RIM death watch

[trmiv]

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

No. I don't have to close applications when I'm switching between them. The home button will suspend an application where it's at and take me back to the home screen, where I can bounce between applications as needed.

Using you example:
1. Start a game of Angry Birds
2. Receive a notification of a new e-mail
3. Press the home button, and check new e-mail, referencing something to check online
4. Press home button, open a web browser, and check said thing
5. Press home button, switch back to e-mail to review what needs to be checked
6. Press home button, switch back to open web page
7. Press home button, switch back to e-mail, write a reply, and send
8. Press home button, and open Angry Birds, resuming where I left off



I don't have gestures (although I suspect that I could add gesture support by using a different launcher), but otherwise, yes. And I've personally had this functionally via my Droid X for nearly two years, and I'm pretty sure Android as an OS has had it even longer.

I did exactly this and my experience mirrors yours. I couldnt try it on my bb because bb doesnt have angry birds.; )

However, there are times where I've noticed apps needing to restart but I don't know if its because of a time out or swapped out of memory. Also annoying is pages needing to be refreshed in the browser when switching apps. Again, don't know the cause but my bb kept pages open regardless of how many apps I switch between. It definitely handles multitasking better than android.

 

[theevilsharpie]

However, there are times where I've noticed apps needing to restart but I don't know if its because of a time out or swapped out of memory. Also annoying is pages needing to be refreshed in the browser when switching apps. Again, don't know the cause but my bb kept pages open regardless of how many apps I switch between. It definitely handles multitasking better than android.

AFAIK, Android will keep an application on standby for as long as physical memory will allow. If you pause your game of Angry Birds, and then open up a million different apps, Android will probably kill the Angry Birds instance to make room for other applications. Android apps that are specifically designed to run in the background (e.g. music players) will run without risk of shutting down. If the only experience IHateMyJob2004 has with Android is cheap, memory-starved phones, I could see why he might believe Android doesn't support multitasking.

With respect to browser page reloads, I believe it's application dependent. I use Dolphin HD as my browser, and it doesn't reload a page if I switch to another app. It does reload if I leave it alone for a while, but I presume Android is killing the process and Dolphin is just restarting and reloading the page from cache.

I've never really paid much attention to Blackberry, so I'm not sure what functionality it has WRT multitasking, but based on IHateMyJob2004's description, I don't see BB10 bringing anything substantially new to the table that Android doesn't already have.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

AFAIK, Android will keep an application on standby for as long as physical memory will allow. If you pause your game of Angry Birds, and then open up a million different apps, Android will probably kill the Angry Birds instance to make room for other applications. Android apps that are specifically designed to run in the background (e.g. music players) will run without risk of shutting down. If the only experience IHateMyJob2004 has with Android is cheap, memory-starved phones, I could see why he might believe Android doesn't support multitasking.

With respect to browser page reloads, I believe it's application dependent. I use Dolphin HD as my browser, and it doesn't reload a page if I switch to another app. It does reload if I leave it alone for a while, but I presume Android is killing the process and Dolphin is just restarting and reloading the page from cache.

I've never really paid much attention to Blackberry, so I'm not sure what functionality it has WRT multitasking, but based on IHateMyJob2004's description, I don't see BB10 bringing anything substantially new to the table that Android doesn't already have.

You pretty much described it. I have a Droid 3 with 512 MB of RAM. Better phones have 1 GB RAM so the app restart thing might occur less often. I know on my Droid 3 that Angry Brids never remains in memory. Not even for a second.

 

[Doppel]

many of us where i work are going to switch from BB's to iPhone 5 when they come out

My company has opened up access to the iPhone for more people, and those of us with BBs are clamoring for them. We can't get away from the BB fast enough and iPhones are being rolled out now, replacing the BB. Nothing will change this. The damage is done, momentum now irrevocable.

To be fair, BB does email very well and I love its keyboard, but most of us want more than just email out of a phone, and for other things like browsing the web it is spectacularly hideous. Yeah, browsing the web isn't needed for work, but nobody will carry around two phones, so if we have a work phone it's reasonable to expect it to do what we'd need out of a consumer phone, too. BB is an abject failure at that, which means iPhone.

 

[theevilsharpie]

You pretty much described it. I have a Droid 3 with 512 MB of RAM. Better phones have 1 GB RAM so the app restart thing might occur less often. I know on my Droid 3 that Angry Brids never remains in memory. Not even for a second.

My Droid X (running Gingerbread) can keep Angry Birds in memory long enough to multitask with any app I'd reasonably need to run while playing Angry Birds, and it also has 512MB of RAM. Sounds like your phone's screwed up.

 

[IEC]

Classic photo.

 

[3chordcharlie]

My company has opened up access to the iPhone for more people, and those of us with BBs are clamoring for them. We can't get away from the BB fast enough and iPhones are being rolled out now, replacing the BB. Nothing will change this. The damage is done, momentum now irrevocable.

To be fair, BB does email very well and I love its keyboard, but most of us want more than just email out of a phone, and for other things like browsing the web it is spectacularly hideous. Yeah, browsing the web isn't needed for work, but nobody will carry around two phones, so if we have a work phone it's reasonable to expect it to do what we'd need out of a consumer phone, too. BB is an abject failure at that, which means iPhone.

Except that most of the second paragraph is just simply not true. At the most charitable, you are describing BB from 2008.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Except that most of the second paragraph is just simply not true. At the most charitable, you are describing BB from 2008.

To be frank, I have yet to find a good web browser for my Droid. Tried all the popular ones and none of them render flawlessly like on my Windows laptop. I've pretty much given up hope. And even if one did render well, the interfaces are so crappy that I don't want them.

Not even Firefox on Droid is good because the touch screen interface sucks so bad for phones that I don't use it.

And looking around the web, there simply is no defacto standard browser that everyone loves for the Droid. There is no browser that everyone says is awesome and everyone uses it.

Of course, going forward the question is how good will the browser be on the BB10.

FWIW: I am a software engineers so I should give a shit about tinkering but I don't care to tinker. I expect software to be well written. I don't enjoy the tinkering. I want something that works out of box. I am .... the average consumer. Give me one good web browsers instead of 10 shitty ones.

I have no iOS comment. I have an iPad 2. Used it for a week and decided that it is a useless product that is vastly inferior to my $300 laptop.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Playbook browser better than iPad 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWG3ljfSmDI&feature=related

The BB10 will have an updated version of that web browser.

Go figure.

 

[Ichinisan]

Go watch the videos.

Example. Playing angry birds and want to check your facebook?

Android:
Playing angry birds
close Angry Birds (loosing state)
navigate to Facebook tile
Open Facebook app (no new mesages)
play with facebook
Exit facebook
... repeat for e-mail, text mesaages, 4 square, etc ...
find angry birds tile
Launch ANgry Birds (starting new session)

Flow:
Playing angry birds
Use gesture to see if there are new messages in e-mail, facebook, etc
1 second later, back at angry birds right where you left off

Now I am sure there may be ways to do things in Facebook, e-mail, etc more efficiently. But not by default and not by the Droid OS. maybe through a 3rd party app. This is all in BB10 as part of the OS.



Now apply this to everything out there. It just works in BB10 w/ Flow. If it can be done on Droid/iOS you need to find workarounds.

I have a Droid. It works. But watching the BB10 in action, it blows my Droid away in terms of user experience. Think otherwise? It's like saying that it is easier to change CDs than use your smartphone's media player.

The videos are all out there showing off the BB10 and how it interacts with the operator. I went in with an open mind. There is a reason I own RIMM stock and call options.

2008: Old BB ..... look at how awesome this iPhone is and Droid is. Everyone moves to those platforms. And now (2012), BB10 is ready to come out and once everyone sees how good the user experience is, they obviosuly will remain loyal to iOS and Droid.

iOS Notification Center.

All app notifications go through Apple's notifications API. You'd know if you had a Facebook message without ever leaving Angry Birds. Perform a simple gesture (slide finger down from the top of the screen) to reveal the Notification Center. If the status bar is not visible, you'll have to perform the gesture twice (the first time makes a little tab appear).

You have complete control over how many notifications-per-app appear and how they are prioritized.

 

[rockyct]

Can you confirm that it will work with ActiveSync? Did they mention it in the presentation?

I don't think they did directly, but Paul Thurrott had a NDA on WP8 news which is now over: http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows-phone-8/windows-phone-8-businesses-143545

"Device management. As you probably know, full-blown Windows PCs can be managed in a very fine-grained manner using Active Directory (AD) and Group Policy (GP). And mobile devices can be managed in rudimentary ways using Exchange ActiveSync (EAS). In addition to providing full EAS compatibility, Windows Phone 8, like Windows RT, will support a new management scheme that sits somewhere in the middle of AD/GP and EAS, functionally. No word yet on the exact capabilities, yet, however, or even the name of this management infrastructure."

 

[lothar]

I did exactly this and my experience mirrors yours. I couldnt try it on my bb because bb doesnt have angry birds.; )

However, there are times where I've noticed apps needing to restart but I don't know if its because of a time out or swapped out of memory. Also annoying is pages needing to be refreshed in the browser when switching apps. Again, don't know the cause but my bb kept pages open regardless of how many apps I switch between. It definitely handles multitasking better than android.

Are you using an HTC One X?
HTC has that serious multi-tasking bug that does what you describe.

HTC calls it a "feature" and not a bug.

 

[lothar]

To be frank, I have yet to find a good web browser for my Droid. Tried all the popular ones and none of them render flawlessly like on my Windows laptop. I've pretty much given up hope. And even if one did render well, the interfaces are so crappy that I don't want them.

Not even Firefox on Droid is good because the touch screen interface sucks so bad for phones that I don't use it.

And looking around the web, there simply is no defacto standard browser that everyone loves for the Droid. There is no browser that everyone says is awesome and everyone uses it.

Of course, going forward the question is how good will the browser be on the BB10.

FWIW: I am a software engineers so I should give a shit about tinkering but I don't care to tinker. I expect software to be well written. I don't enjoy the tinkering. I want something that works out of box. I am .... the average consumer. Give me one good web browsers instead of 10 shitty ones.

I have no iOS comment. I have an iPad 2. Used it for a week and decided that it is a useless product that is vastly inferior to my $300 laptop.

Chrome Beta is by far the best browser there is on Android.
Opera Mobile is the 2nd best.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Playbook browser better than iPad 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWG3ljfSmDI&feature=related

The BB10 will have an updated version of that web browser.

Go figure.

Playbook browser is excellent. Not that iOS browser is bad, but PB I think is overall better.

BB7 browser isn't as good but it's competitive, and has touch-screen features. Even the BB6 browser is entirely decent, supports tabs, etc.

BB5 is usable (barely), lacks tabs, is very slow, etc. I think a lot of current iOS users this would be the last BB browser they've seen. It's good enough if you really, really need to access a web page, but not for much else.

 

[tommo123]

what the hell version of android are you people using having to do weird stuff to check for emails and facebook alerts? if i get an email - i get an alert (ping) and the menu bar becomes visible for a few secs. i drag it down and i can read the alert (at least a short description - same for email - the subject and who it's from). i hit back and the menu disappears and the app i was in (drag racing for me) resumes.

are you all on 1.6 or something?

 

[Bateluer]

what the hell version of android are you people using having to do weird stuff to check for emails and facebook alerts? if i get an email - i get an alert (ping) and the menu bar becomes visible for a few secs. i drag it down and i can read the alert (at least a short description - same for email - the subject and who it's from). i hit back and the menu disappears and the app i was in (drag racing for me) resumes.

are you all on 1.6 or something?

I've been trying to figure this out for a while myself. Some people just have a hard time with technology. There's too many features in a modern smartphone, I think.

 

[theevilsharpie]

what the hell version of android are you people using having to do weird stuff to check for emails and facebook alerts? if i get an email - i get an alert (ping) and the menu bar becomes visible for a few secs. i drag it down and i can read the alert (at least a short description - same for email - the subject and who it's from). i hit back and the menu disappears and the app i was in (drag racing for me) resumes.

are you all on 1.6 or something?

When I get a new notification, I get my standard alert (short vibration and blinking status light, in my case), but a menu doesn't appear. I may have set it that way, as I'd probably get annoyed if my full-screen app was interrupted for anything other than a phone call.

This is on Android 2.3.

 

[tommo123]

ah, i've been on ICS for ages (custom roms)

 

[Deeko]

Windows Phone needs to go too. You cannot sync with ActiveSync, which is beyond stupid. You have to sync with a cloud service. No way, Microsoft. Fucking pathetic that Apple and Android use ActiveSync but Microsoft, which created the thing, does not. I will never touch WP because of that.

What are you talking about? It doesn't support every EAS policy for corporate users, but it certainly supports ActiveSync.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Earnings after close.

Don't care about the numbers.

Curious if they will provide any new info on BB10.

 

[The-Noid]

*DJ Research In Motion 'Overall Blackberry Subscriber Base Continued To Grow'

This seems frankly impossible given the horrible metrics produced this quarter.

Q2 will be loss as well. Cash drain, looking bad.

*DJ Research In Motion Blackberry 10 Smartphone Launch Now Scheduled For Q1 Of Calendar 2013

 

[joutlaw]

What are you talking about? It doesn't support every EAS policy for corporate users, but it certainly supports ActiveSync.

Ditto... We have 2 WP7 phones (out of 200 or so ) . They accept the same ActiveSync policies that our Android and iOS devices support.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

*DJ Research In Motion 'Overall Blackberry Subscriber Base Continued To Grow'

This seems frankly impossible given the horrible metrics produced this quarter.

Q2 will be loss as well. Cash drain, looking bad.

*DJ Research In Motion Blackberry 10 Smartphone Launch Now Scheduled For Q1 Of Calendar 2013

I've said it once. I'll say it again. there are markets beyond the USA. *cough* India *cough*

BB 10 not out till Q1 2013 (that's calender year, not fiscal year). That s a total F up by RIMM. Unacceptable.

 

[NFS4]

5,000 jobs axed
$512M loss
BB10 delayed until Q1 2013

RIM is dead. Lack of innovation, piss-poor management, shitty phones. So long suckas!