Blackberry Service Outage - Again!

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-news/?p=2071">http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-news/?p=2071</a><br /><br /><i>"The problem was first reported by users on forums around the Internet at around 3:00 A.M., but it appeared to be resolved quickly. Coming so close to the earlier outage, even staunch users and supporters from BlackBerry fan sites like RIMarkable are very unhappy, and they aren’t afraid to be vocal about it."</i><br /><br />This seemed to affect only those using the Blackberry Internet Service, which is usually an individual or small business using the carrier's service, as opposed to the Blackberry Enterprise Service that most large corporations tend to opt for. Regardless, that is two outages in one week. Their user base has to be a bit concerned about the reliability of the service.

[extravagant]

I recently made the switch to the pearl, and its absolutely a really bad phone, the OS is horrible, and who would think its actually unstable. Often, you have to take out the battery to reset the phone because it loses its connection to the internet, and my service books went missing once AND my email passwords changed in BIS and I couldn't figure out why I couldn't send emails.

Also, you can't do simple things that I was so use to on windows mobile, you can't even close programs easily (especially the media, you have to click menu, close repeatedly) and you cannot even stream music or video!

Not to mention how nasty ALL the home screen layouts are, why can't they at least copy windows mobile! Like how useless is the shortcuts ONLY on the homescreen, then you press the blackberry equivalent start button and now it just shows all of your icons...very unintuitive.

Not to mention there is no support for Windows Live Messenger and third party applications are extremely pricey and limited...and the nation wide outsages!

I think Blackberry is in for some real trouble, they were only successful because of the push email, now windows mobile has it and with windows mobile 7 coming soon, it will blow blackberry os out of the water, they just need to make a nice handset.

[r@dimus]

RIM isn't in trouble. They hold 41% of the US smartphone market as of the end of last year. Apple captured 28% with the iPhone, WM stands at 21%, and Palm is the bit player with 9%. However RIM will be in trouble if they don't put a lid on these outages. It's getting pretty rediculous.

Here's a tip that might help life go better with your Pearl. If you want to switch between apps hold down Alt and press the esc button. The esc button is the one on the right side of the trackball. Do that and you get a window with icons for all the apps that are currently running. It will automatically highlight the app you were in previously, so if you let go of the Alt key it will switch to that app. If you keep Alt held down you can probably use the trackball to select a different app.

As for your problems with your Pearl you're not alone. Prior to my AT&amp;T Tilt I was using a Blackberry 8700c. I've had to drop the battery out of it about as often as I have had to perform soft resets on my Tilt, and many of the time I've had to reset my Tilt was because I installed some app that turned out to be crapware or uninstalled something and it needed a reset to finish the job. Actually, most of my reset are from running backup jobs. Sprite backup requires you to do a reset before it starts the backup and another when the backup is done.

What I find amusing is reading all the posts from Blackberry addicts about how terrible WM is and how when they used it it was always crashing on them and doing all kinds of horrible things. I have to wonder what on earth these people were doing to their WM phones. Either that or they are shills for RIM. I'll admit that there are probably some bad WM phones out there, but seriously.

But in all fairness, Microsoft needs to get on the ball if they expect WM to be a top player. It's pretty clear that about 70% of the market (the iPhone and RIM buyers) have decided that they don't want to contend with a styuls, but 60% (iPhone, WM, &amp; Palm) have decided that they like touchscreens. IMO, they need to streamline the OS and find a way to hold the line on companies building lousey phones. From the WM7 screenshots I've seen it looks like they are heading that way.