Let’s kick things off with a quick discussion regarding RIM’s new Style, and no, I’m not referring to their swagger. RIM’s latest device is the 9670 clamshell. Rumors claim that RIM plans to name this new clamshell the BlackBerry Style. This small device has a full QWERTY keyboard, trackpad, OS 6, and an external display. So far, we are confident that this device will be available at Sprint but we’re not sure if it will be available at other carriers. This device seems to appeal to more people than I originally expected. People seem to like the compact size for their pocket, and yet it still has a full QWERTY keyboard. This will be RIM’s second device to be released with OS 6, and they’re hoping it takes off because opening weekend for the BlackBerry Torch did not go so well. Reports indicate that RIM only sold roughly 150,000 Torch units, which doesn’t come close to any iOS or Droid release parties.

Apple held their fall keynote presentation earlier this week and Steve Jobs had plenty to talk about. First off is the new iPod Touch. This device is upgraded to a retina display, Apple A4 chip, 3-Axis gyro, front facing camera with FaceTime, along with everything else that the iPhone 4 has. There are only a couple differences between the new iPod Touch and the iPhone 4. One difference is the size, the iPod Touch is thinner than the iPhone 3Gs, the iPod Touch has a lower resolution camera, and the iPod Touch doesn’t require a contract. The iPod Touch also doesn’t make phone calls, but I’ll let you decide as to whether or not that is any different from the iPhone 4.
Apple has also revamped the iPod Nano with a retina display which allows the user to see 4 icons on the screen. The new iPod shuffle has physical buttons again which were not present on last year’s model.
Apple also announced a new Apple TV unit. The new model will be $99 instead of the previous $299. Apple TV allows a user to rent movies and TV shows and have them streaming on their TV instead of waiting for a DVD to arrive in the mail. Apple TV supports 720p resolution which some people have complained about because their TV and blu-ray players push out 1080p. Apple decided to keep Apple TV at 720p to avoid video lag and annihilating the users bandwidth. Apple TV will have a Netflix streaming channel, along with the YouTube channel which is already available on older Apple TV models.
Apple also announced iTunes Ping service. Ping is Apple’s new social networking service integrated into your iTunes account. Ping is an Apple hybrid of twitter and facebook for the music world. Ping will allow users to follow artists and friends, and vice versa. Users will be able to leave comments on music and interact with other users. Ping will not communicate or interact with facebook or twitter though, it is a standalone service.
Apple also announced the November release of iOS 4.2 or the iPad. This update will bring multitasking, home screen folders, wireless printing, AirPlay, Game Center, unified inbox, text search within Safari Browser, and a few other items that can be found on Apple’s website.

Android tablets are beginning to spring up all over the place as of late. Archos has announced their new line of Android tablets, coming in a wide array of screen sizes. They will be releasing 5 devices total, a 2.8 inch, 3.2 inch, 4.3 inch, 7 inch, and a whopping 10 inch. All 5 devices are promised to have Android 2.2 (FroYo). The larger models have capacitive touch screens, a kick-stand on the back of the device, an HDMI output, front-facing camera, and a 1GHz processor. The 10 inch model even has USB ports to plug in external mouse or keyboard. One of the great advantages to the HDMI output is the ability to view a game on your TV and use the tablet as your game controller. You can also stream movies or slide shows to your TV with HD resolution.

Samsung has confirmed and announced the Galaxy Tab which will have 3G connectivity to Verizon and possibly Sprint. Galaxy Tab is rumored to come with Android 2.2, 7-inch Super AMOLED screen, 3.2 MP rear-facing camera, GPS, wifi, and all of the other standard bells n’ whistles. We don’t have an official release date but the recent Sprint rumors indicate a November release. This may just be for Sprint, or it may be a universal release date for all vendors.

T-Mobile has confirmed the first HSPA+ handset will be the G2. This device will sport a 3.7” OLED display, 800MHz processor, Android 2.2, and a 5MP camera. This device also has a slide-out keyboard and an optical trackpad. You may remember from previous newsletters… HSPA+ is technically a 3G network, but has the ability to be ramped up to 4G-like speeds. HSPA+ is cheaper than rolling out an all-new LTE or WiMAX 4G network, which will allow T-Mobile to keep their prices low. T-Mobile has been struggling financially so it is huge for them to get their HSPA+ network off the ground and bringing in new business.

Jonathan Ross
Mobile Technology Engineer
Vox Mobile

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Category: Weekly Mobile News

Hello again,

This was a big week in the mobility world. There were a lot of ‘firsts’, mixed in with robots and fire…?

DROOOIIID! The Motorola Droid 2 was released yesterday and it doesn’t disappoint. It is the first Android device to come out of the box with Android 2.2 (Froyo) installed. The Droid 2 is obviously the sequel to Motorola’s original Droid, and is definitely a huge improvement. Motorola has tweaked the slide-out physical keyboard to easily differentiate between each key, which was a pretty big complaint from D1 users. They have also removed the directional touch pad and replaced it with four individual directional keys. Droid 2 is sporting a 1GHz processor, 8GB internal memory, pre-installed 8GB microSD card, 3.7 inch screen, 3G mobile hotspot, Adobe Flash 10.1, and all of the usual un-wanted freeware that can’t be removed without rooting the device. Droid 2 also comes pre-installed with a Swype keyboard plus the native touch screen keyboard. Anyone upgrading from the original Droid to the Droid 2 will realize why there is no longer any need to over-clock your CPU, but, they’re also see their battery drain a little quicker than they’re used to. Verizon is offering extra-early-upgrades, so call to find out if you apply for this early upgrade.

Shortly after the original announcement from Verizon regarding the Droid 2, there were pictures floating around that displayed the Droid 2 wrapped in an R2-D2 image, but this was not a case or skin. Verizon has confirmed that a special edition R2-D2 Droid 2 is scheduled to be released September 30th. We’re not sure how much it will cost, but all of the Star Wars+Android fanboys are already drooling over this device (if you’re one of these people, maybe you should consider going out sometime soon).

RIM released the new hot BlackBerry Torch 9800 yesterday, which is the first of the Torch series, and the first BlackBerry to come out of the box with OS 6. The Torch has a new touch screen that steered clear of the Storm’s click screen. The BlackBerry Torch has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a trackpad. So far, the Torch is exclusive to AT&T in the US, but hopefully it will venture out to other carriers to allow more users to experience OS 6. We’ve got our hands on one of the new 9800’s and it seems like a great improvement from older generation BlackBerry’s. OS 6 is providing new exchange features to help keep their corporate sales championship belt, and a lot of great new consumer oriented features that appeal to the individual users out there.

I mentioned last week about the possible “BlackPad” coming from RIM. A recent rumor indicates that the BlackPad will be released in November, priced at $499. It is also rumored to have a 9.7 inch display along with Bluetooth, wifi, along with front and rear facing cameras. It is also rumored that the BlackPad will be a side device for your BlackBerry, which means it will connect to your BlackBerry to synchronize corporate data :/ . We’ll have to wait and see as new information comes out.

Speaking of tablets, BestBuy has pretty much confirmed that they are creating their own Rocketfish brand Android tablet. It is in the early stages, therefore it is hard to speculate what the specifications of this tablet will be, but I think it is a good idea for BestBuy, if done correctly. The tablet was originally designed for internal use at Best Buy stores, but recently changed direction in hopes of pushing Best Buy Connect, which is their planned 4G data service. This would be a huge opportunity to brand their own hot product with their monthly service instead of just selling other carrier products every day.

A couple of weeks ago, a group of developers finally released a jailbreak for iOS 4 that was extremely easy to use. You simply went to jailbreakme.com and slid an unlock-style bar to jailbreak the device, and boom, you’re done. What most people didn’t realize at first is that the developers caught wind of a PDF rendering vulnerability which could be exploited to then jailbreak the device. If someone had the crazy idea of creating a malicious PDF document (it’s not like anyone ever does that!…), post it online somewhere, and you clicked on it, you could potentially be handing over personal information that is stored in your device… but not anymore. Apple released an emergency iOS update this week that fixes the PDF vulnerability. For all of you in need of a jailbreak for your iPhone, you’re out of luck for now since this one-touch jailbreak is completely useless with the latest iOS update. Trust me, it is for your own good to wait for a new jailbreak to be released.

T-Mobile was hit with a class-action lawsuit this week for throttling data speeds. Users were promised unlimited data with their new device and data plan, but when they reached the 5GB or 10GB range, they received a text message from T-Mobile stating that they exceeded their limit, and their speeds would be throttled down to 50 kbps or less, which is basically unusable. T-Mobile advertises unlimited data which is a selling point for many consumers, and they expect to get what they were promised at the time of purchase. We have yet to receive an update on this lawsuit, but I’ll be extremely interested to see how it plays out.

That’s all for this week. Have a great weekend!

Jonathan Ross
Mobile Technology Engineer
Vox Mobile

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Category: Weekly Mobile News

Hello everyone,

While I don’t have a lot of topics this week, I do have some very big topics, mostly based around RIM.

First and foremost, the BlackBerry Torch 9800 was announced on Tuesday. The Torch will officially be sporting OS 6.0 which is a huge leap for RIM. Torch is a slide device with a storm-sized touch screen without the click. I’m sure you are all familiar with the click screen on the storm and how much fun that is. You can all sleep tonight knowing that the Torch will not have the click screen. The slide-out keyboard is a full QWERTY with the optical trackpad, menu and escape keys, along with your send and end keys. The keyboard slides out portrait style as opposed to the usual landscape style that most of today’s touch-screen users are accustomed to.

OS 6 is truly designed for touch screen devices and works very well. They’ve added a lot of great features to OS 6, one of which is a universal search. You can use the search from practically any screen and it will automatically search locally on the device and the web while you type. This allows you to navigate to your destination extremely fast without opening different applications to reach that destination. Another great new feature is the ability to update multiple social networking sites at once. You can type in an update and choose which social networking sites you would like to send the entry to, and blam, you’re done. So basically you can now tell the world that you’re at the mall on facebook, even though you think only your friends can see it, and bring twitter over capacity all at the same time.
OS 6 has a tabbed home screen, similar to the iPhone and Android, of course. This does make the user experience much more organized and easier to use. The OS 6 browser is now a WebKit browser which allows you to surf the actual web extremely fast instead of the old BlackBerry browser which was a sluggish mobile view. The Torch is scheduled to be released on August 12th. It looks like the Torch will be exclusive to AT&T in the US, and shipments are already arriving at local stores.

OS 6 is RIM’s hail Mary to try and stay in the running with Apple and Google, and it has a fighting chance. RIM still holds the title for enterprise use but their non-corporate sales are in the gutter (compared to Apple and Google). A recent study indicates that %50 of individual BlackBerry users plan to jump ship and join forces with iPhone or Android, which is not good for RIM. Hopefully OS 6 will change that outlook.

BlackBerry services were disabled in Saudi Arabia today after a national ban on BlackBerry services. India and Lebanon have placed the same ban, but are giving carriers until October 11th to shut down the BB services. The UAE (United Arab Emirates) claim that BlackBerry services are actually TOO secure. Their argument is that users could potentially commit crimes and the government would be unable to trace the crime due to RIM’s high level of encryption. Basically they’re saying that BlackBerry’s are not able to be tracked electronically. RIM has offered to give access to the IP address of BES servers, the PIN and IMEI number of the BlackBerry devices, but the UAE says that this is “unacceptable”. UAE wants full access but RIM will never budge close to that request. But until they do, the UAE claims that they will enforce the ban on BlackBerry Services.

All of you Motorola Droid users out there should be happy to know that Android 2.2 (Froyo) is available for manual download from Verizon. I know, it’s a bummer that it isn’t available OTA yet, but hey, at least it’s available without rooting. The Droid X is rumored to get froyo in September, so stop complaining about a manual download for your Droid! I have already discussed all of the new features included with Froyo, but Verizon has decided to axe the mobile hotspot and tethering for the Moto Droid, claiming that the hardware requirements are not up to par to handle these features. I’m sure many D1 users out there would argue this claim, but I’m sure big red will continue on with their plans.

Last, but not least, the Motorola Droid 2 is rumored to release on August 12th. We’ve already received verification that Droid 2 will be the first Droid from Verizon to come out of the box with Android 2.2 installed. We’ll keep our eyes peeled for that release date.

That’s all for this week. Have a great weekend!

Jonathan Ross | VoxMobile.com
Mobile Technology Engineer

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Category: Weekly Mobile News

I spent this past weekend camping on Lake Erie (and by camping I mean borrowing someone’s cottage) and decided not to take my PC and instead attempt to stay connected via my iPhone 4 / iPad combination. This may sound like an unfair test as it was the weekend but in our business we have support resources working all 3 shifts and are right in the middle of a Datacenter move. So, as far as potential need for me to work…there was plenty. Here is a summary of my experience.

The Good:
For entertainment purposes the iPad was fantastic. We quickly and easily accessed YouTube for comedy clips, videos, funny movie clips, etc. Every time someone brought up a song I was able to quickly purchase and download from iTunes and the speakers on the iPad were good enough for everyone to hear. The opportunity to integrate the web into having a good time with friends was fantastic and a much richer experience than using a PC. Passing the iPad around a “campground” circle was much more natural, like sharing a magazine, than I expected it to be.

For the moments that I had to work, the iPad was equally good. The combination of 3GS connectivity, the Drop Box app for in the cloud document access and Quick Office for document reading and editing never left me wanting my PC. I was able to keep up with email, respond to a co-workers request to make a minor edit on an Excel sheet and even RDP into our production Exchange server to make sure our new Sales Person’s account was setup correctly.

The Bad:
The iPhone 4 is a great device. Now, if it only made phone calls….
I’m appalled at the antenna situation and Apple’s subsequent response. I had an iPhone 3GS for many months and always defended the phone qualities of the device. Everything from reception to call control always seemed above average to me. I’ve had the iPhone 4 for 1 week and I can’t believe how bad the dropped call issue is. How did Apple’s QA people miss this?

During my weekend camping trip I dropped, without exaggeration, EVERY CALL. By Sunday, my phone reception issue had turned into the running joke of the trip and I had to borrow other people’s phones to make quick calls. I wish I could say it was an AT&T issue but 3 other people had AT&T devices and the 3GS coverage on my iPad was just fine.

As CTO my job is to stay current with technology so I would eventually be switching to a Droid for a while anyway, but if my free bumper (should be arriving this week) doesn’t drastically change my experiences with the iPhone, that switch will happen sooner or later.

Gerald Hetrick
Chief Technology Officer
Vox Mobile

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Category: Blog from the CTO

Samsung dispatching free Galaxy S’s to iPhone 4 twitter whiners? http://bit.ly/9a9VGb

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Category: Tweeting with Vox Mobile