Technologizer

What, another BlackBerry outage?

New BlackBerry Bold hits AT&T

…and T-Mobile has it too.

Screenshots of Google’s music service?

Google’s music partners: LaLa, iLike

Windows 7 pre-selling like hotcakes.

Apple to PCs: It’s war!

Bing to get Facebook, Twitter?

Time Warner Cable security hole.

RIM working on Webkit browser.

Why Nook’s a Kindle Killer.

Gizmodo reviews new white MacBook.

________________________

Like 5Words? Subscribe via RSS.

The Boy Genius Report says that it is “pretty much confirmed” that Research In Motion will integrate full Flash and Silverlight run time support into its BlackBerry Web browser. If true, that would be a significant step in the transformation of smart phones into functional mini computers.

Flash and Silverlight are not just about games and streaming videos; the run times power Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). Adobe is promoting Flash to be used as a front end for business applications, and Microsoft is positioning Silverlight for business apps.

At SD Times, I have covered component makers that are releasing Silverlight controls (data grids, charts, UI controls) for line of business applications. After all, Silverlight is a subset of the .NET Framework, which is used for business applications.

With HTML 5, Web applications will become even more common, because it will have a built-in application container. Other techniques such as AJAX will also enable Web applications to run within a phone’s browser. (Nokia is betting that standard AJAX Web applications will become popular across its entire portfolio of S60 devices.)

Supporting Flash and Silverlight, assuming it happens, will bring a greater variety of applications to BlackBerry devices. Developers will be able to run their applications on Blackberries using the skills that they have today –without having to learn any specialized RIM technologies. That’s the way it should be; skills should be portable.

By embracing Flash and Silverlight, RIM would break out of the walled garden that smartphones have existed in, making itself more attractive and accessible to application makers. Consumers will win by being able to do more with their devices.

BlackBerry maker RIM is a remarkably successful maker of handheld devices and has been so for a very long time–but it doesn’t get a fraction of the press given to that phone-industry upstart Apple. Today, however, RIM is the subject of multiple upbeat stories. An analyst says it and Apple will lead the smartphone market. Fortune has a long and largely positive feature on the company (focusing on the competition with Apple) and says it’s something Apple isn’t: the fastest-growing company in the world.

Seems like a good time for a T-Poll:

A TechCrunch article citing research by SquareTrade, a company that sells insurance plans for smartphones, says that Apple’s iPhone is “an accident magnet.” I wouldn’t have drawn that same conclusion.

SquareTrade’s report, “One-Third of iPhones Fail Over 2 Years, Mostly From Accidents,” should be viewed with skepticism. For starters, while SquareTrade used  a sample of many thousand smartphones covered by its warranty products, it didn’t cleanse its data (for instance by removing unlocked phones), and performed no statistical tests. Rightfully, the report includes the disclaimer:

SquareTrade has made efforts to ensure that the data we present is correct. SquareTrade makes no warranty, express or implied, about the accuracy of the data. SquareTrade is an independent third party, and has no affiliation with any of the handset manufacturers cited in this study. Users of the information in this document acknowledge that SquareTrade cannot be he liable for any damages whatsoever to any individual, organization, company, industry group or representative arising from the use of this data.

TechCrunch seized on the report’s findings that over 20% of iPhones have been damaged in the last 22 months, with cracked screens being the leading cause of damage. But the SquareTrade report doesn’t report on damage rates for other phone models, so it’s impossible to judge whether iPhones are any more likely to crack (or croak altogether) than other brands. Phones, after all, are more likely to get dropped than desktop PCs, HDTVs, or printers–no matter who manufactured them.

The study does say that iPhones are “significantly more reliable” than phones manufactured by Palm and RIM (9.9% of iPhones cited in the survey malfunctioned, versus 15.3% of BlackBerry and 19.9% of Treo phones). And it says that the iPhone 3G is a more reliable handset than the original iPhone.

My statistics are a bit rusty, but a common test called a T-test would have shown whether there was any significance difference between the iPhone’s likelihood of being damaged versus its competitors. The same goes for its supposedly higher manufacturing quality. Bottom line: It’s worth thinking twice before drawing conclusions about the iPhone from a single survey or news report. Colorful graphs always don’t tell us much.

Special late Friday afternoon edition!

Facebook to launch video chat?

iPhone SlingPlayer: pricey, selling well.

Rumor: iPods Nano with cameras.

Zappos: from shoes to electronics.

iPhone 3.0: background apps permitted?

New BlackBerry Storm sans SurePress?

Sony Pictures CEO hates Internet.

Netbooks aren’t about to expire.

More on Thursday’s Google outage.

Shazam iPhone app sparks lawsuits.

Never assume RIM is toast:

BlackBerry Curve outells the iPhone.

Two trends conspiring against Microsoft.

11.6″ EeePC on its way.

Navigon exits North American market.

“Houdini’s” a great phone name.

MySpace formulates its turnaround strategy.

Myst for iPhone: It’s humongous!

WiiMotion Plus on sale.

The White House gets social.

The world’s lamest cell phones.

Hey, BlackBerry fans, good news:

Spy shots: Skyfire’s BlackBerry browser.

YouTube gets a chat feature.

New Ubuntu available for download.

Microsoft: still under antitrust watch.

$9000 Leica camera: pretty, white.

MSI readying Android-based netbooks?

OQO’s future doesn’t look bright.

Trade your HD-DVDs for Blu-Ray.

Lost laptops cost $50,000. Supposedly.

Asus releases a 17.3″ notebook.

Amazon deletes bribe-revealing reviews.

I got real excited when I heard about the new Facebook application 1.5 for BlackBerry phones, thinking it would provide the same functionality as is delivered on my iPod Touch or my wife’s iPhone. Question is, does it even come close to the iPhone interface, or does it leverage the strength of the BlackBerry?

I instantly appreciated the following improvements on my BlackBerry Bold:

• Viewing comments on someone’s status.  Hard to imagine, but no, you couldn’t do that before on a BlackBerry.
• Commenting on a status update and commenting on those comments.
• Connecting your Facebook contacts to your BlackBerry’s contacts.  Here is where it gets really interesting.  While in Facebook 1.5, you choose a contact and it gives you the option choose to “Connect to BlackBerry Contact”.  You then get the chance to “Select Contact” from your BlackBerry address or create a “New Contact”.  If the person already in your BlackBerry address book it marks that contact as a Facebook contact then places the avatar picture in the BlackBerry address book.  If it’s a new contact and you choose “New Contact”, it creates a new one in the BlackBerry address book.  In either case, if you don’t have the person’s phone number, it will send a message asking them for it.
• Connecting your Facebook messages to the BlackBerry’s inbox. Message integration is easy to explain… you see Facebook messages in the BlackBerry’s universal inbox with a Facebook icon to let you know it’s from Facebook.  You can also go into BlackBerry messages and select “Facebook”, to send a message over FaceBook.  I can also go into my BlackBerry address book, choose a friend on FaceBook, then either send that person a message, write on his or her wall, or poke him or her.  This leverages the BlackBerry’s universal inbox and address book.
• Connecting your FaceBook calendar to BlackBerry’s.  I did not try out the calendar function as I don’t use that in Facebook.  I did go into the BlackBerry calendar and it would allow me to pick “Send using FaceBook.”

So the new FaceBook 1.5 BlackBerry application does leverage BlackBerry’s strengths.  This is impressive to me as I believe for my uses, BlackBerry has a superior universal inbox, calendar, and address book.  But I still want some of the items available on the iPhone, such as the application bar and the ability to easily view photos, links,  the live feed, notes, and other apps.  I can’t have it all!

If you have a BlackBerry and want to give the new Facebook a spin, try it out here. Here are a few images of it in action:

Lotsa news tidbits this Wednesday:

Windows 7 users: happy campers.

More BlackBerry Storm 2 rumors.

Nintendo DS: pocket video player.

Apple sued over touch screens.

200 million people use Facebook.

Almost all e-mail is spam.

More and more Twitterers.

Acer unleashes tons of notebooks.

Better broadband? FCC’s getting going.

Word’s father returns to earth.

.

Care to read some news?

Google searches return local info.

New logos for Intel chips.

New BlackBerry Storm in September?

Problem! Mysterious missing Twitter avatars.

Boxee rolls out API, fixes.

Dual-thumbstick PSP for Christmas?

iTunes variable pricing goes live.

Arrington on FriendFeed: cool, unused?

Drobo introduces eight-bay storage.

AP: hands off our content.

It’s baseball season, everybody! Finally!

MLB’s superambitious Web video plan.

New FriendFeed: Fast. Very fast.

Sony movies coming to YouTube?

New iPhones: The suspense builds!

IBM: Sorry Sun, no sale.

Please welcome the…Obama PC?

Unfinished Wolverine movie’s Web premiere.

More Android devices from T-Mobile.

Firefox hits 22% market share.

Hey, BlackBerries are still booming.

Google, buy Twitter! Or don’t!

Rumor: Google’s buying Twitter. Maybe.

Digg launches short-url service.

Microsoft alert: PowerPoint is vulnerable.

Texas decides it hates Vista.

RIM has sold 50,000,000 BlackBerries.

EVO: Linux-based game console.

Motorola’s Evoke phone: surprisingly interesting.

Sweden cracks down on P2P.

Ritz Camera closes 300 stores.

[NOTE: Response to Technologizer's 5Words has been terrific, but many readers have told us that they think even five-word descriptions of stories are too wordy and wasteful. So as of today, we're relaunching the feature as 1Word. Terse enough for ya? If not, we'd be happy to go to monosyllabic words. 0Words would be doable, too. Just let us know.]

Uneventful.

Imitative.

Multilingual.

Fired!

Banned.

Tiny.

Fraudulent.

Bankrupt.

Amusing!

Buggy.

Downsizing.

Android?

Boy Genius Report found a bargain on the BlackBerry Bold over at AT&T’s site: If you’re willing to buy a refurbished phone (not a big deal to my mind, especially in these times) and ready to sign up for a two-year contract, you can get the Bold for free. And–the saints be praised–it looks like there’s no rebate paperwork involved. The BlackBerry Bold may not have the buzz of certain other phones that also reference a piece of fruit in their names, but it’s a great phone. And AT&T charges $550 without a contract, $299 (after a $100 rebate) for a new one on contract, so free represents a steep discount. The offer, which BGR says appears to be good only today and only online, is here.

BusinessWeek is reporting that RIM is close to opening an online application store for its BlackBerry smartphones that will provide its customers with an experience similar to Apple’s App Store. Microsoft, Nokia, and Palm application stores are expected to follow.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but for Apple’s competitors, it’s a matter of necessity. Apple offers iPhone users a seamless experience for discovering, purchasing, and upgrading their applications. The competition lags far behind, but is preparing to counter punch.

The first punch comes from RIM. It will launch its application store in Las Vegas at the CTIA wireless conference, according to the BusinessWeek report. RIM has a fair number of applications available for its platform, but the selection is still limited in comparison to other mobile platforms. That shortcoming was something that I did not like about my BlackBerry, as well as having to reboot my phone every time I installed a new application.

Microsoft’s upcoming store, which it calls Marketplace, has a lot of potential. If Microsoft knows anything, it’s how to keep developers that use its platforms and tools happy. There are already a good number of applications available for Windows Mobile, and I think that Marketplace stands a good chance of being be a decent offering.

The same goes for Nokia. The Symbian operating system is still the most widely used mobile operating system in the world, and there is no shortage of applications available for its devices. The problem has been finding and installing them.

If other phone OS companies open decent storefronts, the iPhone will be less differentiated from the crowd. But Apple may have already gained brand loyalty during the iPhone’s period of App-Store uniqueness. I’m not what you would call a fanboy, but there would have to be a really compelling offering for me to switch to another device from my iPhone. Regardless of what I buy next, I’m just happy that I will have better products to pick from as a consequence of Apple’s leadership and the rest of the industry’s tendency to follow its lead.