OK I’ve been using the new OS for 2 days and everything seem quite unexpected. There are improvements and unfortunately, there are setbacks.
I’m gonna talk about setbacks. The most notable difference is when you realize that in your Home screen, you won’t find the Lock icon. This is annoying. I’m used to setting the Lock icon as one of the first 6 icons and most notably, locking the Blackberry with it before putting it in my pocket. So far the easiest solution is to press and hold the A/* on the keypad. To unlock it, press the Mute button on the top. I can’t fathom why RIM is doing this, it doesn’t make sense.
The second setback is my icons missing on my home screen. I backed up my Blackberry before installing the new OS but I didn’t restore the whole backup. I only restored applications that are useful for me. One of them being Blackberry App World. When it booted for the first time, it was missing from my Home screen. So I went to RIM’s website and downloaded the application. When It’s about to install, it said that the application with the same version is already installed and asked me if I want to replace the pre-installed application. After a few minute of downloading, installing and rebooting, the app was back where it supposedly be. So I guess it’s better to not restore applications and just re-download applications.
Now this is the good part. I LOVE THE NEW BROWSER! I am very sure you would too!
[caption id=“attachment_264” align=“alignnone” width=“320” caption=“Bango29.com on my BB 8520 - Zoomed Out”]
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[caption id=“attachment_265” align=“alignnone” width=“320” caption=“Bango29.com on my BB 8520 - Zoomed In”]
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It really looked like the website is rendered on a mobile webkit browser on the Android or iPhone platform. RIM is finally catching up with the competition. The next part of the browser will make you all smiles!
[caption id=“attachment_267” align=“alignnone” width=“320” caption=“Google Gears”]
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[caption id=“attachment_268” align=“alignnone” width=“320” caption=“Google Gears”]
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The current version of the browser supports Google Gears! Now this is something new! With gears, if your website supports it, your website can be available offline! Not to mention the enormous capability for JavaScripting native functions on your web applications. The possibilities are endless and with a platform already proven over time like Gears, I’m sure this will be a big boost for developers to try and get their hands dirty. I haven’t tried it yet, I will when I have the time I promise you, there will be a review afterwards.
My Blackberry finally feels like a smartphone. I always consider Blackberry a dumbphone because it lacks innovation, too focused on one thing while its competitors are already doing a million other things. Slow adoption might be the right word but it’s better late than never. I’m loving by Blackberry now. I’ll have more review soon.
By the way, I’m posting this in my car somewhere in Senayan using my Google Nexus One’s XL HSDPA connection. I used Barnacle Wifi Tether for the tethering application. It’s working very good! More reliable than PDANet on an iPhone. There’s a review for that too. Stay tuned!