Blackberry App Store Launches

Image via CrunchBase

I woke on this fine April Fools Day to discover an e-mail in my Inbox from RIM announcing the availability of App World for Blackberry devices.  Certainly not a bad way to start the morning, and not a few minutes later I was up and running.

I was a bit worried about what I would see.  Recently most of the cool application announcements for the Blackberry have excluded the Storm.  What apps would be left in the store for me to download, and maybe purchase?

Overall, I think that my review of App World is pretty positive.  A few things to make note of.  It provides all of the features I would have looked for in the store, and it has a lot more applications on day one than I would have thought.

1. The App Center software itself makes good use of the touch screen on the Storm.  It fills up the large screen nicely and the navigation by touch is quite nice.
2. The App Center gives you the option to review what you have installed and remove unwanted applications from the store itself, much better than digging through the BB options menus.
3. The Storm was a little slow to load the images of the apps into the store.  That could be related to the relatively weak 3G signal I have at home.
4. There are a fairly large number of applications, each divided up by category.  Most of the applications cost between $2.99 and $4.99 in my quick looks around.
5. The store does offer free trials on some applications, as well as screenshots and reviews.
6. I wish there was a section for themes, and I wish that the store had a way of denoting if an application was designed for a particular model of BB.

I downloaded the Slacker Radio and I Heart Radio applications.  Both seem well designed for the Storm.  I also downloaded a tip calculator application as a free trial.  It was text based, and appeared to be designed for a non-Storm BB.  In general I will be looking at the UI and the use of the Storms screen before I buy any applications from the store.

I am glad that App World is available now.  I really wish though that Pandora and Sling would reconsider making their applications WiFi only.  I would buy both of those in a heart beat, but can’t.  I assume this is a decision that is being made due to pressure from the carriers.  I know Sling works over 3G because I use it when I am tethered on my EEE PC.  I would much prefer Verizon to just tack another 5.00 on my bill each month for “special” application bandwidth use.  Hopefully, this will change as time goes on.

If I was at CES…

If you were bored, and decided to spend a day recently cyber stalking me (did you?) you would have seen me looking around at CES gear reports.   I love reading about what mobile (and not so mobile) gear people take with them to conferences.  I also love reading the after conference reports where people say how well the gear worked, and generally recap the event.  I am also usually interested in what bag people are using to haul things around in.  Have not seen to many bag reports this year though.

I decided that I would throw my gear bag out on a table as well, and snap a new gear picture.  It has been a while since I have done a “what’s in my bag” post anyway.

Things have changed a little bit from last January when I took this picture.

I do still have some of the things in the first picture, like the Dell, but with the 901 it rarely ever leaves home.  The web cam in the earlier picture as well as the bluetooth chip have been retired since they are both built into the 901.  Both pictures have notes on Flickr to say what everything is.

The bag on the left is my old Timbuk2 Metro Messenger, and I use that bag for weekend use around town.  It is easier to hit the store/mall/park with this bag than the backpack.  The pack on the right is my fairly new Tom Bihn Ruck’s Sac.  The pack is designed to be small, light and carried by someone with a small frame.  I think it works great.  Not a lot of pockets, but with the interior rings for the pouches work great.

Bluetooth, EEE PC and Blackberry Storm

One technology I have not really gotten to experience is mobile broadband .  Basically, mobile broadband is the ability to access broadband speed internet using the mobile phone/cellular networks.  You can get dedicated usb and pc card modems that use the network, or some phones will let you “tether” or connect the phone a laptop. I try to connect up my EEE PC to wifi when I can, but often it is not possible (at least not for free), and I still want to get online.

Enter my new Blackberry Storm and the Verizon  3G network .  The Storm does allow tethering the phone to my EEE and I am getting some consistently nice speeds.  The latency i a bit of a drag, but I will get used to it.  I was able to hook Iain up to our Slingbox to watch some TV on Sunday when we were out to breakfast.  He liked that.

My favorite thing about the experience has been that I have yet to connect a cable to the EEE.  I have done all of my connecting through Bluetooth.  I am still getting close to 1mbs download speeds this way, and 200 – 300 kbs upload.  Not blazingly fast, but good enough.  This is exactly what I wanted to have when I paid for the tether feature from Verizon.  The cost is $15.00 a month for 5GB of usage.  I used  about 100mb watching 30 minutes from the Slingbox.  I think that I will be able to make good use of the 5GB without feeling that I am using too much or too little each month.  I would prefer that Verizon would offer a yearly plan though.  Pay $180.00 up front for 60GB of data anytime.  This would allow me more flexibility when I travel, which is not to often.

Regardless, I really like how much more useful this makes my EEE. It has been a long time coming, and I am glad it is finally here.

One day with the Blackberry Storm

I got my hands on a Blackberry Storm yesterday at work.  I have been using it for a little more than 24 hours now, and I have a few observations.

1. It does not have a keyboard, and that is not a bad thing.  I agree that it is easier to type on a Blackberry that has a keyboard, but using the keyboard on the Storm (the QWERTY in particular) is quite nice.  I have only used an iPhone for a short period of time, but this was much easier to pick up and use.  I think maybe I am 25% slower using the Storm qwerty keyboard.  I still have to get used to the Suretype when portrait, but I think I will like it as well.  The only issue I have thus far is the auto correct.  I want to type Pearland not Pear land. 
2. The screen is very nice to look at.  The audio even through the speaker is also very nice.  I have not made too many calls on it yet, but it seems to work fine.  The buttons make accessing menu’s very nice.  Over all I think they did a nice job on the hardware side of things.  The flash/light for the camera is really bright.
3. In my opinion the biggest problem with the Storm is that it is incredibly slow.  Slow to rotate the screen, slow to switch applications, slow to login (I use a login password due to a BES policy).  Even with the new firmware the device is slow, slow, slow.  I often see the little timer spinning around.  I wonder if it is going to sleep to fast, and needing to much time to wake up before it can be used?  Regardless, the device can basically become unusable due to the slowness.
4. Slowness aside, I have yet to see the device lockup or crash (I know it has only been a day), but I think it is good that even though things get backed up it does not cause a lockup.
5. I have been using the web browser as much as possible as that is one of the main things I want to use the Storm for.  Once you get used to selecting links the browser is really nice to use.  My one issue with the browser is that there is not a visual cue when you want to select a form button.  It can be very hard to get it clicked.  Other than that I have not had any issues. 
6. Battery life seems to be about one day of good use.  I think that is fine.  The battery does seem to charge fairly quickly which is good.

Just a few quick thoughts after a day of usage.  I am planning to keep this loaner device through the weekend.  If I like it I am going to buy one of my own.  At this point I think it is a fairly safe bet that I will get one of my own.