The hourglass annoyance

Hi all,

Just been thinking about something...after reading the opinions of the 9900 from greg, dawgman and shake...ive noticed that people are saying theres none of that hourglass annoyance ie when the phone is thinking about what your trying to do sort of thing:p....yes its annoying as my previous BB devices and including my 9780 do it quite a bit.

Now from what i have gathered the 9900/9930 doesnt suffer from the hourglass annoyance but i guess thats with a few apps loaded right?? or am i wrong??...i mean the real test will be when the majority of apps are OS7 enabled and people start loading them up....i then wonder if the hourglass annoyance will make an appearance. Because when i wipe my 9780 clean ie OS update and before i start loading my apps back on, my 9780 hardly hourglasses at all but yet when i load up my apps, the hourglass makes its appearance. So am i correct in thinking that when you have loaded up 20 or so odd apps that the 9900/9930 may hourglass from time to time or is the 9900 that quick and powerful that it no longer hourglasses??.

What do you guys think?? aiming this at greg, dawgman, shake and anyone else who has had the 9900/9930 for some time and knows its ins and outs etc.

Personally I don't plan on having that many apps but I would bet that someone who does have a truckload of apps will encounter that very thing.

9000 & Tapatalk

With the impressive processor bump, I would be surprised if we are plagued with it as much as we have been in the past. Granted, the VZW video with "creepy Blake" that was accidentally posted on the 9650 page yesterday showed the "hourglass" for a moment during downloads, but that is normal within BBOS. It popped up for honestly half a second and was gone. Even this is much improved as on my 9650 I get the hourglass for up to a minute at a time during downloads.

I'm not huge on apps but I'm hoping this isn't as big of a "problem" as the previous gen...

Give it time and you will see the hourglass again. Apps are generally built to take advantage of the resources (RAM) and processor speed available to them. Similar to buying a new computer, everything seems fast at first until you start putting more apps and other items on your device and future apps that require more resources making you want to upgrade to the next "great device." Let's see if these phone are capable of running QNX next year and if so will they do it effectively or with lots of hourglass displays.

Originally Posted by DrewDT

Give it time and you will see the hourglass again. Apps are generally built to take advantage of the resources (RAM) and processor speed available to them. Similar to buying a new computer, everything seems fast at first until you start putting more apps and other items on your device and future apps that require more resources making you want to upgrade to the next "great device." Let's see if these phone are capable of running QNX next year and if so will they do it effectively or with lots of hourglass displays.

Indeed...like i said in my earlier post that wiping my 9780 of all 3rd party apps, i dont suffer from the hourglass but loading them up then yes i do suffer altho its not that bad tbh.

I dont think any of these new BB 7 devices will support QNX in any shape or form tbh...QNX phones will use a different hardware architecture from what i have read so far.

Well the majority of hour glassing is due to memory leaks in OS6 and storage of lots of sms messages on devices with less memory to store them.

The new phones will have significantly better hardware and should hopefully have memory leak issues resolved so I would expect no more hour glassing. That said, I am sure every video we have seen is of a phone running a newly loaded OS, which anybody with BlackBerry exp will know, run significantly better the week following an OS load than they do a month later.

Here's hoping the new OS doesn't suffer from resource spilling.

The only hour glass I have seen on the 9900 is when waiting on software to download. Once it gets to installation it is done.

I do not put that much software on any device but I would say if after you loaded up your 9780 and you get some hour glass, you should get less of none on the newer RIM devices.

The CPU is the REAL news for the new Blackberrys. This one single new feature is it greatest improvement.

I will be interested in hearing how your 9900 works out after you load it up with your software.

Originally Posted by greggebhardt

The only hour glass I have seen on the 9900 is when waiting on software to download. Once it gets to installation it is done.

I do not put that much software on any device but I would say if after you loaded up your 9780 and you get some hour glass, you should get less of none on the newer RIM devices.

The CPU is the REAL news for the new Blackberrys. This one single new feature is it greatest improvement.

I will be interested in hearing how your 9900 works out after you load it up with your software.

Thanks greg for your input...im looking forward to the 9900 especially with the beefed up cpu...ive had a few androids running 1+ghz cpu and wasnt that impressed with them generally.

But yes ill be interested to see how my 9900 copes with the apps i have...i only around 10-15 that i use constantly...to be honest im not so worried about the hourglass annoyance, ive got quite used to it on my 9780 lol.

Tbh my real and only concern is the battery lfie on the 9900 as having the beefed up CPU will surely affect its battery life...im a pretty hard user of my BB ie constantly bbm'ing, calling and emailing and also a bit of web browsing thrown in as well.
Only a few more weeks to go:p

Im getting increasingly cranky as I wait for this phone so I'll just say this.

If I want an app phone, I'll get the flavor of the week Android device.

There are quite a few apps i really like, so when the 9900 gets released i plan on having about 45 apps (some of them already come preloaded...for example FB, twitter, BB Maps etc...)

We'll have about 200mb for our apps...so thats really enough, and i still think that even with that many apps i wont be getting the hourglass more often than someone with 20apps, maybe thats a little too optimistic? But i think the 9900 will handle it quite well

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

I think that RIM has done a lot of work updating the software for OS7. Although some people will say that there is no difference and it looks exactly the same, I believe they really worked on a lot of back end stuff. Things like optimizing the RAM and CPU utilization are some of the things I think they worked on. This will result in greater efficiencies and smoothness than any hardware upgrade.

This is why the iPhone4 runs better and smoother than most Android devices even though it half as much RAM and a slower CPU!

Also, the upgraded CPU has a GPU, and the software has been completely rewritten to take advantage of this. That is why the new "liquid graphics" are possible. In old Blackberrys, any sort of graphical changes or switching menus etc, had to use up some of the limited CPU power, which slowed other things down.

This coupled with a lot more RAM and (hopefully) a well optimized OS, means that we should be seeing a brand new kind of Blackberry, as good as if not better than the iPhone4 (optimism ftw).

The processor and the memory should make a huge difference. If the clock appears only when installing apps then I can live with it.

Originally Posted by 01itr

I think that RIM has done a lot of work updating the software for OS7. Although some people will say that there is no difference and it looks exactly the same, I believe they really worked on a lot of back end stuff. Things like optimizing the RAM and CPU utilization are some of the things I think they worked on. This will result in greater efficiencies and smoothness than any hardware upgrade.

This is why the iPhone4 runs better and smoother than most Android devices even though it half as much RAM and a slower CPU!

Also, the upgraded CPU has a GPU, and the software has been completely rewritten to take advantage of this. That is why the new "liquid graphics" are possible. In old Blackberrys, any sort of graphical changes or switching menus etc, had to use up some of the limited CPU power, which slowed other things down.

This coupled with a lot more RAM and (hopefully) a well optimized OS, means that we should be seeing a brand new kind of Blackberry, as good as if not better than the iPhone4 (optimism ftw).

if i remember correctly ur one of the lucky ones to already have a BB 9900
i know its almost impossible to tell, but just tell me what you think

do you think the BB will still run as smooth if i have about 45apps installed?
i've got a list of apps i really need/want and those are about 45

i mean, we got about 200mb.. thats really enough, maybe i'll have like 100mb or w/e left, it should be fine, right?

cuz someone in this thread was already worried about having 20apps installed oO

That thing is my nemesis on the Storm 1. I get "clocked" daily for at least 10 seconds at a time with less than 10 apps. I really hope it goes away because there are times when I just unlock my phone and I can't use it. With all these new updates to facebook, bridge, bbm, google maps and app world (some pretty basic/necessary apps), I get 13mb free after a fresh restart. After using a few apps, I'm down to 0kb and I see the clock for everything I do.

It seems like the 9930 has this under control. It's nice to know you don't have to balance the installation of important apps with the device operation. Because for me, its a very VERY delicate one.

My level of retained sanity depends on the release date of the new devices.

Originally Posted by Spawn12

Thanks greg for your input...im looking forward to the 9900 especially with the beefed up cpu...ive had a few androids running 1+ghz cpu and wasnt that impressed with them generally.

But yes ill be interested to see how my 9900 copes with the apps i have...i only around 10-15 that i use constantly...to be honest im not so worried about the hourglass annoyance, ive got quite used to it on my 9780 lol.

Tbh my real and only concern is the battery lfie on the 9900 as having the beefed up CPU will surely affect its battery life...im a pretty hard user of my BB ie constantly bbm'ing, calling and emailing and also a bit of web browsing thrown in as well.
Only a few more weeks to go:p

All I can say is if you do see the hour glass it would be for a very short time if at all. The CPU makes such a different to these new RIM devices. It will make you smile!:D

i hope the device will support qnx systems ........

Originally Posted by Blackberrychen

i hope the device will support qnx systems ........

You "hope" is hopeless. There is no possible way it will do QNX:mad:

Im beginning to think that these OS or recycle, any blackberry thats coming out we should not see a hourglass

Originally Posted by Seijuro

There are quite a few apps i really like, so when the 9900 gets released i plan on having about 45 apps (some of them already come preloaded...for example FB, twitter, BB Maps etc...)

We'll have about 200mb for our apps...so thats really enough, and i still think that even with that many apps i wont be getting the hourglass more often than someone with 20apps, maybe thats a little too optimistic? But i think the 9900 will handle it quite well

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

quoting myself, so maybe someone who owns a 9900 tried downloading 30+ apps just to see if it's still running smoothly without any hourglass etc ?
maybe you, gregg? i know you got one : )

Originally Posted by greggebhardt

All I can say is if you do see the hour glass it would be for a very short time if at all. The CPU makes such a different to these new RIM devices. It will make you smile!:D

Which begs the question, why has it taken RIM such a long time to incorporate these fast CPU's??...if it makes such a huge difference then why wait so long to put them in...i mean i read somewhere that the delay for the 9900 was that they were originally going to put in a 800mhz cpu instead of the 1.2ghz cpu that they have thrown in now :/....im glad they decided against the 800 mhz cpu and put a faster one in.....just would have been good if they had put the 1ghz+ cpu's in the 9700 or 9780 phones.

Originally Posted by Spawn12

Which begs the question, why has it taken RIM such a long time to incorporate these fast CPU's??...if it makes such a huge difference then why wait so long to put them in...i mean i read somewhere that the delay for the 9900 was that they were originally going to put in a 800mhz cpu instead of the 1.2ghz cpu that they have thrown in now :/....im glad they decided against the 800 mhz cpu and put a faster one in.....just would have been good if they had put the 1ghz+ cpu's in the 9700 or 9780 phones.

I think the issue with the cpu's was partly down to the spec arms race kicking into gear far faster than they expected in combination with the company they had used in the past for their gsm devices not being up to par on performance with stuff like the snapdragons that are in the new ones.

As far as clockspeeds they should have used in previous devices, I wish people would not request stuff that would generally require a time machine, the 9780 and torch should have had faster cpu's, but 1ghz was not common when the 9700 came out and 1ghz+ was certainly not in use by anyone back then.

Incidentally, there are still plenty of new devices on the market with slower than 1ghz cpu's such as the iphone 4, it is not just about the clockspeeds it is about what is done with them