My Thoughts on RIM BlackBerry...

The news of Research in Motion’s Co-CEOs/Co-Founders stepping down shook the Mobile Industry a little bit today.  Although not surprised, it is still a sad day for mobile enthusiasts because of what BlackBerry has done for the smartphone industry.  This blog post is my point-of-view on how BlackBerry came about; it’s strictly my view as a consumer/mobile geek.  There is probably a lot more depth to the situation but again, here is my simple view:

BlackBerry’s gradual decline in market share started a few years ago; anyone who’s following the stock market or reading gadget news can tell you the basic story, that iPhones and Android devices eventually took it’s lunch money.  While it is easy to put RIM’s outcome along with the likes of Palm, Nokia and Motorola, there is something more profound about BlackBerry devices and how it got here.

In 2004, when I first took notice of the potential of smartphones, I looked into early Windows Mobile devices.  At the time, an HP iPaq 6315, caught my attention, it had early makings of an awesome smartphone even by 2012 standard (WiFi/GPRS, supports MS Office, Browser, Emails, Music, Videos, Expandable Storage, Apps, etc.); however, there was one problem… it was so buggy that even the store rep recommended against selling it to me.  That is when I first noticed BlackBerry as an alternative.  I have seen BlackBerry devices prior, but it was mostly in hands of the senior managers at my work and looked like an oversized two-way pager with a monochrome LCD and you can’t make phone calls.  When I realized there were consumer level BBs with color LCD, I went for it, a BlackBerry 7100t on T-Mobile Network.  It was one of the first color screen BlackBerry with a smaller SureType keyboard.  It was good at sending/receiving text emails and I got most out of it by hosting my own mobile(WAP) bookmark webpage to make browsing bearable.  RIM at this point, is really enjoying its business model as an email device.

For years after that, BlackBerry continued to leverage its email capabilities and slowly rolled out desirable features supporting music, videos, camera, 3G, Bluetooth and eventually WiFi.  Although these features were available, it’s hardly user friendly.  But who cares?  People would continue to buy BlackBerry devices for it’s amazing push email technology.  As a result, it continued to gain market share and eat Windows Mobile’s lunch; even pre-iPhone fan-boys had to give up their beloved Palm Treos to get a BlackBerry since having reliable push email service was the in-thing.  RIM continued to enjoy it’s success as a leading mobile email device maker.

As RIM continued gaining popularity from its Email capabilities and completely penetrating itself into all levels of corporate IT departments, professionals relied on BlackBerry for work and some even bought them as personal devices due to its association with the professional world (ie. owning a BlackBerry can be seen as a power status or being; this effect then became global, making its way into hands of youth and housewives).  It seemed like RIM didn’t feel like there is a need to innovate beyond what it has to offer; after all, why bother? On one hand, they’ve got the corporate email / IT department nailed down, on the other hand, they’ve got a decent ramp up in the consumer market, why mess up a good thing?

Then, suddenly, Apple disrupted the market with the introduction of the original iPhone in 2007.  For years, smartphone users have adapted to the limitations of small screens and have decided that for anything beyond emails, we should wait until we can get in front of a computer to complete that task.  The iPhone changed that drastically.  It’s advanced touch screen and useful application icons means you can make the first leap of faith into a computer-less world (and get rid of the stylus or physical keyboard).  With a full HTML browser and ‘pretty-good’ email support, consumers started to realize the once promising idea of a smartphone is now a possibility, reality.  At this point, my guess is that RIM must have taken notice and some plan to react is being devised.  But it was still enjoying it’s success as the device of choice for email and sales from corporate IT department continued to fuel it’s focus as a professional email device; still, at the time that no other email device can match.

In the 5 years after that (2007-2011), we have experienced an exponential growth in mobile technology.  Countless iterations of iPhones and Android devices arrived to the scene.  Microsoft’s deep pocket is also tossing a series of new Windows Phone 7 devices into the mix.  Even Palm stir the pot further with a short-lived WebOS smartphones.  Consumers were inundated with more robust mobile operating systems and demanded high resolution screens, multi-media experience, full internet browsers, thousands of small but robust mobile applications to fuel their starving need to become 4G wirelessly connected.  Email capability has now become one of the many features required.  People wanted one device that does it all.  Despite BlackBerry's late attempt in bringing in advanced hardware (Storm, Bold, Torch) and software (BS 6.0 in 2010, BS 7.0 in 2011) to the market, it was simply too late.  Apple and Google’s network externality effect has already reached to some level of maturity.

Whats to come of RIM in the coming years?  It’s going to be very difficult to compete at the same level as Apple and Android devices; after all, it tried already via BS 7.0 devices and consumers are too sticky to the current players.  As far as the US market goes, there should still be a decent size corporate market that refuses to upgrade beyond its BES servers/licensing.  RIM should be able to continue to service those accounts.  There might be some opportunities for the international markets.  There might be some opportunities to license its BES software/technology to work better with iPhone or Android.  The mobile industry has seen some serious partnerships or merger in the past couple of years.  HP purchased Palm, Nokia and Microsoft partnership and Motorola’s move to support Android OS and finally Google’s acquisition of Motorola.  A merger could be a potential solution for them as well.

To me, RIM’s strategy has always been a mobile email device and it has delivered as such.  Throughout the years, they added some bells and whistles to its mobile devices but the integration was poorly executed until much later.  I have used a couple of BlackBerry devices in the early days but soon gave it up and eventually switched into a WM6 device, proceeded by a Symbian OS device, iOS, Android and finally iOS 4.0+.  While I am not surprised by today’s news, as a mobile fanatic, I am sadden by this news.  RIM has been along the way of my own development as a Mobile professional and I do hope the company find it’s way back for the many years to come.

Samsung Galaxy Note Commercial

I saw this ad blasted throughout Asia over the holidays, looks very creative, serving the type of mobile experience that got me started:

Custom QR Codes

I have been noticing more and more large brand retailers launch customized QR Code campaigns with an embedded graphic.  It's definitely slick from a brand marketing and mobile marketing standpoint.  So how do they do it?  I did some research and here is what I found (Link, excellent article with lots of samples).

In short, the way it works is that QR codes have up to 30% of error correction built in.  Essentially, a graphic artist would have to overlay the branding element and try to match as many pixel as possible.  It sounds like intense labor but given the high % in error correction, it seems like it isn't all that difficult.  I used GIMP to play around with a QR Code and it worked just fine!

Review: Targus Versavu Wireless Keyboard and Case for iPad2

The nice folks at Targus sent me a review unit of their latest Versavu Keyboard (the pronunciation is a mouthful) for a quick review.  I gotta admit, at the beginning, I wasn't entirely convinced the whole protective case slash bluetooth keyboard thing.  That is until I hooked up my wife's iPad 2 to it and then it hit me.  Having a wireless keyboard for your iPad is really NICE!

For me, it feels like my experience typing on the iPad has always had an invisible brake applied and typing with a bluetooth keyboard gives me back the missing speed that I have always craved.  I can officially leverage the iPad 2 as a serious business machine taking notes with confidence during meetings or business conferences.  In fact, to prove my point, this blog post is drafted entirely on the same iPad 2 and it feels so good!

Lets get right to my break down of Pros and Cons:
Pros:
* You can type so much faster now, it's really the point
* The case itself is very sturdy and well made
* iPad2 fits snuggly in the holder, rotates into landscape and portrait mode
* Lots of shortcut keys like "Home", "Play/Pause", "Keyboard", "Volume Up/Down" and etc...
* Stylus Holder

Cons: (To be totally fair, the cons are a function of small footprint, I can't fault Targus)
* Hefty, when closed, the thickness and weight exceeds MacBook Air
* The Keyboard is small, which is fine, but some of the buttons have been shifted
 * ie. The "colon" key is removed and works as a function shift key
* Disconnected Experience: Again, not Targus fault, in fact its because the kit is so well-integrated that it kept making think that my iPad2 is a laptop, so I was expecting some additional linked like using the keyboard to adjust brightness or searching for a trackpad
* Lack of Battery Guage indicator

Overall, I really enjoyed this product.  The keyboard is designed specifically for the iPad2 and I feel like my productivity instantly increased.  While the thickness and weight is a little heavy, it does offer more productivity for the good ole' iPad2.  I would have appreciated some backlite to the keyboard but I understand it would likely drain the battery much longer.  Not having battery life gauge like some of my bluetooth headsets makes it a guess work to know how much juice is left.

How to Score a $99 HP Touchpad!

(UPDDATE: 8:37AM - In less than an hour, both 16GB and 32GB versions of HP TouchPad was sold out online at BestBuy.com. That was quick! Now lets keep the fingers crossed for actual shipment)
Yesterday's breaking news of HP dropping the development of TouchPad and it's pricing to $99 was EPIC in gadget news; at $99, you will get a fairly decent Tablet device with a front webcam for Video-VOIP and basic internet utilities is a pretty sweet deal for anyone. Right away, brick&mortar stores that lowered it's price cleared out all of its inventories. Saturday (8/20) evening, Best Buy decided to lower it's in-store pricing while making the TouchPad unavailable for a few hours online. Apparently, as of early this morning, TouchPad can now be purchased directly on BestBuy.com. So you now have two choices to buy:

1. Purchase Directly on BestBuy.com (link).
$99 for a 16GB Unit. (was $399, original price was $499)
$149 for a 32GB Unit. (was $499, original price was $599)

2. If the web is out of stock, here is another trick. Leverage Google's "In-stock Nearby" function on Google Product Search to give you an idea which physical store nearby has the new attractive pricing.

Skype Video Enabled for a Few Android Phones

It's about time!  On behalf of the mobile community, I welcome Skype Video for Android devices in the year 2011.  Currently, the following phones are supported for sure: Acer A5, HTC Desire (2.2), HTC Desire HD, HTC Evo 3D, HTC Evo 4G, HTC Flyer, HTC Incredible S, HTC Sensation, HTC Thunderbolt - Verizon (2.2) (US only), LG Revolution - Verizon (2.2) (US only), Samsung Droid Charge - Verizon (2.2) (US only), Samsung Galaxy S, Samsung Galaxy S II, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro, Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY, Sony Ericsson Xperia ray.  If your phone is not on the list, don't fret!  If you are running Froyo (ver. 2.2 or higher), chances are, you can still have it enabled.  Checkout the official blog entry for details.
In truth, I am sure the OS fragmentation must be a total pain in the butt.  Although I'm not sure why companies like TANGO never had such issue.

Review: Griffin Elan Folio for iPad 2

The Elan Folio has always been a favorite case design of mine for the original iPad (see old review here). When Griffin launched an update for the iPad 2, I wanted to see if they've made any improvements over the last.  Overall the Folio case for iPad 2 is nearly identical to the original Folio for the iPad.  It's the same level of snugness, solid protection, flexibility as a two-way stand as the original with a minor enhancement of having only one tab which is easier to set it up as a stand and obviously, proper cut outs for iPad2's rear camera.  It is also available in real leather for anyone looking for the ultimate luxury for their beloved iPad 2.  Price for the polyurethane one starts at $49 while the leather version is $69.  I still have the same feedback for improvment which is to add a inside pocket of some sort in the flap which will allows for business users to wedge in some small notes, receipts or business cards with ease.

Geico: Do People With Smartphones do Dumb Things?

Very funny commericial!

Internet is getting "Cloudy"

Amazon Cloud Drive, Google Music Beta (Cloud), Apple iCloud are the buzz words from the recent weeks.  In short, these are attempts made by each of the three tech titans to free you from your plebeian PCs and home servers allowing you to move your content (mostly music) to "cloud" servers hosted and maintained by them.

The idea is simple, upload your music (and other content like contacts, emails, photos in the case for Apple iCloud) and you can get access to said content from anywhere as long as you have internet connection.

Amazon's Cloud Drive and Google Music Beta offers good integration with Android for now and the upcoming iCloud is going to be integrated with iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch's iOS 5.0.  In terms of capacity, Amazon's Cloud Drive is free up to 5GB (limited time offer provides a free upgrade to 20GB for 1 year and automatically downgrades if you don't want to pay the $20/year fee thereafter) while Google's Music Beta limits to 20,000 songs (no more than 320kpbs sound quality) and Apple iCloud is capping out at 5GB for it's free account.

In terms of playback the content you have uploaded, Amazon and Google offers some what of a streaming/caching service versus Apple's approach of wireless download the content to your phone. As far as uploading your content to the cloud, most of the offers some type of upload application for Mac and PC (Amazon Uploader, Google Uploader) so you can quickly transfer your music from your local storage; I presume Apple will make iTunes function as an uploader upon release.  Amazon MP3 Music Store and Apple iTunes also offers direct transfer if you purchase music from them.  Whats crazy is that Google even offers some free songs to be added to the account during setup (I would add as much as you can since I could not figure out how to add more after initial setup, see reference).

Bottom line:  Cloud storage is the future; local storage is a thing of the past.  Most techy nerds will still want to hang on to terabytes of storage at home for bragging rights and being a control freak, I don't blame them.  However, the future of computing is all about having the flexibility of accessing your data and content on the fly without having to worry about maintaining the connection or security of your own server.  Music seems to be the overarching theme that initiates the cloud conversation.  Regardless of content type, it appears every tech titan is coming after cloud storage solution.  Ever since the introduction of Gmail account, Google have successfully entered the non-music based cloud services (Picasa for Photos, YouTube for Videos, Email/Contacts/Calendar/Docs, IM/VOIP). From my viewpoint, Google's integration with Music beta will further secure it's inevitable future dominance of the mobile marketshare via Android or Chrome OS.  Where Apple and Amazon have advantage is its network externality of its music stores.  Regardless, the cloud race is now officially on!

iPhone 4 Batterry Life Drains Quickly Lately

Recently, I have noticed my iPhone 4's battery life is much shorter than usual. Before I get to work, it's down to 80% from a full charge. Two weeks ago while I was away at a poorer reception area, the phone completely discharged overnight. I think something ain't right from the latest build of iOS 4.3.3.

Sent from my iPhone

Does GPS Work in the Ocean?

Yes it does... I took this screenshot on a Ferry today. Kinda neat to see the bluedot in the middle of ocean.

Review: Otterbox Defender Case for iPad2

I have always been serious when I said Otterbox Cases are tough, but when I received the new Defender case for the iPad2, I got a real good taste of what toughness is about.  The Defender case for iPad 2 is insanely tough. It's so tough that it has 4 components and when all is said and done, this bad boy is about an inch thick when properly installed.

I don't know how to best describe the defender case, other then the fact that if you have it installed, your precious iPad 2 is pretty much protected from just about anything you can throw at it.  As expected, there are plenty of cutouts and access to the ports and buttons throughout that is precisely molded.  If you expect to dock your iPad2 in this case, look the other way.  Because there are four components for installation, the setup can be a little tricky at first, but it all comes together with a little common sense.  Where I got a little struggle is applying the 3rd layer (the rubber cover) where the lip of the cover tucks into the plastic frame; but it only took me about 5 minutes to attach in full.

The Defender series case from Otterbox have always been known as the toughest case around; for the iPad 2, they have really taken it to a whole new level of protection.  Of course, such protection comes at the expense of some increased thickness which might be difficult for the typical iPad 2 fanboys since it somewhat defeats the appeal of having a thin device.