do that... It still may happen this year :)