I’ve had a Blackberry (the 8700g) for about four months (although it seems like longer). I usually spend a couple hours a day mobile, and I’ll often use the web browser to check Twitter, Google Reader, or a few other mobile sites I visit. From what I’ve been able to tell, I essentially have two real browser options: the built-in Blackberry browser, or Opera Mini.

The Blackberry browser is just a hair more advanced than lynx. It’s quite text-focused, but has some nice usability features. To refresh the page, you just hit “r”. Pressing the center hotkey brings up the bookmarks menu. You can type text directly into text fields.

Opera Mini is closer to a “real” browser. You can view a full web page and “zoom in” on sections. It’s much more graphical. In short, it’s prettier. On the other hand, the usability stinks. The center hotkey doesn’t bring up the bookmarks; it does nothing. You can’t enter text into fields on webpages, instead you have to select the field and then open up another text editing window. There are no single-key hotkeys, everything is a combination of the # or * keys along with something else.

I would love a browser that looked good and was easy/fast to use. Please?

Perhaps the sometime-in-the-future mobile version of Firefox will make me happy…

[tags]blackberry, browser, operamini, opera[/tags]

Tonight at the Portland Web Innovators group Jason Grigsby gave a presentation and led a discussion about the mobile web. He’s very passionate about mobile and presented some interesting statistics about mobile device usage and adoption rates (the U.S. lags far behind the rest of the industrialized world).

One of his major points was that the mobile web space is currently in a situation similar to that of the general web in the mid 90′s. Standards are absent. Most people aren’t yet on the platform, but it’s quickly growing. There are many browsers. Each browser renders content differently. Nobody is sure who will “win” the browser wars. Nobody knows the direction the mobile web will take.

It’s an exciting time for those who want to jump into mobile. Porting existing web applications to the mobile space is one aspect to the situation, but the real innovation in the mobile web will be with applications that haven’t yet been invented. Who would have thought a few years ago that one of the biggest mobile apps would be a hybrid web/SMS system where folks can send 140-character responses to the question “What are you doing right now?”. As mobile device adoption rates grow, new b2b and consumer applications will rise.

There was a brief discussion about tools; right now all of the major phone manufacturers (except for Apple) offer developer tools such as emulators to help with development efforts. Jason mentioned at least one vendor that is offering commercial tools that help translate code between devices. The commercial tool wasn’t cheap, which brought up another key point: at this point in the mobile web game, tools can be expensive because they’re rare. That stinks as a consumer, but is a great opportunity for someone who wants to work in the dev space.

As someone who started working in the web space in 1995, the next few years could be very interesting if things parallel the development of the web.

Keep an eye on the CloudFour blog, where I’m expecting Jason will post some followup information/links from his presentation.

[tags]mobile, mobileweb, pdxwi, jasongrigsby, grigs, cloudfour[/tags]

The one ugly point in my digital lifestyle on my Blackberry has been calendar synchronization. I use Google Calendar to manage my schedule, and our family uses the shared calendar features to keep everyone on the same page while still being able to separate events as needed.

As noted previously, there hadn’t been a good synchronization solution for Blackberry users with Google Calendars. I’d been using gSyncIt which worked, but required a clunky three-way synchronization with Outlook in the middle.

Until today, when Google announced Google Sync, which lets me synchronize my Blackberry with Google Calendar, over the air, in real time.

It’s fairly straightforward… install the sync app on your phone, give it your Google credentials, and it’ll perform an initial sync. You can set options for whether you want it to synchronize automatically (which means every 2 hours, or anytime you update something on the Blackberry) or manually. You can download any number of Google calendars that you use, although you can only make Blackberry updates to your primary calendar (presumably because there is no way to indicate which calendar you’d want to use when entering an event in the Blackberry calendar app).

I didn’t run into any problems other than a couple of recurring events that had exceptions that didn’t sync 100% smoothly and created a couple duplicate events. Fortunately the Sync app allows you to clear the Blackberry and force an authoritative sync from the server, meaning that if things get messed up you can wipe the slate clean on one side.

I’m happy because I no longer have to do a desktop sync with Outlook just to get calendar entries moved. My wife is happy because now I can sync her calendar too, and she doesn’t have to remember to enter shared events onto my calendar. Life is grand.

Time will tell how things work long-term, but it’s great to see new options for increasing productivity. No word yet on which other devices might be supported in the future.

[tags]googlecalendar, blackberry, gcal, googlesync[/tags]

I really like EverNote. It’s perfect for my info storage needs. Except that I spend at least 2-4 hours a day mobile, and it’s useless via my Blackberry.
[Tags]evernote, blackberry[/tags]

T-Mobile has had a Blackberry e-mail outage all day.  At first it was just the Portland area, but now it’s affecting folks nationwide.  I just got off the phone with their technical support, and they still don’t have an ETA for a fix.

What I found most amusing was this statement from support rep Christina:

The outage is showing as affecting 100% of subscribers, so that pretty much means everybody.

Ya think?

[tags]t-mobile, tmobile, techsupport[/tags]

I subscribe to a few hundred RSS feeds, and one of my planned uses when I got a Blackberry was to be able to read those feeds while mobile. I knew that Google had a mobile interface for Google Reader, but I wasn’t sure how things would work out. After using the device for a couple weeks and having read what is likely 1,000+ entries on the device, here’s what has emerged as my workflow:

1. Open Google Reader in the browser: http://www.google.com/reader/m/view
2. Scan the list of items.
3. Based on the headlines, open the ones that I know will be relatively quick reads.
4. For posts that require more in depth reading, or many external links, or I might want to blog about, use the Star feature to mark it for review.
5. Once I’ve read everything on a screen, use the “Mark these items as read” link.
6. The next screen of items will load and I’ll start the process again.

The biggest thing I’ve realized: Headlines REALLY matter. Since I’m not seeing snippets of the feed items, whether or not an item gets read is based entirely on the headline and blog name.

If anyone has a suggestion on how to make things smoother, I’m always open for suggestions. How do you read feeds on a Blackberry?

[tags]rss, googlereader, blackberry[/tags]

Since I got my Blackberry, several folks have asked (in person, on Twitter, via e-mail) why I didn’t get the iPhone. It’s a pretty easy answer.

I wanted the phone for messaging, reading feeds, Twittering, and phone calls. Not listening to music, not video, not trying to make a fashion/social statement.

The Blackberry’s actual keys and messaging-oriented software beat what the IPhone has to offer, and the Blackberry was 25% of the price.

It was a pretty easy choice.

[tags]blackberry, iphone[/tags]

I’ve now had my Blackberry for five days and feel I can comment a bit more on the experience. If you want to see my first two posts about the device, go here or here.

Overall I’m pretty satisfied. I used to spend 10-15 minutes in the morning reading e-mail and critical feeds before I left the house; now I can do that on the train and either sleep in a few more minutes, or make myself a better lunch. Some further random thoughts on specific features:

• I’m still getting used to the bigger size device when holding it as a phone. Be sure to try this out before you buy one… it’s different. It works fine for me but I’m pretty sure it would annoy some folks.
• The browser works well and renders most mobile sites without any issues. So far my only site-specific complaint is that the mobile version of Metroblogging Portland won’t let you post comments. Twitter is lovely.
• The calendar is synchronizing wonderfully with Outlook 2007 on my desktop. I’m using gSyncit to keep Outlook and Google Calendar in sync.
• I gave the battery a full charge on Thursday night when I bought it. I have yet to charge it again. It’s been turned off for about 7 hours at night and had light voice and moderate data usage. I suspect I’ll charge it tonight but am impressed with the battery life thus far.
• The task list sucks. Not being able to easily view categories, or any info on the main screen other than the description makes it cumbersome to do much. I’ve looked at NextAction! but am not sure if I’m ready to plunk down $40 on a task list. Palm version 1.0 did better than the current state of Blackberry task management.

Like I said, I’m pretty happy. This will probably end my blackberry posts unless I run into something particularly blogworthy.

[tags]blackberry, gsyncit, mobileweb[/tags]

One of my major issues when looking at a Blackberry was the integration with Gmail.  From what I’d read, it worked, but I was still a bit leery of the push e-mail feature and potential delays.

My fears were unfounded.  I couldn’t ask for a smoother Blackberry/Gmail integration experience.  If you’re not familiar with the Blackberry, the term “push” e-mail describes the fact that the e-mail is pushed to the device by a server over-the-air, rather than having the device go poll for new mail at some interval using POP.  Setting up Gmail for the Blackberry is darned simple”

1. Log onto the Blackberry Internet Server (BIS) control panel through your provider (in my case, T-Mobile).
2. Choose the Add an Account option.
3. Put in your Gmail e-mail address and password.
4. There is no step 4.

That’s it.  Your Gmail messages will now be sent directly to your Blackberry.  Very quickly.  I usually have Gmail open in a tab in Firefox when I’m at my desk, and what I’ve seen is that the messages arrive on my Blackberry before they show up on the web.  I’d say that’s seamless.

[tags]blackberry, gmail[/tags]

Last night I became a Blackberry user.  I’m excited about the communication options this will give me at times when I’ve previously been unconnected.

I now have a Blackberry 8700g with service through T-Mobile.

Here are my thoughts on the first few hours:

• I was very impressed with the purchase experience.  Total time in the store was probably only 20 minutes since I knew what I wanted and the sales representative didn’t waste my time.
• Activation was perfect.  Voice was active before I walked out of the store, and data was active by the time I got home and plugged it in.  I was told that data activation could take up to 24 hours, but my experience was closer to 24 minutes.
• Setting up push e-mail through my Gmail account was very easy.
• I haven’t yet figured out a good way to get the thing out of the belt holster without accidentally pushing at least one button.
• I wish that the mobile version of Google Reader would automatically mark things as read without me having to explicitly do it for every 10 items.
• I currently use a Palm for most of my PIM functions; this weekend I’ll be moving contacts and schedules to the Blackberry and will blog about how that goes.  I know I’m in for some challenges… why?  We use Google Calendar for our home calendar.

[tags]blackberry, t-mobile, 8700g[/tags]