BlackBerry – Evolution

it’s been a long time friends. Have you been to RIM’s site lately (blackberry.com)? !! If you haven’t I implore you to immediately go there.

“The best part of sharing is the response.” “Above and beyond what is said” “With BlackBerry 7 there are more ways to connect and collaborate …”

These are the themes that have always been at the core of what makes a BlackBerry a BlackBerry – something the insane fans in Indonesia have proven is a must have holistic experience. Unfortunately 90 fans have been injured due to the insane 9790 international first launch there.

Some changes that have occurred in the past few months have now taken hold and you can see the company slowly regaining their hardened vision they once had:

A developer of BlackBerry at the helm of Developer Relations, taken charge and forcing change in more powerful and effective developer tools & resources!

Marketing, what I’ve impored you to investigate on their main site, is now refocused behind the USER as the key. Remember the original Tron and how important the user was?!! It seems that like the new Tron, Android has completely forgotten that the user is not a marketing vessel nor are we to be confused and ignored when it comes to powerful tools that should be executed simply.

Restructuring of BES and QNX to unify both the smartphone platform and tablet platform into Super devices with SuperApps and connected experiences. I honestly believe & know that RIM had THE first social device platform: BBM.

Bold 9900 and the Torch 9810.

And recently leaked BB OS7.1 with HotSpot Modem functionality!! FINALLY!! The PlayBook relying ONLY on Bluetooth had suffered asthma like use when tethered to the BB device – even corporate laptops where hurting over USB. We live in a wireless world, its about time our BlackBerry’s acted like it.

The Bold 9900 renewed my faith in RIM but I needed to advance my skills and move on to another platform, a platform that continues since its inception to unify the user experience in technology and arts in an effective and simplistic direction without falter = iOS.

RIM’s BlackBerry will always be in my heart but I need to see their applications become more powerful beyond interconnectivity – I don’t just want to be social, I want the BlackBerry to act as my full computing experience away from my Mac – without the need for a tablet.

Tablets are NO LONGER a fad – Replace PC?! Hmm.

In response to a post over at howardforums.com site, I figured that I’d post my thoughts here on my blog as well … its been a long time.

The Kindle product, like the Kobo devices, have already found their niche market – and that market bely’s their title, its NOT a small target market! Not by a long shot!

Kindle’s unit UI overlay on Android, is a complete UI … and this is a holistic approach to what the tablet actually does. This is good for avid eBook and magazine readers, good for Amazon – they’re not just selling a product with a store link, their selling a complete end to end experience – the VERY same thing that Apple’s iOS based iPad does. Coming in less than 30 days IOS will no longer require iTunes to be activated out of the box, nor for restores – I’ve tested this and besides the bug issues (very few from iOSB7 vs iOSB4) Apple is moving along quite well.

Tablets are NO LONGER a fad. Powerful dual core 1Ghz cpu’s along with 1GB/512MB of RAM is more than capable considering the style of memory allocation, application control of that RAM and also the requirement or non-requirement of garbage collection.

Content creation:
This is the defining hurdle of when users consider a tablet as their all-in-one device, or what most think vs the laptop/desktop.

several things to consider:
Content Creation rely’s on the following:
1. UI – without a strong, fast, powerful and intuitive UI – NO DEVICE (be it smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop, or server will survive – plain & simple).
2. Tools, or applications that promote content creation by the end user.
a) Single user content creation; a capability.
b) collaborative content creation, a capability based on the same tools and option A, yet with dynamic memory control/sharing and live UI interactions.
c) shared cloud storage of interactive content created as a repository.
d) The most obvious is the applications, the base line tool that allows for content creation – apps for i) camera, ii) data input, iii) data manipulation, iv) tools to share content that is just created to be shared in real time over WLAN or other wireless network connection.
e) the ability to stay very mobile to allow for an impromptu content creation as the need or want fits a spirited user.
f) the ability to load data sourced by other means (web, mobile storage device – SD/MicroSD/MMC, mobile HDD over USB, etc)

Without all the above, irregardless of CPU speed, RAM, or other technical tangible specs, no content will be created on a mobile device.
Think about this long and hard, especially the cloud component and how it can overlook the local device storage limitations. I can create/edit/save a PowerPoint/Presenation, word document, or spreadsheet using iWorks (Pages, Keynote, Numbers) on an iPhone/iPad … save this to iCloud (via Apple or GoogleDocs), then distribute nationally or internationally with the ability to work on this from my MBA, Win7 PC laptop/desktop, save the changes and have those changes replicated instantly before I need to continue.

PS: I am Prom1 on howardforums.com so there is no need for me to quote as these are my thoughts and mine alone.

BlackBerry Torch 9850/60 has Adreno 205 GPU

That’s right.

BlackBerry Torch 9850/9860 has the Qualcomm Snapdragon™ MDP MSM8655

For all those nay-sayers that think the BlackBerry is “still dated” or has not evolved, here is the proof right on the product page:

BlackBerry Torch 9850

A screenshot to whet the appetite.

9860 features Adreno 225 GPU. Well Done RIM Engineering Team - Bravo!

Something great is happening at RIM … they’ve let those that have no faith in the company go – internally and let the real die-hards finally design, build, and craft a super performer for the modern BB user.

Those of you that are NOT aware of the competitive prowess of this cpu+gpu combination … take a look at the reviews of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc. Although this incredible smartphone did NOT possess the power of a dual-core cpu – like the Motorola Atrix, and other HTC, Samsung and LG devices that quickly followed its early April debut – this performed just about all tasks equally well and at many times better. Why?! Because their engineers granted this light, sleek, sexy device efficient API code use to use features offered and available by the core Android OS. It’s UI doesn’t plant its dirty hooks into the core of the OS.

Now if you think of efficient code – from the radio stack to the GUI – imagine an efficient, powerful, and yet augmentable code base in the OS that is meant to be extensible from the ground up … deeps hooks are welcome yet not required. Look at WikiTude application which runs better, offers more features, and is better integrated for a completely immersive end user experience … THEN you’ll understand whats at the heart of the Torch 9850/9860 and why it deserves the Torch name … not something we all are happy to forget about.

It’ll take some very brave early adopters making some Bold moves – pun intended – to try out this Torch … but with virtual-keyboard shortcuts that are right at home on the BlackBerry OS … they’ll come away pleasantly surprised with a multimedia powerhouse with efficient tools to get the work day done, and ready to play right after. This can be your BMW motocross – in elegant street briefcase attachment ready to be shunned for Dakar rallying or the Suzuki GSX-R ready to tear it up after business hours.

 

 

 

Canada’s Future NFC Mainstream

MasterCard spearheaded the move to contactless-card payment in the U.S. with its PayPass technology. PayPass has been instrumental in getting some large U.S. chains to accept contactless payment—in large part by subsidizing their terminals.

MasterCard was experimenting with contactless-mobile payment, launching probably the first trial in the U.S. in 2003, in Irving, Texas, which was little more than PayPass cards glued to the back of some Nokia phones.

Visa was the big player in Europe back in September 2007 with Barclaycard, yet in Spring of 2009, Barclaycard decided to go with MasterCard’s PayPass, not Visa payWave, working wiht Orange UK.

Places you can see MasterCard’s PayPass (NFC):

McDonald’s
7-Eleven
JPMorgan Chase issued in 2005
Carrefour Group & Auchan Group – France
Lufthansa’s Miles & More – Germany.
Home Depot
BestBuy
CVS Pharmacy
Hess
Sports Authority

MasterCard’s smaller market share shows its weakness in Taiwan, South Korea and Malaysia vs Visa. MasterCard has a 3000 phone trial in Banglore, India with Citibank.

Yet, despite its years of promoting PayPass, MasterCard still has not released transaction figures for contactless payment in the U.S. or elsewhere and does not break out figures for PayPass cards and merchant locations by country or region.

source: http://www.nfctimes.com/company/mastercard-worldwide

Banks Supporting the Digital Wallet Include:

Barclaycard US
BB&T Corporation
Card Services for Credit Unions (CSCU)
ICBA Bancard
First Financial Bank of Ohio
Nordstrom fsb
Pentagon Federal Credit Union
PNC Bank
PSCU Financial Services
Regions Bank
Royal Bank of Canada
Scotiabank
TD Bank Group (US and Canada)
US Bank

Key :

MasterCard Worldwide Cards	POS Volume 2009*	POS Volume 2008*	Cards 2009**
Asia-Pacific, ME, Africa	326	287	268
Canada	82	88	47
Europe	543	573	200
Latin America	98	96	123
U.S.	804	856	328
Worldwide	1,852	1,900	966

Visa Inc.	POS Volume*	Change	Cards**	Change
Asia-Pacific	636	2.7%	512	8.5%
Canada	155	-10.2%	31	0
CEMEA	78	12.3%	184	9.5%
Latin America	189	4.3%	344	4.9%
U.S.	1,621	0.5%	661	3%
Total–Visa Inc.	2,680	0.9%	1,732	5.5%

 

Full Press Release from Visa

Visa Unveils Next Generation Electronic Payments and Services

North American Launch of New Digital Wallet with “Click-to-Buy” Functionality

Scheduled for Fall 2011

SAN FRANCISCO, May 11 /CNW/ – Visa Inc. (NYSE: V), a global leader in electronic payments, today announced the next generation of payments solutions that will replicate the ease, reliability and security of Visa point-of-sale payments within traditional and digital eCommerce, mobile commerce and burgeoning social networking commerce environments. New offerings are expected to include a secure cross-channel digital wallet and a range of customized mobile payments services that address the specific requirements of geographic markets around the world.

“Our new solutions deliver greater consumer choice, convenience and control while helping our clients grow their businesses. By helping to reduce abandoned online shopping carts and bringing new account holders into the Visa network, we create a win-win-win for merchants, consumers and financial institutions,” noted Joseph W. Saunders, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Visa Inc. “In addition, we believe Visa’s new payments products and services will help expand financial inclusion to the billions of mobile subscribers today who currently lack access to traditional financial services.”

Simplifying Commerce in Complex Economies

In certain countries with established electronic payments infrastructures, expansive Internet usage and broad mobile network penetration, Visa will be introducing a digital wallet and services platform. The digital wallet will store Visa and non-Visa payments accounts, support NFC payments through the innovative Visa payWave application and deliver a wide range of transaction services to accommodate multiple commerce scenarios—including eCommerce, mobile commerce, micropayments, social networks and person-to-person payments.

Visa is working with leading payments card issuers, community banks, credit unions, acquirers, payments processors and merchants to launch the digital wallet.  Among the financial institutions and organizations supporting Visa’s wallet strategy are:

• Barclaycard US
• BB&T Corporation
• Card Services for Credit Unions (CSCU)
• ICBA Bancard
• First Financial Bank of Ohio
• Nordstrom fsb
• Pentagon Federal Credit Union
• PNC Bank
• PSCU Financial Services
• Regions Bank
• Royal Bank of Canada
• Scotiabank
• TD Bank Group (US and Canada)
• US Bank

Visa expects to launch the digital wallet in the U.S. and Canada in fall 2011.

Key features of the wallet are expected to include:

• Click-to-buy: Shop conveniently and securely by simply entering an email address, alias or online ID and password, instead of a billing address, account number and expiration date. In addition, Visa is exploring dynamic authentication technologies that will bring added layers of security to online purchases.
• Cross-channel payments solution: The wallet consolidates multiple Visa and non-Visa payments accounts and can be used in mobile, eCommerce, social network and retail point-of-sale environments.
• Preference management: A menu that enables consumers to set preferences for how their wallet will work, allowing them to customize and control the features of their personal wallet from privacy settings to designating which account will be accessed based on merchant type or purchase amount.
• Merchant offers: A service that allows consumers to personalize their shopping experience by opting-in to receive money-saving discounts or promotions from participating merchants.

“The widespread adoption of Internet and mobile technology is changing the way people connect and transact across the globe, so we’re focused on delivering locally-tailored payments products and services,”  said Saunders. “We are introducing new solutions for eCommerce and mobile devices that provide the same ‘Visa-quality’ experience—convenience, reliability and security—people enjoy when using their Visa cards at a retail location. In doing so, we are accelerating the global shift to digital payments by harnessing our brand, products, network and 50-plus years of payments experience.”

Mobilizing Payments in Emerging Economies

In certain emerging geographic markets with significant mobile penetration, Visa will work with financial institutions and mobile-network operators to provide consumers with a secure, reliable and globally accepted form of payment and the ability to transfer and receive funds, manage financial accounts or top-up wireless air time using their mobile handset. The wide range of features and functions being developed for the digital wallet will allow Visa to pursue a number of strategies to tailor or bundle services to local needs.

• In countries like India and Russia, where card issuance and mobile subscriptions are high, but card usage is relatively low, Visa will help drive account activation and usage by working with financial institutions and mobile operators to link existing card portfolios with mobile devices to give handsets payments functionality.
• In countries within Africa and the Middle East where mobile device usage is high and traditional electronic payments infrastructure is less developed, Visa will work with mobile network operators to link new virtual mobile prepaid Visa accounts to mobile phone numbers to enable cash-in, cash-out, personal payments and mobile payments —including bill payments and wireless airtime top-up. Visa also intends to connect existing “closed loop” mobile money services that today provide basic mobile banking and payments services to unbanked and under-banked consumers to its global, open loop network—VisaNet. The integration will open closed loop systems, and provide consumers and merchants with unprecedented scale, functionality and acceptance beyond their existing local geographic footprints.

Across all emerging geographic markets, Visa’s sophisticated payments technology and significant work in establishing global payments standards will aid in navigating the complexity of the myriad of network operators, handset models and operating systems in use globally, helping to enable millions of new and existing Visa account holders to simply use mobile technology for payments services.

WOW – are you ready?!

Just think about this segment of the above press release ‘In addition, we believe Visa’s new payments products and services will help expand financial inclusion to the billions of mobile subscribers today who currently lack access to traditional financial services‘. If you can imagine consumers travelling in Canada with now real brick & mortar bank accounts yet something with real credit then your small business can bloom with payments from multiple vendors or clients no matter where you do business. One tap gives you Payments for products & services rendered with a real contact card right on your phone – through the providers network (roaming or home/local provider) and you’re PAID In FULL.

 

“What’s in your phone?!”

VS Pharmacy
Hess
Sports Authority

BB7 Apps I need for BB Bliss

I cannot recall where I’ve mentioned this before but I’m a bit miffed, along with many a BB user. This is NOT just a personal opinion of mine, nor many in the consumer ecosystem for BlackBerry users upgrading to BB7 devices but also from a support solution which will occur for corporations having IT reps upgrading as well.

BB - Bold 9900 RIM

^ a seriously incredible piece of kit: Professional prowess, refined and fast UI, esthetic hardware design – something Apple would be proud of, and forward thinking in terms of technological implimentation: NFC.

Unfortunately in order for me, other consumers, and especially business users that rely on their BlackBerry device there are a horde of critical applications that MUST be ready & updated to support BB7 devices. Here is my personal preference list:

RIM – apps created/supported by RIM themselves:

• BlackBerry Protect (Common RIM this should’ve been updated along with FaceBook, BBM, and Mobile Conferencing!!)
• Blackberry Traffic
• BlackBerry Travel* (updated this past week)
• BlackBerry Mobile Conferencing*
• BlackBerry Enterprise Activation* (this is the BESX application, its been recently updated for BB7 devices, has BESX yet?!)

 

Consumer – focused apps:

• Advanced Call Manager*
• AppLock (thank you!)
• BeamExplorer File Manager
• CallBlocker Pro
• Daily Horoscope*
• Dictionary & Thesaurus
• Endomondo Sports*
• FourSquare
• Flixter*
• Kobo
• myTasks (I love this app! So much that I directly emailed Greg begging for support, incentive to integrate BBM API for $)
• Navita Translator* (thank heavens! incredible for my daily uses)
• Poynt*
• WeatherEye
• WikiTude* (simply incredible – Like Poynt, an amazingly built, useful app that is worlds better on BB vs the competitions platforms)
• WordPress*

 

Financial:

• Bloomberg Mobile / Bloomberg Professional
• Thomson Reuters Pro
• Blue (by CPCWireless)*
• TD(Canada)* – (includes CanadaTrust/TD Waterhouse/Insurance/Branch Locator, just in time to switch with their offer)
• mySun Life
• Y!Finance

 

Corporate – focused applications (beside financial/RIM created apps above):

• WebEx Meeting Center
• Dragon for E-Mail (pretty sad since RIM has a close business relationship with Nuance Communications Inc)
• Wifi File Transfer
• UPS Mobile
• Citrix Receiver (Consider HP’s PC business announcement = cloud boys & girls: this app will be critical to true road warriors)
• CENTURY 21 Real Estate Mobile Search*
• Book Keeper (Freshbooks.com compatible billable tracker).
• ReportAway! * (another FreshBooks.com compatible billable tracker, powerful & expensive yet powerful: updated for BB7)
• Mobility for SAP* (just recently updated)
• Rove Mobile Admin Client* (No way a platinum partner would lack on this!)
• LinkedIN
• Salesforce Mobile

 

Notable mentions:

Billable Hours, My Time Tracker, TrackMyTime (PB only), and BizTrackIt (too expensive). 

Cisco WebEx

myTasks1

 

Citrix Receiver

Wikitude

myTasks4

Of all the applications I’ve mentioned above those with the asterisks (*) have been updated to support BB7 based devices. Thank you to all those development teams/developers that put in the extra hours, days, or weeks/months in preparation for bringing these to market. I’ve tried to understand java coding and without a CompSci background its not easy, so again THANK you for your hard work and dedication to this well loved platform!! This means to all you users out there … it doesn’t take much to show your gratitude, do without Starbucks coffee for 2 days & donate to the single 1-person developer out there for their hard work. I have countless times, even for themes.

I, personally find it inexcusable that RIM’s own dedicated applications are NOT all updated prior to BB7 devices launch, they know the best of anyone the exact date of the launch and the importance of having a platform ready with their 1-person applications. It’s possible that resources where slim and working on other projects, but again that’s internal planning and still no excuse. Most BB users require these applications and many more – its about time RIM fully invest in their ecosystem & the ppl that love and use it!

RIM’s own Co-CEO’s, CIO, and other top brass SHOULD be rolling out in the company limo to personally deliver a BB7 device (Bold 9900/Torch 9810/Torch 9850/9860) and a PlayBook (16GB) to those developers (Individual or small business team; emphasis on the Individual) that deliver a working BB7 application. It should not have to be the best voted either. This would enrich their development experience, create nirvana and entice existing/potential/lost BB users to this evolutionary step – involve big press as well (BNN, CNBC, CBS, BlackBerryCool, CrackBerry, etc). Nokia used to do this with S60 Symbian, and it was QUITE successful yet only loaned devices and this worked VERY well for them for almost 12yrs.

My Bold 9900 has been carefully waiting in the box for 2 main reasons – applications supporting BB7 listed above, and disputing charges on my carrier and heavily contemplating switching (alternative plans have halted carrier exodus at the moment).

Run your choice of BB7 applications and storm your stopping grounds with a refined BB experience.