May 14, 2010 in BLOG by sam

Download Twitter for BlackBerry Smartphones

With Twitter® for BlackBerry® smartphones, you can easily stay connected to the information and people you care about.¹ It’s available now as a beta release – download Twitter for your BlackBerry smartphone today.

Download through your
BlackBerry® Browser.

Download through
BlackBerry App World™.

May 6, 2010 in BLOG by sam

Twitter for BlackBerry Experiencing Performance Issues

There are currently various reports from BlackBerry smartphone owners stating that the Twitter application for the platform is experiencing some performance issues. Most notably, BlackBerry owners are having a difficult time logging back into the application after they have logged out. Those who are currently signed-in should be fine, so be sure not to log out. Apparently, the problem was first noticed last night.

Now, before you start blaming Research In Motion, Twitter appears to be the culprit. The Twitter Support team posted the following update:

“A bug is affecting some Twitter clients, including Twitter for BlackBerry. We’re working to fix ASAP. Thanks for your patience.”

The issues seems to have originated after Twitter made some changes to its API, which created a bug that caused the problems for some Twitter apps. At this point, the company has not announced when the service will be back. Let us know if you are having issues logging into your Twitter application for BlackBerry. We’ll update as soon as we learn more.

May 4, 2010 in BLOG by sam

BlackBerry Bold 9650 and the BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9100 and 9105 launched

RIM has announced the launch of three new smartphones at the 2010 WES event in Orlando, USA. The new smartphones in question are the BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9100 and 9105 compact devices and the Blackberry Bold 9650.

Blackberry Pearl 3G

We will start with the new Pearl 3G series in which both devices boast of more or less, the same features except for differences in their keyboard layouts. The 9100 has a 20-key hybrid QWERTY SureType keypad, as the ones seen on prior Pearl models. The 9105, on the other hand, has the traditional RIM proprietary keypad design in a 14 key alphanumeric layout. Both the phones are amongst the most compact devices ever released by RIM. However, the reduction in size hasn’t resulted in compromise on the features front. Both the Pearl 3G models measure up at 108mm x 50mm x 13.3mm (4.25in x 1.96in x 0.52in) and each feature a high-res 360 x 400 pixel display. At 93g, the devices are also amongst the lightest devices from RIM.  Both the phones boast of a 624MHz processor and come with a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera (with video capture), an optical trackpad controller, GPS and Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n), and a high-capacity microSDHC memory card slot.

These Pearl phones also pack in a fully features media player and Bluetooth support. Both the devices are powered by a 1150mAh battery that should stay put for 5.5 hours of talk time on GSM/EDGE and HSDPA 3G networks. The devices are expected to be available for the average Joe starting May.

Blackberry Bold 9650
The  BlackBerry Bold 9650 is RIM’s latest offering for the CDMA platform. It supports the 3G (EVDO) networks in North America and (HSPA/UMTS) elsewhere and has a full-QWERTY keyboard, optical trackpad and built-in Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) support. The BlackBerry Bold 9650 also includes 512 MB Flash memory and an expandable memory card slot that supports up to 32 GB microSDHC cards. It comes preloaded with a 2 GB card.The Bold 9650 boasts of a large (2.44-inch) high-resolution display (480 x 360 resolution at 245 ppi), a 3.2 MP camera with flash, variable zoom, image stabilization, autofocus and video recording and an advanced media player for videos, pictures and music.

It also comes with a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack and A2DP support. The Bold 9650 also features a Full HTML web browser and supports streaming audio and video via RTSP. For businessmen on the go, there is full GPS support as well.  It boasts of a 1400 mAhr battery that should suffice for  5 hours of CDMA talk time. The Bold 9650 too, like the Pearl series, is expected to be on sale starting next month.

May 1, 2010 in BLOG by sam

What is BlackBerry Push Service

What is BlackBerry Push Service?

In a nutshell, BlackBerry Push Service uses RIM’s infrastructure to transmit data from a server to an application on the BlackBerry smartphone. These third-party servers (referred to as content providers in RIM’s documentation for developers) send data using XML (WAP PAP 2.2 standard) to the BlackBerry Push Data Server, which will in turn ensure that it is pushed to the correct BlackBerry smartphone. Check out the RIM Web site to see a pictorial representation and to read a more detailed explanation of how push messages are delivered.

To prevent spamming and to alleviate security concerns, content providers must register with RIM to obtain the requisite authentication information needed to route data to the Push Data Servers. Developers must also register the client applications running on the BlackBerry smartphones. (Push data can only be sent to devices running recognized applications.)

Content providers have the option to send data either to individual smartphones (point-to-point), to many users (multicast), or to all the devices registered with the service (broadcast).

The RIM NOC
Unlike many competing technologies, RIM built the message delivery system for its BlackBerry service using a NOC (network operations center) centric infrastructure. This has attracted much criticism in the past from users who are leery of trusting RIM with routing their data and when RIM’s NOC experiences the inevitable outage. So far, the issue of security appears adequately addressed by use of encryption between the end-points, while the rise of cloud computing has substantially eroded the argument in favor of hosting servers internally.
BlackBerry Push Essentials and BlackBerry Push Plus

There are two tiers of RIM’s push service: BlackBerry Push Essentials and BlackBerry Push Plus.

BlackBerry Push Essentials is free and offers basic functionality for sending up to 8 KB of data at a time to BlackBerry smartphones; however, it doesn’t provide any notification about whether a message has been received. In the BlackBerry Push API white paper (PDF), RIM notes that this method should only be used in instances where “If the end user does not receive the message, it doesn’t matter.”

BlackBerry Push Plus allows various notifications of its push progress to be requested upon sending the message, and it allows the content provider to perform a status query. In addition, BlackBerry Push Plus provides some measure of QoS to ensure message delivery. This service is only free in cases where 100,000 or less push is performed per day. Additional number of push operations beyond 100,000 is chargeable by RIM and with the rates negotiated at the time of registration of your service.
Using the BlackBerry Push Service

Based on RIM’s documentation, one possible use of BlackBerry Push Service is for content providers (such as online news services) to perform a real-time push of breaking news stories. Because there is no need to guarantee delivery of these messages, the cost of bringing such a service to BlackBerry smartphones is greatly reduced.

The push architecture ensures that the battery life of smartphones is preserved compared to a system that makes use of static (or pseudo) polling; the architecture also allows for much greater data efficiency. For example, applications such as IM programs that implement BlackBerry Push Service can probably be left running with little or no impact on battery life.

Unlike the Push system adopted by Apple, the size of messages transmitted using BlackBerry Push Service can be up to 8 KB; this can serve to eliminate the need for the BlackBerry to connect back to the content provider for the full message, which improves usability because the required data chunk is in all likelihood already received.
The bottom line

The introduction of the BlackBerry Push Service can hardly be considered novel; developers working on applications for BlackBerry users in the enterprise environment have long been able to access similar functionality via the BlackBerry Mobile Data System (MDS). What RIM has done involves opening up the technology to developers outside of the enterprise network, as well as making the system much more accessible.

A major downside to BlackBerry Push Service is that the push architecture doesn’t handle any form of encryption; as such, developers will have to take it upon themselves to incorporate encryption where security of the data being transmitted is desired.

I hope this introduction to BlackBerry Push Service proves to be a good starting point for CIOs or IT managers who are considering a new breed of applications that fully leverages on the strengths of BlackBerry smartphones.

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