Developers Defecting From BlackBerry 163
jfruhlinger writes "Mobile app developers who build for multiple platforms need to figure out how to conserve their resources somehow, and many are choosing to do so by not bothering to build apps for BlackBerry phones. It's a combination of declining market share and the general difficulty of building apps for the BlackBerry platform, one developer told Bloomberg: 'RIM brought in a touchscreen and mixed it with a thumbwheel, a keyboard and shortcut keys, it made it really difficult and expensive to develop across devices.'"
Wait a second, (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wait a second, (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't had a BlackBerry for a while now, but if I remember right, I may have kept an SSH client on there, and I think once I downloaded an Infocom player, just for fun. But overall, I just never considered downloading apps to be part of the BlackBerry experience. Maybe that's why I find the "DOODZ, WHERE DA APPS AT??" attitude of a lot of iPhone/Android users a little baffling. To me, BlackBerry's software was well-designed and reliable, and it allowed me to do pretty much everything I expect a communications device to do, so I couldn't really picture what else I'd need to downlaod. But then again, I guess to me, a mobile phone is something that spends most of its time in your pocket. That doesn't seem to be how a lot of phone users see it.
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Because these are not mobile phones, they are mobile computers that just happen to also offer phone service. Mine is used for data far more than voice.
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This is true of all modern smartphones (I have an Android phone now, and had iPhone before - both were used for data far more than voice).
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Because these are not mobile phones, they are mobile computers that just happen to also offer phone service.
FWIW, I'd say that they're as much the spiritual successor to the PDA as they are a phone. They're not called that because (a) PDAs kind of went of out fashion and declined commercially a while back and (b) they evolved from the direction of the phone market.
I'm not claiming that they're the same as a ten-year-old Palm. I'm saying that if the PDA market had continued to be successful, they would likely have mutated into something very similar to the iPhone et al anyway.
The fact that they're seen as "pho
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I've been waiting to buy a smartphone until I could find one that would replace my old Newtons as personal data managers. Nothing since has truly impressed me until the Android series. With my Dell Streak 5 I can truly carry all my data around in my p
Typical Blackberry user (Score:2)
To me, BlackBerry's software was well-designed and reliable, and it allowed me to do pretty much everything I expect a communications device to do, so I couldn't really picture what else I'd need to download.,
That's because like every other Blackberry user I ever knew, you NEVER LEFT THE EMAIL CLIENT.
Not even to talk...
There's a whole world of interesting applications for a smart phone if you don't respond to emails the second they arrive.
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That's because like every other Blackberry user I ever knew, you NEVER LEFT THE EMAIL CLIENT. Not even to talk...
Most pre-iPhone smart phone users used the BlackBerry as a portable email client (and breakout game for the subway), while they maintained a regular cell-phone for talking. I can probably count the number of times I received a call from a BlackBerry on one hand, and those were only in situations when the regular phone had a problem. BlackBerries used to pick up ridiculous amounts of background noise (and maybe still do).
TLDR -- you're right: many probably never left the email client to talk... They DID prob
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That's because like every other Blackberry user I ever knew, you NEVER LEFT THE EMAIL CLIENT.
It's more than that. On the BlackBerry, the email client is more of a unified inbox. Your text messages arrive in the same inbox, as do voicemail notifications. The whole thing is organized in a way that makes sense to me: chronologically, just like my inbox on Thunderbird. That's one reason why I seem to be one of the few people on Earth who actually likes Motorola's Motoblur skin for Android. It gives me a UI that's pretty much how the BlackBerry does it, but it also throws Facebook messages into the same
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At my work, our oncall phone (aka Uncle phone, a derivative of Big Brother phone) is Blackberry with unlimited data and SMS and ridiculously low prime talk time like 200 minutes. One time, upper manager wanted to move us to "smartphone" during the iPhone/Android wind blew its direction to our department. If we are going to move to "smartphone", I specifically asked for more than 24 hours of idle standby time even with extended battery. In short, no smartphone we tested ever lasted more than 12 hours in s
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Mine does 24 hours now, no sweat. 48 hours is pushing it. My BlackBerry definitely outperformed my current phone on battery.
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Seriously, why can they not implement proper IMAP support in a device that's designed mainly for email?
What did you find deficient about it? What did you want it to do that it couldn't do?
(I'm really still a POP guy myself, because IMAP has always seemed clunky and prone to data loss, to me. I'd rather download multiple copies of messages to different devices than trust my phone or some random client not to do something catastrophic to my mail folders. If I remember right, actually, what I did was setup a forwarding rule on my mail server to send copies of my incoming mail to my BlackBerry email address. Doi
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Two way syncing of read/unread status. If I read an email on my computer's email client, it would be marked as read on my BB. If I read an email on my BB, it would not be marked as read on the server, so later when I'd check my email I would have to go through all of my messages again and figure out which ones I had already read.
Also, deleting an email from my computer's mail client would not remove it from my BB. So if I went through and removed a bunch of spam, or moved mail to different folders on the se
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another thing is contacts and calendar schedule. oh boy, i don't know what i would do if i had to import schedule on multiple places.
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Those are valid points. I just don't have the same usage pattern, or (apparently) the same mail volume.
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Thank you for restoring my sanity.
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What did you find deficient about it? What did you want it to do that it couldn't do?
You must not get a lot of emails. What's the point of email on a mobile device if I have to re-sort through my emails when I get to my desk? I don't want to have to keep track of who i've replied to and what messages I've already read and deleted. After IMAP, I really can't go back to POP. It's just a freaking mess really.... Our company uses gmail, and the IMAP implementation with the iPhone mail client has been pretty flawless (users don't even need IT to set this up...). Now the IMAP behavior with t
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I'd rather trust my mail server to keep track of my mail than hope the my phone/desktop/etc. all have valid, non-conflciting, easy-to-backup copies. And I need my mail to be sorted, or I would never be able to check "important" messages on a mobile client. But that's mostly personal preference.
The problem with the RIM "mail client" -- IMAP or POP -- is that it A) requires you to send your password to RIM B) only supports unread messages in a single folder, even with polling C) does not reliable sync read/un
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I feel like the initial attraction of the BlackBerry was that it was the only device of its kind. Then other smartphones started appearing, but they would only poll your inboxes every so often, and they didn't seem as well integrated as the BlackBerry. Now that's largely changed. I'm not sure how it works (or how it jibes with RIM's patents), but my Motorola handset features email delivery that's at least "pseudo-push" if not actual push. Stuff like Exchange ActiveSync policies are supported on a lot of han
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And interestingly enough, on the developer side they still have almost all of the same broken APIs from version 1.0 of the OS. That side doesn't get upgraded.
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How did you do email? I like the security features on BB -- real encryption & wipe -- but the lack of a mail client makes it all but useless without third-party apps. And RIM's refusal to allow mail clients to integrate into the built-in messaging system make it even worse -- even once you get a mail app working the base OS still can't do email.
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And that would be because all Blackberry apps suck. On an iPhone (I'll use this as my example because I have one so I have experience with it) you have plenty of quality apps to choose from. And don't let the word apps distract you, because yes I know it has become a word that applies to all those stupid fart apps as well.
But things like Skype, Netflix, Pandora, Grooveshark, TomTom, Dropbox, facebook, weather channel, google voice, simplenote, WatchESPN, MLB AtBat, etc. etc. etc.
If you think you have no int
Re:Wait a second, (Score:5, Funny)
FYI. Here is a screenshot [ubergizmo.com] of Angry Birds on Blackberry.
It's not true (Score:5, Funny)
All thirteen of them said so.
Does it matter? (Score:3, Informative)
This also raises the question of whether or not RIM's decision to allow Android apps to be ported to the Playbook has further influenced developers to abandon creating native applications as they believe that in the future this capability might be extended to BlackBerry's phones.
This in stark contrast to Apple's decision to limit third party development platforms on iOS to a large extent should make for an interesting comparison several years down the road when we can see how these choices have impacted developers and their choices regarding whether to develop native applications for RIM devices.
Yes it matters (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering that with the Playbook they added the ability to support apps written for Android
No, they said they PLAN to add that support. When it will be delivered? Who can say.
they could essentially decide to do the same for their phones.
For existing phones? The ones with no Android specific buttons? The ones that were never built intending to run Android?
No.
The reason all this matters is that there is no coherent story about BB development anywhere (since the tablets use Air and the phones do not), and what development was going on was with a nightmare API (I looked over it once to evaluate doing a port to BB and ran away).
Blackberry has the same problem Nokia did, BB is just much more entrenched and harder to shake loose. But they haven't done anything to firm up the grip they had, and when it goes it will go fast.
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A rigged demo does not mean it's done and delivered. If you're the guy who bought the Playbook, go ahead and fire it up (If you can't find it it's over there, propping open the kitchen door.) Now see if you can run an Android app on it. No, you can't. And now the kitchen door has slammed shut. Nice going.
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The bigger question is... why aren't we still not all developing for a common denominator, like HTML+javascript?
The way things are organized now means that we'll end up in a nasty monopolistic situation.
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Unquestionably, this is the new OS/2. I've already started steering clients away from developing native PlayBook apps. It's a dying platform, the looming prospect of Android compatibility will dampen demand, there's just no w
Ask Slashdot (Score:2)
What phone should I move to now?
I bought a PALM centro because it was easy to sync with Evolution on my Ubuntu Desktop. Palm began to lose market share rapidly. Then palm abandoned local sync with the Pre. Then palm got bought by HP, and has apparently disappeared.
So instead, I bought a Blackberry Bold, because it was almost as easy to sync with my Ubuntu desktop. Then Blackberry began to lose market share...
So tell me, slashdot, what phone can I move to now that will allow me to sync easily and locally
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Then I use OCR software to identify the text, and copy/paste the calendar entries into the computer's calendar program.
The best part? The scanner is WiFi. WiFi!!
Sync with no cables! I'm living the future.
Re:Ask Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
stick with blackberry, it's not going anywhere, yes they are loosing market "share" but only because the market is growing, BB total sales have continues to increase, but the smart-phone market has increased at a faster pace, hence the "loss" is no loss at all. It's just this crazy perception where only percentages count, not reality.
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Go with an iPhone. Your history of killing the leading platforms when you migrate to them would be beneficial to the up-and-comer companies that I have in my stock portfolio.
TIA!
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Oh yeah. And the iPhone will work so well with his Ubuntu desktop...
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Oh wait, I was thinking you wanted to migrate to the next phone manufacturer rapidly losing market share.
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Just search for iCal on the Android Market (it seems the app called "iCal Import/Export" should do the trick for you)
Now, you didn't say whether you wanted online sync or offline sync, so if that app doesn't do the trick for you, note that the calendar data on an Android phone can easily be gotten through its Content Provider or through its underlying SQLite database, so it should be easy enough for a budding programmer on Ubuntu to write a small utility for that.
Also the last I heard Ubuntu was centralizi
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Let us know next time you get a new phone. That way we know what to avoid. ;) (j/k)
RIM already noticed this, responded (Score:3)
On the plus side, you can't accuse RIM of being ignorant of this problem, or of not taking it seriously.
RIM's decision to support Android apps on their new QNX-based OS must have been very painful and probably resulted in a backlash from partners who had invested a lot in their existing app platform.
The upside is that the Playbook and the next gen of BB phones will have access to the vast store of apps that consumers want these days in spite of the lack of developer support described in TFA.
Customers Defecting from Blackberry (Score:2)
Blackberries are thriving! (Score:2)
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Flash back to this... [youtube.com]
Great... (Score:3)
With less and less attention being given to the RIM platform, it's just going to make it harder and harder to get a RIM job.
dev of crap app complains due to few downloads (Score:2)
I program for BlackBerry (Score:2)
I am someone who has made several BlackBerry apps, the most recently was last month. To me, this is no surprise. If anyone has actually worked with the BB platform at all lately, they wouldn't be surprised either. The first point that must be addressed is: you have to target BBOS 4.5 or 4.6 to reach the maximum number of devices. Now, you may say "well, I have to target Android 2.0 or 2.1, which is the same.", except, it's not. BBOS 4.5 and 4.6 are awful, and they lack many features. In fact, even BBOS6 sti
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The first point that must be addressed is: you have to target BBOS 4.5 or 4.6 to reach the maximum number of devices.
Well, yes and no. Targeting 5.0 gets you something like 85% of all apps (the stats are at the RIM site) - and a higher percentage when you consider consumer-only devices, those who are free to install whatever apps they want.
That being said, you certainly aren't limited to targeting just 4.5, 4.6. If you build your app well, it's fairly trivial to include platform-specific functionality for 5.0, 6.0; with some minimal effort you can abstract out the s
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Yeah, they have their annual worldwide meeting in the phone booth behind the RIM HQ.
Re:Blackberry is the corporate standard (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd rather blame it on the perceived "air" around them. Blackberries have the "air" of being business-y and important, making the user some kind of nobility, while androids and iPhones have that stink of the commoner around them who uses it for petty games and enjoyment rather than important business.
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Blackberries have the "air" of being business-y and important, making the user some kind of nobility...
I would have used the word 'heir'. Blackberries feel old.
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C'mon, everyone who ever worked in IT and had to somehow integrate Blackberry into their system will be able to tell you a story about some manager coming in, getting his Blackberry and looking like a child who found the prized toy he always wanted under the Christmas Tree.
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It's still quite entertaining to see your 6-figures manager look wistfully at you because you got an Android from your company while he has to have the Blackberry. Once the new car smell washes off and they've shown off to everyone they know, they start realizing that they can't play with their toy.
Re:Blackberry is the corporate standard (Score:4, Informative)
I'm hearing through the grapevine that Blackberry's corporate position isn't all that secure either. I know of one medium-sized company that has been replacing Blackberries with iPhones, and talking to their tech guy, they may be shutting down their BES server this fall if all goes according to plan. Since integration into Exchange, which is the big deal, isn't all that hard any more, the limited lock in that RIM had is gone.
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Since integration into Exchange, which is the big deal, isn't all that hard any more, the limited lock in that RIM had is gone.
If integration with Exchange isn't a big deal then why can't ActiveSync give the iPhone the same capabilities as a BlackBerry with BES?
Just curious.
Re:Blackberry is the corporate standard (Score:4, Informative)
That's not quite true. The BB is a secure smart-ish-phone which makes it ideal for corporate/government use. It's locked down and encrypted.
Don't get on your platform high horse or anything, something happening too often here (get off my lawn) but ...
Android isn't secure at all. Until Android phones start coming with hardware based encryption we can't use them, it basically rules them out at the first stage. People are pushing to use Android but it is a no go right now. Same for Windows Phone 7, no hardware encryption = no use, although no-one is pushing for WP7.
We're slowly moving to the iPhone 4 through Exchange and a MDM, people want to use the iPhone, we can configure it just as strongly as the BB and it has AES 256 hardware encryption. It's a win-win.
Call BS on secure (Score:2)
The BB is a secure smart-ish-phone which makes it ideal for corporate/government use. It's locked down and encrypted.
Right, it does all that and then sends everything through Canada BES servers.
Or sometimes has the traffic take a side trip through something like a Saudi scanner depending on what country you are in.
To my mind this is what will move a lot of companies to Android/iPhone, they actually have full control of the security, and do not have to wonder just what mode BES is in when execs go traveling.
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Of course we have our own BES. So yes, it is secure as we own everything about it and, regarding the BES, know where every packet goes.
No it does not do this "sends everything through Canada BES servers. Or sometimes has the traffic take a side trip through something like a Saudi scanner depending on what country you are in." and if you can list your sources that would be great.
Actual sources though, not an unsubstantiated blog post. Oh you are making random stuff up? OK then, off you go.
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Android has encryption all the way through. It had it officially since Android 3.0 and it had it in custom ROMs for the enterprise since at least version 1.6 (long before the iPhone had anything remotely secure). Why else do you think some of our US Special Forces have chosen to standardize solely on it?
Another advantage of Android is that some of its models can been manufactured in the US, and the same can not be said of the iPhones/iPads. And that replacing the batteries, or using cheap larger extended b
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And yes, before I forget, Android has had "hardware-based" encryption, even memory card based encryption available, since at least version 1.6. It wasn't officially in there, but since Android was open source, it didn't prevent researchers, defense contractors, and OEMs from baking hardware-encryption directly into their own versions (something that they were completely forbidden to do with iOS).
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This. If you leave your devices set to a 4 digit pin then really you are asking for trouble.
Setting your device to alpha-numeric-symbol and enforcing it through exchange or MDM is the way to go.
Also set your devices to auto-wipe after 10 password attempts to prevent brute force or guessing at poor passwords.
The reason you wouldn't stick your head out for the iPhone yet is you don't know enough, do your own research and don't go on 'news you heard some time ago.'
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To do that they'd have to first brute force the full disk encryption we have on our devices. Security in depth, don't rely on one layer alone.
Anyway, if someone has physical access to your device, plus time and/or money, then it's game over.
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The normal way to do that is that the human entered password encrypts a longer secret. The longer secret (or secrets) encrypts the drive. When you change the password then you do reencrypt the longer secret. That way you change the decryption password without re-encrypting the whole device.
If you think about it there's really no other way to do it. If the user can enter the device with just a PIN then that PIN has to open the encrypted stores up.
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This is not exactly true. Some parts might be secure because they're encrypted and whatnot, but the phones themselves are easy to jailbreak/root and get access to everything you have in there.
Furthermore, the state of Android updates leaves most phones frozen in time in relation to security updates... And iPhone's encryption, at least, has already been broken by a Russian firm.
Not saying they are insecure, but stating they are the same is dangerous. The reason RIM is liked it's because it has stood the test
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You sure about that?
Source or I do not believe it. I highly doubt every time you change your pin/id method it re-encrypts everything on your phone with the new key (that would require quite a while, even with symmetric encryption). I believe the problem is that all (default) keys are generated during production and then used for everything.
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I stand corrected, the key is the one encrypted with the used defined password that by default is 4 digits.
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but,
"If the passcode was too long to bruteforce, the company said it was possible to bypass this by hacking what are called "escrow keys," which are created by Apple applications such as iTunes and stored on a user's computer."
So still not BB like
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Like many products, it became a standard even though a new and better product took it's place.
Not that I'm a BB fan, but what exactly makes iOS/Android that much better?
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For one, just read the thread bellow this one.
Also, the intuitive interface, the great phones and... APPS. For any/everything.
The only thing BB's still have going for them is the encryption and (some) of the physical keyboards, that I consider the best qwerty keyboards on the market.
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I have mine locked to the bottom bar. Easy to find on on home screen. I also only keep frequently used apps on any of my homescreens. No clutter.
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a much better OS
Thanks for the tautology.
higher quality devices
[citation needed]
availability of applications
Now this is legitimate. BB suffers a downward cycle in this respect, due to the topic of TFA.
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It is not a tautology, go learn about the OSes used in each of these devices and compare them features wise. Even RIM admitted their OS sucks, that is why they bought QNX.
As to my preference that would be that it runs some form of linux so I can have busybox and all the other stuff I like. Android comes close.
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"Prudent and Simple Procedures Render Hacker Tool Useless" doesn't make much of a headline.
iPhones can have alphanumeric passwords of eight or more characters; I'm certain Android phones can as well. You do that, and the only demonstrated way of cracking an iPhone is by getting access to the system you run iTunes on, but if someone steals that and you don't encrypt ~/ you're going to be pretty hosed no matter what phone you own.
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The only reason blackberry is still in existence is because corporations and IT teams don't want to migrate to a new platform. Blackberry phones aren't anymore secure than an Android of iPhone with the proper corporate sync apps installed
And how does one load 'the proper corporate sync apps'? They create an itunes account for each phone? Or does one purchase of the app qualify the entire organization?
How does IT manage software roll outs to a fleet of iphones?
Sorry, iphones suck in IT. They're ok in environ
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It mostly it answers them with useless responses.
Here is how to deploy a custom enterprise app for example:
The process for deploying your own applications is:
1 Register for enterprise development with Apple.
2 Sign your applications using your certificate.
3 Create an enterprise distribution provisioning profile that authorizes devices to use
applications youâ(TM)ve signed.
4 Deploy the application and the enterprise distribution provisioning profile to your
usersâ(TM) computers.
5 Instruct users to ins
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4 - wait I can't do this over the air?
An obvious problem that is fixed as of iOS5 and iCloud. I know it's not available yet, but as least it is on it's way.
Wait ... what... who is managing the itunes backups the end users? And where exactly is itunes installed again?
Once again, this is fixed via the new iCloud service. No longer will a computer be required to sync/backup an iOS device.
Apple's OOB support for iphones in the enterprise is half assed and pathetic.
Not going to argue with you about this - I agree it needs to be improved. The point is that those improvements will be here later this year.
And with regards to making employees install their own apps - it is not a big concern. An email could be provided with a U
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Point 4 - yes you can deliver over the air, its identical to the adhoc installation mechanism for general developers - in that case, you sign the app with the device IDs of the devices you wish to deploy to, Apple issues you the cert to do that signing, and then you put the packaged app up on a web server. The client down loads it, it installs and runs. If a device that isn't on the allowed list tries to install it, it fails.
The corporate enterprise method is similar, except that each device you bring int
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The corporate enterprise method is similar, except that each device you bring into the business gets the corporate provisioning profile installed on it, you sign the app against that profile and deploy it as above.
But the corporate provisioning profile itself can't be delivered or updated over the air?
And installing the app requires each user take an action to visit the webserver and click on the link?
I don't think it's about security (Score:2)
Blackberry phones aren't anymore secure than an Android of iPhone with the proper corporate sync apps installed
I think security is a pretty small bit of it. I think it has more to do with BB enterprise applications, as well as the fact that the BB platform is pretty homogeneous. If you swap an employee between two or three different BB phones, you can count on the same desktop software working in the same way for all of them. You can also manage the remote data for all of them the same way.
In contrast, Android for all its strengths is a nightmare of conflicting setups. There is no consistent sync software tha
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Maybe for old companies who got on the mobile PDA bandwagon some time ago. We weren't big enough at the time (to justify the server license) and didn't have mobile coverage in a lot of places we worked, so we didn't bother.
5-6 years on, our standard became iPhone. The execs love them. Easy to use. Fairly easy to support. Can do other stuff. No third party shovelware required on the exchange box.
Interest from them in jumping ship to android? Interest in supporting android with the million differe
Re:Blackberry is the corporate standard (Score:5, Informative)
From an IT standpoint. Blackberry Enterprise sucks. Bailing on that is a must.
1. You need to install a server software to integrate with Exchange (unless you reroute all your email to some internet email service)
2. Not suppose to have Exchange and BES on the same server, so one more point of failure.
3. Said server requires....is it Java, Kerberos, and mixed Server OS environment combination that's broken? I don't know, I stopped trying to fix it. RIM didn't have a good explanation and their ultimate solution sucked.
4. Not fully integrated with Exchange, Exchange's mobile policy's don't push to it. Blackberry Server has it's own mobile policy I guess
Smartphones that talk to exchange are wham, bam, thank you ma'am. For BB, if you have the Java,Kerberos, mixed Server OS issue, you can't add new phones. If you can't get into your exchange server to do the MINOR configuration, you have bigger problems then not adding a new phone.
The only thing I wish they'd port to Exchange-capable phones is, RIM doing token/serialized authentication, removing the need to redo password on the phone each time it's changed.
In other words, you haven't read any documentation on the BB environment. Besides, BES supports more Exchange features than ActiveSync. And yes, BlackBerries have their own policy settings separate of Exchange with much, MUCH more control over the devices. This is something you would know if you would have actually read something about the BB platform.
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This is what I was going to say.
When BB was the majority, you had a reason to stick around. But there are new kids on the block that don't rely on developers to adapt to their stupidly absurd development environment.
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I've been saying this for years. Developing on the Blackberry was a nightmare...and I wasn't even on that team. Good riddance.
Developing for blackberry is pretty simple java. As much as I despise java, java has a pretty big developer community. For many many years, RIM has given away free documentation & SDK (unlike Apple). RIM doesn't make you sign an NDA. RIM gives away free blackberry emulator software so you can test your application on different models (unlike Apple).
RIM places no restrictions on i
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I'd agree with some of your points, except I had to investigate the potential of a BB version of an internal iPhone app last year - and fuck me, did the RIM documentation ever suck. Pages which changed content depending on how you arrived at them, pages with download links which resulted in 404 errors, pages which referred to tools which were out of date and no longer available. Eclipse plugins which didn't plugin without huge amount of effort, eventually resulting in having to revert to an older JDK (get