Apps, Apples and Berries.

Apps, versus a competent browswer.

It is a known fact that Apple has the most amount of apps available for their iOS devices. It is also a known fact that RIM has a minute amount of apps for their BBOS devices, even lesser on their PlayBook.

Some PlayBook owners may argue that when you have a competent browser, the need for apps are greatly reduced, especially with the advent of html5 and the support of flash on the PlayBook. But I really don’t think thats the case, especially in a mobile device.

1. Screen Size - Constantly zooming in and out of a webpage is not fun. Having a well-conceived optimized app, text and user interface would be more usable.

2. Performance - Mobile device compromises on their performance. Having the need to constantly render multiple webpages in a single browser will definitely take more toll on the device, slower down the device. Whereas multi-tasking with apps would be more efficient as the background app could be dedicated less or no RAM. Making the app in the use work better.

3. Efficiency - I am not sure how true this is but I personally feel that if you have a dedicated app for a certain task, it means that most of the user interface contents and whatnots would be stored directly on your phone’s memory. The only thing the app has to do is to pull the contents over the network and load it, instead of loading the entire user interface every time you reload a webpage. Making it faster, and also uses less data. (as you know, carriers charge an arm or leg for excess use of data over the subscribed limit) Please correct me if i am wrong on this. Same thing as games. Flash games over internet, or native games? I am sure you know the answer to that.

So i think RIM really needs to start pushing for developer to adopt their QNX based platform. Creating a decent ecosystem for their customers. By decent i mean quality over quantity. I am sure it is already clear that apps are the way to go forward, at least for now. Just look at Apple and how successful they are. RIM really needs to get their act together and stop over-promising things. They still have two months to work and refine their OS 2.0, so do a good job and make sure you release it on time.

BlackBerry Goodness.

Just messing around trying to come up with a look for the BB10 with physical keyboard as that is the BB10 phone that i’m really looking forward to. Drew inspiration from ‘Milan’ Slider and PlayBook. The PlayBook is the only device on QNX currently so i thought it would be nice if the new BB10 devices share similar design cues. I lifted the keyboard from the bold 99XX (best keyboard ever!) and made only very subtle changes to its design to suit the more squarish look of the device. The back is the same material as the PlayBook, grippy and doesn’t leave much fingerprints.


I started with a version without the ‘answer call, menu, trackpad, back and end call buttons, as i find the bezel gestures of the PlayBook quite nice to use.

Please don’t mind my lousy photoshop skills. :p

with the running applications minimized. You can hardly see the application’s preview screens at all on the small screen. Also the aspect ration of the screen will be rather squarish and not suitable for the camera resolutions and viewing pictures. If i change it to a longer screen, the top swipe down gesture will be almost impossible to use unless you have long thumbs. But well, it hard to say unless there’s a physical device that i could try (maybe i’ll give it a try squeezing in the portrait screen similar to the 9810 later). Also I didn’t want to make it any wider as the bold 99XX in my opinion is just the right size for single hand usage, any wider it’d be hard to reach the other end of the keyboard.

Tried with the 5 buttons.

Comparison to Bold 99XX.