Help me converge my devices

[nixium]

I have a BB Bold 9700 for business use and a personal captivate, and I'm sick of carting around two phones. I even wrote up personal apps to forward calls and SMS from one phone to another based on time and location, but it's not helping. The trouble is, each device has its plus and minuses and they complement each other perfectly.

I want to pick one device for both personal and business use, and my company has offered to spring for it based on a few conditions. I do want to keep personal SMS, and calls separate from the business side, so a VOIP solution is required for that.

This is my status right now -

BB - Excellent Battery life, superb messaging, keyboard, GPS and build like a f*king brick. I've had this phone fall a bunch of times (once down the stairs) have water damage, scratches, you name it and it still functions wonderfully. However, the web browsing and the app experience is much to be desired.

Captivate - Superb screen, wonderful web browsing experience, apps. Horrible battery life, GPS and call reliability, and overall annoyances like random freezing and crashing. Honestly this feels like a beta release.

So this is what I need to do:

1. Figure out a phone on ATT that can marry most of the capabilities above. Good GPS, battery life (should last a day with moderate use) are most important as well as web browsing.

Apparently the iphones are optimized for battery life, so I assume that's a good choice. The Atrix is the next good choice, from what I read. Any other smartphones known for their battery life?

2. Somehow merge my personal and business lines on one phone while keeping them separate. My company can technically review my phone logs (although they rarely do) but I would still like to keep personal SMS separate. For example, I'd hate to have IT go over my sexting logs. Neither do I want google to do so (gvoice is not super reliable, as well.) So I'm looking for a premium VOIP solution. The one I'm exploring is PhoneBooth - any others you guys can recommend?

Lastly, while I don't surf for porn/things that my company will find objectionable online, I do like to have the option of anonymous surfing if possible. Apparently there's an implementation of the Tor network on android. Has anyone tried this?

Thanks for suggestions. Will update this thread with what I finally end up doing.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Why don't you put OS6 on the 9700? The web browser in that is by teh same people that produced the one for the PlayBook.

It doesn't answer all your issues, but BlackBerry Balance will answer the privacy issue if you can wait. It keeps Corporate and Private data ring-fenced on the device.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Grab an iPhone, there's a million texting apps and you can use facetime for sexting if the GF has an iPhone

 

[nixium]

Why don't you put OS6 on the 9700? The web browser in that is by teh same people that produced the one for the PlayBook.

It doesn't answer all your issues, but BlackBerry Balance will answer the privacy issue if you can wait. It keeps Corporate and Private data ring-fenced on the device.

I tried the browser on the torch. It's pretty good, but the torch itself was sluggish. And to be frank, OS 6 still looks ugly.

I'm a long time BB fan, and I really wish they'd roll out QNX sooner. I'm old fashioned and I value things like battery life, GPS and overall reliability over flashy, pretty graphics. Heck, I'm traveling on the acela express and my captivate couldnt even get a GPS fix at top speed.. had to pull the BB out and download an ugly but reliable, functional app that's tracking my change in velocity and position very nicely. That being said, after being with android and seeing iOS, I really wish BB would catch on making a smooth user experience. It doesn't even have to be beautiful - just smooth animations, pretty icons and clear organization would help.

So the blackberry balance - will it address the issue of personal SMS and web browsing? Will IT have access to the personal side of the equation if they wanted to? Currently, all my browsing is tracked on the BES.

I came across a beta app called enterproid (www.enterproid.com) that seems to do something similar for android, but they explicitly state that browsing on the personal side is not visible to IT.

Edit - forgot to mention awesome keyboards on the BB devices.

 

[nixium]

Grab an iPhone, there's a million texting apps and you can use facetime for sexting if the GF has an iPhone

Heh heh, now that's an idea

However, that doesn't answer the question. Will it just be me and her or is IT going to be an unwelcome third party observer?

Also, the free texting apps, as I understand, either need the same app on the other phone or a new phone number. I'd hate to have one number for calls and one for SMS. Hence the gvoice type VOIP solution.

Instant messengers are helpful, but not all of my friends/family are on smart phones and SMS is the most universal messaging platform out there.

 

[DivideBYZero]

I tried the browser on the torch. It's pretty good, but the torch itself was sluggish. And to be frank, OS 6 still looks ugly.

I'm a long time BB fan, and I really wish they'd roll out QNX sooner. I'm old fashioned and I value things like battery life, GPS and overall reliability over flashy, pretty graphics. Heck, I'm traveling on the acela express and my captivate couldnt even get a GPS fix at top speed.. had to pull the BB out and download an ugly but reliable, functional app that's tracking my change in velocity and position very nicely. That being said, after being with android and seeing iOS, I really wish BB would catch on making a smooth user experience. It doesn't even have to be beautiful - just smooth animations, pretty icons and clear organization would help.

So the blackberry balance - will it address the issue of personal SMS and web browsing? Will IT have access to the personal side of the equation if they wanted to? Currently, all my browsing is tracked on the BES.

I came across a beta app called enterproid (www.enterproid.com) that seems to do something similar for android, but they explicitly state that browsing on the personal side is not visible to IT.

Edit - forgot to mention awesome keyboards on the BB devices.

Yeah, the Torch isn't for everyone.

However, you can put OS6 on your existing phone, so there's no need to upgrade the handset to get the decent browser.

As for BB balance, pretty much all the items you want are classified as personal:

Data and applications that a device classifies for personal use

A BlackBerry® device classifies the following data and applications for personal use:

• email messages and attachments that a BlackBerry device user sends from any email account (for example, a personal email account) except for the work email account
• contacts that the device synchronizes with personal email accounts (for example, Google Mail™ contacts)
• phone data (phone data is considered to be personal data but the call history and call logs are deleted when you delete work data)
• instant messages that a user sends or receives using BlackBerry® Messenger
• text messages that a user sends or receives using PIN messaging, SMS text messaging, or MMS messaging
• applications that have the Is access to the corporate data API allowed application control policy rule set to Deny
• content that is stored for the BlackBerry® Browser (the BlackBerry Browser is a personal application but the cache is deleted when you delete work data)
• maps
• media application data (for example, the camera, video, music, or voice recorder)
• passwords that the Password Keeper encrypts

Although it's not mentioned in that list the Browser is considered to be personal and not a work application.

It would need your BES admins to be willing to use it, but I cannot see why not. My BES Admins have applied all the PlayBook permissions without asking, but I'm pretty lucky as our corp isn't a set of Nazis, like some are.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

OK< aside from all of the options you listed, you said your company will pay for the device. You need to find out if the device is still classified as a company asset or are they giving you the device with no expectation of getting it back if you leave the company willingly or not?
If they are purchasing it and still have it on their books it's theirs and any data on it personal or not, if it's sandboxed or not is still theirs.
It's just the same as them issuing you a laptop and letting you take it with you when you travel and when you go home. You can technically go download porn and torrents all you want when you are aff of their network, but the computer is still there's and you are most likely violating their terms of use policy.

If they are buying you the device and handing over ownership to you, why are you worried? It's your device. The only thing you'd have to agree to is their data policy, and allowing them to remove any company data that is on the device when they request such.
Anything else on a personal device can not be used against you.

 

[nixium]

OK< aside from all of the options you listed, you said your company will pay for the device. You need to find out if the device is still classified as a company asset or are they giving you the device with no expectation of getting it back if you leave the company willingly or not?
If they are purchasing it and still have it on their books it's theirs and any data on it personal or not, if it's sandboxed or not is still theirs.
It's just the same as them issuing you a laptop and letting you take it with you when you travel and when you go home. You can technically go download porn and torrents all you want when you are aff of their network, but the computer is still there's and you are most likely violating their terms of use policy.

If they are buying you the device and handing over ownership to you, why are you worried? It's your device. The only thing you'd have to agree to is their data policy, and allowing them to remove any company data that is on the device when they request such.
Anything else on a personal device can not be used against you.

That's a good point. I have to double check, but it might be their device if they pay for it. I have no issues with paying for a device.

Even if it's their device, technically a device wipe should remove any data right? It's IT policy to get wiped devices when turning in old phones.

This stuff is more complicated than it seems, especially the privacy part. I might just have to stick with two phones at this rate. A lot of people in my company use just the business phone for everything, but they're fuddy-duddies that don't use any packet data, social networking or even SMS. Certainly no sexting.