[varunsain]

Bridge is greatly over-hyped on this forum. I can count the # of times I've used it on 3 fingers (out of boredom). I never understood why you need to use two devices for one task. It might be great for a small percentage of users, but for most? Probably not.

First of all.. Try using something more than 3 times before making senseless lengthy posts in a place where most know otherwise.. Receive e-mail on BB.. Check link within e-mail on PB.. Yea.. 2 devices 1 task.

Avoid the exorbitant tethering costs my carrier charges
In addition to a BB phone, I have a rooted EVO on Sprint. Free hotspot.

No need for rooting as Bridge is an app which simply gets paired. Also, leaving BT on the whole day does not eat my battery away as compared to WiFi.

Open my phones email, contacts, calendar, tasks and memo pad on my PlayBook screen.
Contacts are already on your phone, why do you need it on the PB? To email? BB users are always boasting about emailing, calendar, and contacts function of their phone, well use it on the phone.

The phone is very limiting when it comes to PIM and activity management. Quick entries can be made on the phone and later scheduled and edited on the PB in complete comfort! You need to be organized to understand this...

Open most email attachments on my phone so I can read them on a nice big screen.
Makes sense. But if you need to see things bigger, you should have bought a phone with a bigger screen.

And lug the phone around all day long? A compact phone is great and the fact that it extends on to the tablet is even better.. A phone with a bigger screen is almost a tablet which never got all the way.. It is inconvenient. The Playbook is kept in a bag, carry pouch, purse for lovely CB PB ladies!! and even in the jacket because of it's comfortable size.. and When you need it! You just pull it out and watch the women go

Use my phone as a physical keyboard for my PlayBook.
Again why? You bought the BB phone because it is the best emailer, use it.

Sorry.. Bought the BB phone because of the Best Keyboard! Using it!

Use my phone as a mouse for my PlayBook.
Err, tablets are meant to be touched. If you're in BT range, you can touch.

BT range is 30ft.. Unless you're Mr. Elastic.. When the PB is connected to HDMI the Bridge mouse feature is an ultimate combination.

While using my PlayBook for a presentation, I can roam around the meeting room using my phone to remotely control the Playbook and the presentation.
Helpful, but what percentage of users need to do presentations?

A percentage that should increase surely.. since now a days the junk kids are upto is amazing.. Secondly, presentations are not only business oriented.. you can do a picture presentation for friends, family.. a video presentation of funny stuff.. or even make a proposal to your loved on.. If she's smart.. It will be a yes..

In my humble opinion, if you need two devices to do something that can be done on one, you're doing it wrong. I work in an office where everyone has BB phones. I showed them bridge on my PB and was greeted with a resounding "meh". Bridge is great only for a small percentage of nerdy users.

Sure.. I agree the percentage of nerds is in the minor since iPad has the higher sale figure.. And you work in a 'dull' office who do not appreciate technology.

[mandony]

Bridge is greatly over-hyped on this forum. I can count the # of times I've used it on 3 fingers (out of boredom)..

To each their own. I never turned off Bridge from the day I bought the PB on day of release. When my BB phone signals a new BBM or email, the first place I go to view them is on the PB. HTML emails view much better on the PB. The full screen PB is also easier to read the other Bridge enabled features.

[husainpatan]

@phoanyone: kid grow up a bit first.
Hint: Age is only a number.

[jegs2]

In the US there is a hefty fee for tethering. Bridge is a great way avoid that fee.
My data plan would just about double in price without the bridge app.

That's the reason it's useful to me. Heck, if I got WI-FI or tethering for free, then yeah, the advantage of BB to PB would be void. Don't though.

[pcguy514]

I never understood why you need to use two devices for one task. It might be great for a small percentage of users, but for most? Probably not.

Avoid the exorbitant tethering costs my carrier charges
In addition to a BB phone, I have a rooted EVO on Sprint. Free hotspot.

Aristotle’s law of noncontradiction states that “One cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time.”

[Jean-luc_Picard]

Bridge is greatly over-hyped on this forum. I can count the # of times I've used it on 3 fingers (out of boredom). I never understood why you need to use two devices for one task. It might be great for a small percentage of users, but for most? Probably not.

Avoid the exorbitant tethering costs my carrier charges
In addition to a BB phone, I have a rooted EVO on Sprint. Free hotspot.
The average user would have no clue how to root, and from there set up a mobile hotspot that carriers can't detect. This argument is valid for a portion of users.


Open my phones email, contacts, calendar, tasks and memo pad on my PlayBook screen.
Contacts are already on your phone, why do you need it on the PB? To email? BB users are always boasting about emailing, calendar, and contacts function of their phone, well use it on the phone.
It can be very useful to have a bigger screen in some cases. Also, sometimes the PlayBook is the device currently in your hand when you want to see what's on the calendar for next week or if you want to send someone a quick message.

Open most email attachments on my phone so I can read them on a nice big screen.
Makes sense. But if you need to see things bigger, you should have bought a phone with a bigger screen.
Perhaps I occasionally want to see things bigger AND I want a nice keyboard on my phone. Name one phone with a keyboard anywhere near as good as the 9900 (keeping in mind that I can't type well on virtual keyboards, and that yes I have actually tried on multiple platforms) with a large screen.

Use my phone as a physical keyboard for my PlayBook.
Again why? You bought the BB phone because it is the best emailer, use it.
I'll admit, this doesn't have a large use case, but it does have one. My main use of it will be in the answer below, but another fun use of it is that when you play games in DOSBox, hooked up to the TV over HDMI, you need to input text, and it gets to be annoying to have to get up and walk over to the PlayBook every time you want to put text into the game. If you do this (which I do) it is proof that you are in fact quite nerdy (Although for some reason PlayBook's autocorrect changed that to "needy"). This one is probably the most gimmicky feature of bridge

Use my phone as a mouse for my PlayBook.
Err, tablets are meant to be touched. If you're in BT range, you can touch.
The first use case would be that you are doing some Web browsing over HDMI, so it seems like a waste to get up every few seconds or stand beside the PlayBook the whole time. You can also type into CB Forums, and other places, with the keyboard. Another good use for this is if you're watching a movie over HDMI, you can use Bridge Remote to Play/Pause. In general bridge remote is only useful if you're using HDMI, but in that case it's very useful. The best use I've found for it is to go to crackberry.com, and watch all of the YouTube videos of the day that interest me, using remote so that I don't have to get up to go to the next video.

While using my PlayBook for a presentation, I can roam around the meeting room using my phone to remotely control the Playbook and the presentation.
Helpful, but what percentage of users need to do presentations?
RIM's entire target market...

In my humble opinion, if you need two devices to do something that can be done on one, you're doing it wrong. I work in an office where everyone has BB phones. I showed them bridge on my PB and was greeted with a resounding "meh". Bridge is great only for a small percentage of nerdy users.

My answers in bold. To respond to your "if you need two devices to do something that can be done on one, you're doing it wrong. ", are you saying that people who plug a mouse into their laptop instead of using a touchpad are wrong? People who use a remote instead of walking up to their TV to change the channel? People who use dual monitors? People who use headphones instead of built-in speakers? Just because something CAN do something, doesn't mean it's the BEST WAY to do so. You can type everything on your computer using a mouse over the onscreen keyboard. That doesn't mean a keyboard can't be a better solution.

[cgk]

When was bridge ever a competitive advantage? If you have to discount a product to sell it and then take a write-off that is the very opposite of a product that has a competitive advantage.

[sleepngbear]

When was bridge ever a competitive advantage? If you have to discount a product to sell it and then take a write-off that is the very opposite of a product that has a competitive advantage.

The bridge is a valuable feature that was poorly marketed. RIM's lack of attention to it allowed the critics to call it a crutch to make up for the lack of native email on the PlayBook when it was launched. Big bad by RIM for allowing that to happen and not presenting it as the very elegant solution that it is.

The fact of the matter is that, while the PlayBook is a tablet that serves all the purposes that tablets do, the bridge additionally allows it to be an extension of your BlackBerry phone. A simple concept that was sinfully ignored and/or passed off as a useless feature, much as a few posters are attempting to do here.

With my 9900, I don't need the PlayBook to read and respond to messages. But one thing that is very slick is that if I receive messages while using the PB for something else, I can respond to them without putting it down and picking up the phone. One quick wipe and a tap and I'm in my phone's email or BBM from my PlayBook. Ditto for updating notes and reviewing/updating the calendar. This has frequently come in very handy for me.

If you haven't actually used the thing to its potential, you have no idea of the value it delivers.

[cgk]

Forget personal usage and preference for a minute, the true sign of a competitive advantage is that the competition will try to erode it by imitation - is it anyone replicating bridge in any fashion or trying to replicate bridge?

[varunsain]

^^ Wow what kind of users are breeding in here? Just non-stop.. The whole thread is based in here by the OP that the Nokia can now do what Bridge can and you ask>>>>

[varunsain]

Forget personal usage and preference for a minute, the true sign of a competitive advantage is that the competition will try to erode it by imitation - is it anyone replicating bridge in any fashion or trying to replicate bridge?

Let's forget that we own a Bridge capable BlackBerry?

[cgk]

^^ Wow what kind of users are breeding in here? Just non-stop.. The whole thread is based in here by the OP that the Nokia can now do what Bridge can and you ask>>>>

Wireless hotspot? that predates Nokia and BB by three, four years?

[dbmalloy]

^^ Wow what kind of users are breeding in here? Just non-stop.. The whole thread is based in here by the OP that the Nokia can now do what Bridge can and you ask>>>>

It is called other users sharing an opinion.... If you are unfamiliar with Bridge... have an opinion..... what better way than asking... If the answers help clarify the post snd adds a fresh perspetive then the forum has done it's job.....

[varunsain]

What does Wireless Hotspot use? Wifi?

[varunsain]

It is called other users sharing an opinion.... If you are unfamiliar with Bridge... have an opinion..... what better way than asking... If the answers help clarify the post snd adds a fresh perspetive then the forum has done it's job.....

Thanks mother superior

[varunsain]

Forget personal usage and preference for a minute, the true sign of a competitive advantage is that the competition will try to erode it by imitation - is it anyone replicating bridge in any fashion or trying to replicate bridge?

So now Bridge s7cks coz no one's trying to replicate it?

It is called other users sharing an opinion.... If you are unfamiliar with Bridge... have an opinion..... what better way than asking... If the answers help clarify the post snd adds a fresh perspetive then the forum has done it's job.....

[theegoldenone]

Forget personal usage and preference for a minute, the true sign of a competitive advantage is that the competition will try to erode it by imitation - is it anyone replicating bridge in any fashion or trying to replicate bridge?

The PlayBook has been out for how long? It took how many years to "imitate" BBM? Just because it's not there yet doesn't mean that someone isn't working on it.

[GreenLeaf182]

I'm in my car in a parking lot using my playbook bridged to my 9650. I'm gonna agree with the OP, the only thing I use bridge for is the connection. However, I'm sure when I get a BB10 phone and BB10 on my playbook, they will have some new features that the current bridge could not do.

[cgk]

So now Bridge s7cks coz no one's trying to replicate it?

Who's saying that? On a personal level a product feature or functionality could provide amazing value to an individual - I use W7 speech every day for example but it's in a wider discussion about competitive advantage (which is a question of markets and movements) it's not particularly relevant.

[xACiD]

Bridge is not something that's just a gimmick, it has many real-world applications and it is only gonna get better.

But yeah, if I didn't have a BB phone I doubt I'd have a playbook. It wouldn't make as much sense IMO.

[Tre Lawrence]

Forget personal usage and preference for a minute, the true sign of a competitive advantage is that the competition will try to erode it by imitation - is it anyone replicating bridge in any fashion or trying to replicate bridge?

And that is an indicator of real-word acceptance, tough as that may be. Great feature, but for those that already do cloud computing and have access o tethering and remote management, it may not seem that interesting of a feature.

Bridge is not something that's just a gimmick, it has many real-world applications and it is only gonna get better.

But yeah, if I didn't have a BB phone I doubt I'd have a playbook. It wouldn't make as much sense IMO.

And that is the difficult aspect for RIM. When it comes to attracting the vast pool of people who do not currently own BBs to purchasing a PB, bridging may not be the biggest draw.

For now, I see bridge as a pretty cool idea, but not one that may draw people in like, say, free tethering.

[kennyliu]

$15 for PDANet and you get free hotspot (as in no tethering fees) without even rooting your Android phone.

If you root, you can avoid the $15.

So it really boils down to the remote and PIM sharing features of Bridge.

[RWD]

Hilarious topic, really!

I don't know if it's a competitive advantage or not, but I would love it if a hotspot user could let me know if he can do this:


My PB has wifi and bluetooth enabled all the time. I turn the PB on in the morning and use it at home on wifi, go to work and use it at work on bridged bluetooth 4G, come home around 5:30 and use it on wifi (still bridged though) until around 11pm, when I put my 9810 and PB on charge, each still with about 15% remaining charge left. I make no adjustments to settings all day - except one forum site that logs me out when my IP address changes. I have to log back in to reset the cookie.


Do you get a full day running hotspot all day?

[RWD]

Oh, and with bridge I save on the ridiculous hotspot charges our local Barbadian cell companies charge, so in a year I could buy an iPad with the savings, we're I so inclined.

[Stewartj1]

Hold the monkeys chaps - it was a question, not a critisism!!

I want to see the PB do well like the rest of you - just wondered what all the Bridge hype was about and how it related to simple users such as myself that simply browse, game and watch films.

Good to hear that it's more feature-rich than I assumed though. I got rid of my BB years ago so haven't had the opportunity to try it.

Sounds like it's a good time for you to start thinking BB10 then.

Regardless of the nay sayers, Bridge is the best solution for me - maybe it would be for you too.

Sorry nay sayers, I prefer to decide what works best for me for myself - not what someone tells me to like.

It all comes down to personal opinion.

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