Bullshit. They've had three outages in 10 years, the longest being the most recent, lasting less than a day for most affected users (many of which only experienced slow-downs). They're more reliable than your cell carrier. The electric service in your house is out FAR more often than RIM.
Apple, in contrast, has a long history of service outages. MobileMe was out more often *this year* than RIM has been out in the last decade. Let's not forget about the massive outage in 2008.
I'll be glad to once iCloud goes down. Which it will, eventually. And it will be hilarious.
It will go down. If Apple's history here is any indication, it will go down frequently.
Of course, you'll have to look really hard to get your laugh -- like every Apple outage since the great 2008 outage (which everyone forgot about immediately) it will be almost completely ignored in the press. Hell, they had a huge outage Sept. 30th -- no one seems to have noticed.
RIM, in contrast, has had 3 outages in the last 10 years. The longest was the most recent -- which ended up being less than a day for most of the affected users. RIM has better up-time than most ISPs, but one outage and all of a sudden they're unreliable? Give me a break. Your carrier is more likely to have an outage than RIM.
Developing for Blackberry was simple and painless compared to Android development. Hell, with the new set of development tools from RIM, it's even easier.
Blackberry a dumb phone? The phone that broke new ground? The phone that created the smartphone revolution?
Right now, it's the only phone with true-multitasking and real security. The hardware is on-par (in some areas better) than the top-of-the-line consumer grade phones. If that's your idea of a dumb phone, you must think the iPhone is a mid-90's pager.
IT departments everywhere have been happily supporting smart phones for years. The problems stem from the rise of smart phones in the consumer space which simply aren't enterprise ready.
For the clueless: Basic Exchange support isn't nearly enough.
When it's free on Android and Blackberry, it's much harder to justify. Then again, if your organization needs to deploy custom smartphone apps, why on earth would you choose anything but blackberry?
Yeah, their subscriber base only grew 40% this year. They've got debt upward of $0. They're toast.
If only they had made a number of good acquisitions like Torch Mobile, TAT, DataViz, and NewBay. Of course, that wouldn't be enough unless they updated their OS. If only they had picked up a company like QNX. Then they'd have what is, quite possibly, the most advanced, stable, and secure mobile OS on the market.
Being able to do something is VERY different from being able to do something well.
It's not about the parent not knowing the limitations (I don't see how you came to this conclusion). It's about the apologists who equate "can be done" with "the best way to do it".
I could write programs for my old Palm on the device itself, but that did not in any way make it a good tool for developing apps! You'd have to be some kind of masochist to use an iPad to develop an app or write anything longer than a short email.
In that sense, the parent is right. The iPad is first and foremost a content consumption device. That you can also create content isn't really meaningful as the iPad is a ridiculously poor tool for many (all?) content creation tasks.
Had you actually read the article (this is Slashdot, I know) then you'd know that, as always, BES users are still secure.
See, RIM couldn't give them access to BES users data no matter how badly they wanted to. They simply don't have the keys.
To avoid the current privacy issues, BIS users in India can make use ot the many of third-party apps that provide additional security to contacts, sms, etc.
So, yes, in India (and just about everywhere else for that matter) Blackberry is still the only real choice when it comes to mobile security.
No-one is saying that Python is good because it forces you to indent.
Believe it or not, I've seen that claim made in several Python related threads.
Quite the opposite: all sane people indent their code anyway,
I agree.
whatever the language, so why not use that to indicate program structure?
There are problems with it. Aside from various non-Python-aware code editors ruining perfectly valid programs by doing stupid things like replacing tabs with spaces on save, even the best Python-aware editors can choke when you move blocks of code around -- this is especially problematic when the indentation level changes. Punctuation removes any and all ambiguity in those cases.
If you want your code properly indented, just indent it. It's like the Python apologists are incapable of formatting their code properly unless the language forces its particular version of "properly" on you.
Before the trolls fire back: In the case of code written by others, run it through a pretty-printer. Problem solved. Oh, as a bonus, you can use that same tool to format code the way you prefer, and switch it back to whatever style your company requires at the press of a button. Why is this a bad thing?
What part of it was promised [wired.com] to have email and BBM and contacts by summer 2011 is not clear?
What part of "at the time it was released" is not clear? RIM promised nothing until *after* the unthinking tech media started parroting nonsense from BGR.
So a PlayBook is useless without a BB phone?
Not at all. You can still have email either via the web or through one of many third-party apps. As for BBM, well, are other tablets useless because they don't have BBM?
The hardware is fantastic and the OS is lightyears ahead of iOS, and at least a generation ahead of Android. (QNX is amazing)
As a tablet, stand alone, it's brilliant. Paired with a BlackBerry, no other product comes close.
It was my understanding that RIM was marketing the tablet to enterprise users -- not home users. RIM was widely criticized for calling the PlayBook "The first professional tablet", for example, because of the lack of native email (I explained earlier in this thread why I think that decision was very sensible for the enterprise market).
The name PlayBook makes more sense to U.S. users where "play book" is a term used to mean a set of plans or strategies. It's a sports analogy, common in the American business community, drawing from American football.
There is a double entendre that seems intentional, in that RIM wanted users to know that while it's business first, it can also entertain on those long flights.
I'm not sure that RIM marketed the PlayBook to any significant degree to the consumer market. Though for non-enterprise blackberry users, it really is a great tablet option.
Sorry, I'm not seeing where the BlackBerry browser is less usable than Mobile Safari. What exactly are you referring to here?
I'll even take this a step farther and say that RIM offers more in terms of usability than Apple on that front.
RIM has all the features of Mobile Safari including that weird bounce-back thing, pinch-to-zoom, a double-tap to zoom/size a column of text, etc. They begin to exceed Apple with the optical trackpad, which makes using the web on your phone work just like it does in the browser -- hover-over menus and roll-over effects work exactly like they're supposed to. It also means that I don't need to zoom-in to click a link that I can read just fine, but is too small (or is too tightly grouped with other links) to hit with a finger accurately.
In terms of mobile-web usability, I actually get MORE from RIM than I do from Apple.
I didn't realize. In that case, there is more to email security than just its transmission. There is also the security of email on the device to consider. On that front, RIM is still unmatched.
Will BB vouch that there are no remote code execution vulnerabilities in BBOS?
While I doubt BB with vouch for that, they do actively search for vulnerabilities in their software and patch them before they become a problem. Their software also holds more security related certifications than any other mobile product.
JailbreakMe - which is the one you're referring to - is not applicable to current stable iOS versions.
If by that you mean iOS 5, then yes. Know of any version of iOS 4 that doesn't work with jailbreakme?
Oh, and iOS 5 is really new. Given jailbreakme a few weeks and see if you can make that same claim.
You just can't deny the fact that RIMs security is unparalleled and Apple has a... less than stellar security record.
Well, in a side-by-side the Torch 9800 performs comparably to the iPhone 4 in terms of speed -- bringing up and rendering pages. Pre iOS 5, the BlackBerry browser beats the pants off of Mobile Safari when it comes to HTML 5 support (that's by all objective measures).
OS7 devices are even better, that is, with the major hardware improvements.
RIM has a solid web-browser that is comparable to or beats the other major players. The "Blackberry is horrid for web browsing" myth stopped being true a long time ago.
Like I said before, Apple was behind RIM on the web browser front until iOS 5. As Apple is known for having a great mobile browser, you can't fault the BlackBerry's web browsing experience at all.
Times are changing. RIM has caught up and hasn't stopped moving forward. In several areas, they're leading the pack.
Slashdot Mirror
serious marketing people have switched to iPads quite a while ago
+5 Funny
Some, but who in their right mind wants to run Word on a tablet?
The overzealous Apple fans seem to think that using a word-processor on a tablet is a great idea.
Oh, you said "in their right mind".
Judging from your response, you seem to be the type to cry for days over a snarky forum post.
Blackberry has frequent network issues
Bullshit. They've had three outages in 10 years, the longest being the most recent, lasting less than a day for most affected users (many of which only experienced slow-downs). They're more reliable than your cell carrier. The electric service in your house is out FAR more often than RIM.
Apple, in contrast, has a long history of service outages. MobileMe was out more often *this year* than RIM has been out in the last decade. Let's not forget about the massive outage in 2008.
I'll be glad to once iCloud goes down. Which it will, eventually. And it will be hilarious.
It will go down. If Apple's history here is any indication, it will go down frequently.
Of course, you'll have to look really hard to get your laugh -- like every Apple outage since the great 2008 outage (which everyone forgot about immediately) it will be almost completely ignored in the press. Hell, they had a huge outage Sept. 30th -- no one seems to have noticed.
RIM, in contrast, has had 3 outages in the last 10 years. The longest was the most recent -- which ended up being less than a day for most of the affected users. RIM has better up-time than most ISPs, but one outage and all of a sudden they're unreliable? Give me a break. Your carrier is more likely to have an outage than RIM.
"Daisy ... daisy ... give me ... your ... answ..."
Having developed for both Android and Blackberry -- I'll never develop for Android again. (Developing for Android is like a bad joke.)
Developing for Blackberry was simple and painless compared to Android development. Hell, with the new set of development tools from RIM, it's even easier.
Medical records on an iPad?
That is an extraordinarily bad idea.
Blackberry a dumb phone? The phone that broke new ground? The phone that created the smartphone revolution?
Right now, it's the only phone with true-multitasking and real security. The hardware is on-par (in some areas better) than the top-of-the-line consumer grade phones. If that's your idea of a dumb phone, you must think the iPhone is a mid-90's pager.
That's what I call misinformed.
IT departments everywhere have been happily supporting smart phones for years. The problems stem from the rise of smart phones in the consumer space which simply aren't enterprise ready.
For the clueless: Basic Exchange support isn't nearly enough.
Can you suggest a phone that you can be 100% certain about?
Blackberry. It has more than proven itself over time.
When it's free on Android and Blackberry, it's much harder to justify. Then again, if your organization needs to deploy custom smartphone apps, why on earth would you choose anything but blackberry?
If only Microsoft were releasing a new version of Windows that runs on both x86 and ARM with a new UI optimized for tablets...
RIM is dieing of this disease right now.
Yeah, their subscriber base only grew 40% this year. They've got debt upward of $0. They're toast.
If only they had made a number of good acquisitions like Torch Mobile, TAT, DataViz, and NewBay. Of course, that wouldn't be enough unless they updated their OS. If only they had picked up a company like QNX. Then they'd have what is, quite possibly, the most advanced, stable, and secure mobile OS on the market.
Being able to do something is VERY different from being able to do something well.
It's not about the parent not knowing the limitations (I don't see how you came to this conclusion). It's about the apologists who equate "can be done" with "the best way to do it".
I could write programs for my old Palm on the device itself, but that did not in any way make it a good tool for developing apps! You'd have to be some kind of masochist to use an iPad to develop an app or write anything longer than a short email.
In that sense, the parent is right. The iPad is first and foremost a content consumption device. That you can also create content isn't really meaningful as the iPad is a ridiculously poor tool for many (all?) content creation tasks.
You can already get a secure phone at Verizon. It's called the "Blackberry 9930".
There is a lot more to messaging security than just an SSL connection, you know.
Had you actually read the article (this is Slashdot, I know) then you'd know that, as always, BES users are still secure.
See, RIM couldn't give them access to BES users data no matter how badly they wanted to. They simply don't have the keys.
To avoid the current privacy issues, BIS users in India can make use ot the many of third-party apps that provide additional security to contacts, sms, etc.
So, yes, in India (and just about everywhere else for that matter) Blackberry is still the only real choice when it comes to mobile security.
No-one is saying that Python is good because it forces you to indent.
Believe it or not, I've seen that claim made in several Python related threads.
Quite the opposite: all sane people indent their code anyway,
I agree.
whatever the language, so why not use that to indicate program structure?
There are problems with it. Aside from various non-Python-aware code editors ruining perfectly valid programs by doing stupid things like replacing tabs with spaces on save, even the best Python-aware editors can choke when you move blocks of code around -- this is especially problematic when the indentation level changes. Punctuation removes any and all ambiguity in those cases.
Well said.
If you want your code properly indented, just indent it. It's like the Python apologists are incapable of formatting their code properly unless the language forces its particular version of "properly" on you.
Before the trolls fire back: In the case of code written by others, run it through a pretty-printer. Problem solved. Oh, as a bonus, you can use that same tool to format code the way you prefer, and switch it back to whatever style your company requires at the press of a button. Why is this a bad thing?
What part of it was promised [wired.com] to have email and BBM and contacts by summer 2011 is not clear?
What part of "at the time it was released" is not clear? RIM promised nothing until *after* the unthinking tech media started parroting nonsense from BGR.
So a PlayBook is useless without a BB phone?
Not at all. You can still have email either via the web or through one of many third-party apps. As for BBM, well, are other tablets useless because they don't have BBM?
The hardware is fantastic and the OS is lightyears ahead of iOS, and at least a generation ahead of Android. (QNX is amazing)
As a tablet, stand alone, it's brilliant. Paired with a BlackBerry, no other product comes close.
It was my understanding that RIM was marketing the tablet to enterprise users -- not home users. RIM was widely criticized for calling the PlayBook "The first professional tablet", for example, because of the lack of native email (I explained earlier in this thread why I think that decision was very sensible for the enterprise market).
The name PlayBook makes more sense to U.S. users where "play book" is a term used to mean a set of plans or strategies. It's a sports analogy, common in the American business community, drawing from American football.
There is a double entendre that seems intentional, in that RIM wanted users to know that while it's business first, it can also entertain on those long flights.
I'm not sure that RIM marketed the PlayBook to any significant degree to the consumer market. Though for non-enterprise blackberry users, it really is a great tablet option.
Sorry, I'm not seeing where the BlackBerry browser is less usable than Mobile Safari. What exactly are you referring to here?
I'll even take this a step farther and say that RIM offers more in terms of usability than Apple on that front.
RIM has all the features of Mobile Safari including that weird bounce-back thing, pinch-to-zoom, a double-tap to zoom/size a column of text, etc. They begin to exceed Apple with the optical trackpad, which makes using the web on your phone work just like it does in the browser -- hover-over menus and roll-over effects work exactly like they're supposed to. It also means that I don't need to zoom-in to click a link that I can read just fine, but is too small (or is too tightly grouped with other links) to hit with a finger accurately.
In terms of mobile-web usability, I actually get MORE from RIM than I do from Apple.
We were talking about email specifically.
I didn't realize. In that case, there is more to email security than just its transmission. There is also the security of email on the device to consider. On that front, RIM is still unmatched.
Will BB vouch that there are no remote code execution vulnerabilities in BBOS?
While I doubt BB with vouch for that, they do actively search for vulnerabilities in their software and patch them before they become a problem. Their software also holds more security related certifications than any other mobile product.
JailbreakMe - which is the one you're referring to - is not applicable to current stable iOS versions.
If by that you mean iOS 5, then yes. Know of any version of iOS 4 that doesn't work with jailbreakme?
Oh, and iOS 5 is really new. Given jailbreakme a few weeks and see if you can make that same claim.
You just can't deny the fact that RIMs security is unparalleled and Apple has a ... less than stellar security record.
Well, in a side-by-side the Torch 9800 performs comparably to the iPhone 4 in terms of speed -- bringing up and rendering pages. Pre iOS 5, the BlackBerry browser beats the pants off of Mobile Safari when it comes to HTML 5 support (that's by all objective measures).
OS7 devices are even better, that is, with the major hardware improvements.
RIM has a solid web-browser that is comparable to or beats the other major players. The "Blackberry is horrid for web browsing" myth stopped being true a long time ago.
Like I said before, Apple was behind RIM on the web browser front until iOS 5. As Apple is known for having a great mobile browser, you can't fault the BlackBerry's web browsing experience at all.
Times are changing. RIM has caught up and hasn't stopped moving forward. In several areas, they're leading the pack.