5 ms·

Really? This sounds pretty weak reasoning to buy a company for a half-decent OS. a) Performance is never bad on blackberries - what are you talking about? Al

by mrtron 16y ago

Really? This sounds pretty weak reasoning to buy a company for a half-decent OS. a) Performance is never bad on blackberries - what are you talking about? Always far better performance than my iphone. b) You are complaining about a 3rd party app's security settings? c) You can't install to a microSD card but is that a problem? There is good reason to not allow app installations on a hotswappable card obviously. They provide plenty of room for app installs on the internal memory. d) Use a 2000 era device and then use a new bold 9700. You cannot be serious claiming the devices themselves haven't evolved. Blackberries are amazing devices, it just seems like a small group of people love to hate on them for unknown reasons. Just like a different group loves to hate on iPhones. What you are saying here is like saying Apple should buy Palm because their OS is garbage because it doesn't support multiple applications and you can only sync through itunes.

pedalpete 16y ago
'performance' is relative mrton. elblanco could be talking about web performance which really is way behind the times on Blackberry. But they are releasing a new webkit browser in the fall. The reason they should by Palm is that the Palm webOS is a very modern and well built OS. It could really do great things for RIM in the consumer (non-business user) space. I always attributed Blackberry's OS issues (performance, capabilities, etc) to the fact that the entire OS is written in Java, but a friend tells me that that isn't really the issue. I don't know. If you were to write an OS for a mobile device, would Java be your development language of choice?
- mrtron 16y ago
  The OS isn't written in Java. Apps and layers on top of the OS are in Java.
zyb09 16y ago
Hi, I develop for both iPhone and BlackBerrys. The iPhone is way ahead in performance, although the hardware is similiar - BlackBerrys just don't have a dedicated GPU and therefore no OpenGL acceleration. Also everything on RIM OS is running in a JavaVM with GC, while iPhone Apps, being in (objective-)C, run much closer to the hardware itsself. Now the funny thing is, despite programming in a higher-level languages on BlackBerrys, iPhone programming is actually easier due to the thoughtful API-design.
- mrtron 16y ago
  iPhone app APIs are naturally simpler since the devices are very uniform. BB has to support a range of devices, like android. Agreed - no openGL, but I don't think that is a big issue. Blackberries are better at business applications, worse at media applications. Look at mail on the blackberry - it blows iphone mail out of the water. If you have multiple email accounts you are diving into layers of menus to check inboxes on both. Account 1 -> inbox -> msgs -> back out -> back out -> back out -> Accunt 2 -> inbox -> msgs. Blackberries allow you to use the central queue. Now look at media on the iphone. It is as great as ipods, enough said. Look at media on the blackberry - it is like a windows 3.1 player. There are tradeoffs on both iphone and bb platforms.
  - zyb09 16y ago
    Yes I agree with you. I was strictly talking about performance. There are things BlackBerrys do better than the iPhone and there are also things that are simply impossible on the iPhone, due to its locked-down nature.
elblanco 16y ago
a) My 2008 era blackberry is routinely hung doing something. Apps take minutes to load. I/O on it seems like it's about half as fast as other modern smartphones on the same network. For example, by the time I get a nice app like google maps up (I'm not even talking loading a map), I may as well not even bother, I can just ask somebody the directions. b) I'm complaining that I can't find the setting to change it...anywhere... c) Yes, I have 2 MB of space left on the internal memory, but 1.8GB of space left on the hot swappable microSD. I actually can't install another app. The microSD card, from where it's at, is as about as hot swappable as the PCB of the device. It's like saying the system RAM of my laptop is hot swappable. It's about as accessible. Shouldn't being able to install to it be my business? d) I have an 8310. Some time on my wife's 9700 seems to indicate none of the issues I have with mine are solved. There are good parts, the keyboard is the best I've ever used on a device like this. I can tether relatively easily (if only the network connectivity didn't suck). The device has been beat to hell and back and still functions pretty well. It uses normal mini-USB connectors. Phone quality is good, speakerphone quality is far superior to an iPhone. I don't hate it, I'd just like it to be better.

by mrtron 16y ago

pedalpete 16y ago

'performance' is relative mrton. elblanco could be talking about web performance which really is way behind the times on Blackberry. But they are releasing a new webkit browser in the fall. The reason they should by Palm is that the Palm webOS is a very modern and well built OS. It could really do great things for RIM in the consumer (non-business user) space. I always attributed Blackberry's OS issues (performance, capabilities, etc) to the fact that the entire OS is written in Java, but a friend tells me that that isn't really the issue. I don't know. If you were to write an OS for a mobile device, would Java be your development language of choice?

mrtron 16y ago
The OS isn't written in Java. Apps and layers on top of the OS are in Java.

zyb09 16y ago

Hi, I develop for both iPhone and BlackBerrys. The iPhone is way ahead in performance, although the hardware is similiar - BlackBerrys just don't have a dedicated GPU and therefore no OpenGL acceleration. Also everything on RIM OS is running in a JavaVM with GC, while iPhone Apps, being in (objective-)C, run much closer to the hardware itsself. Now the funny thing is, despite programming in a higher-level languages on BlackBerrys, iPhone programming is actually easier due to the thoughtful API-design.

mrtron 16y ago
iPhone app APIs are naturally simpler since the devices are very uniform. BB has to support a range of devices, like android. Agreed - no openGL, but I don't think that is a big issue. Blackberries are better at business applications, worse at media applications. Look at mail on the blackberry - it blows iphone mail out of the water. If you have multiple email accounts you are diving into layers of menus to check inboxes on both. Account 1 -> inbox -> msgs -> back out -> back out -> back out -> Accunt 2 -> inbox -> msgs. Blackberries allow you to use the central queue. Now look at media on the iphone. It is as great as ipods, enough said. Look at media on the blackberry - it is like a windows 3.1 player. There are tradeoffs on both iphone and bb platforms.
- zyb09 16y ago
  Yes I agree with you. I was strictly talking about performance. There are things BlackBerrys do better than the iPhone and there are also things that are simply impossible on the iPhone, due to its locked-down nature.

elblanco 16y ago

a) My 2008 era blackberry is routinely hung doing something. Apps take minutes to load. I/O on it seems like it's about half as fast as other modern smartphones on the same network. For example, by the time I get a nice app like google maps up (I'm not even talking loading a map), I may as well not even bother, I can just ask somebody the directions. b) I'm complaining that I can't find the setting to change it...anywhere... c) Yes, I have 2 MB of space left on the internal memory, but 1.8GB of space left on the hot swappable microSD. I actually can't install another app. The microSD card, from where it's at, is as about as hot swappable as the PCB of the device. It's like saying the system RAM of my laptop is hot swappable. It's about as accessible. Shouldn't being able to install to it be my business? d) I have an 8310. Some time on my wife's 9700 seems to indicate none of the issues I have with mine are solved. There are good parts, the keyboard is the best I've ever used on a device like this. I can tether relatively easily (if only the network connectivity didn't suck). The device has been beat to hell and back and still functions pretty well. It uses normal mini-USB connectors. Phone quality is good, speakerphone quality is far superior to an iPhone. I don't hate it, I'd just like it to be better.