1. Messerschmitts's Avatar
    Hello, all! I recently got a Blackberry Torch for Christmas. I used to have a Palm Centro and wanted a Palm Pre, the Torch was not what I was expecting, but since it was a gift I was not going to complain. After having played with my new Blackberry Torch for a few weeks now I am surprisingly happy with it, and am for the most part fairly satisfied with my new life as a Blackberry user.

    However, I have a few major gripes that I want to vent about regarding the functionalities and apps that ship with (or I guess didn't ship with) the BBOS. I feel these are major oversights.

    1.) Lack of decent weather app: First of all, both Android and iPhone have built-in weather applications that are very pretty, easy to scroll through, and allow you to browse multiple cities at once. I believe on the iPhone one you can even see what time it is in each city. Why does BBOS only come with a cheapo link to Weather.com? I downloaded the Beweather app and it is close to what I want in a weather app, but I had to pay $10 for it, and it is sadly STILL not as good as the ones that came for free on iPhone and Android. On my brother's Android phone the weather app has animated rain and cloude effects, and it is part of the main screen that you can scroll directly into. On BeWeather you can put the weather as your wallpaper but the rest of it is black and ugly and you cannot get the "day/night" effect into the background. I am very disappointed and could not beleive that this was not part of the package.

    2.) Lack of a World Clock: both Android and iPhone come with built-in ability to show time in multiple locations. Why not BB? I know, I downloaded WorldMate for free and you can see 4 locations. However it is not easy to get to, I have to go into the programme and then click another tiny button, very annoying. I see lots of apps for sale for world clocks on the app store, but I shouldn't have to! One would think that a machine supposedly built for business and productivity would have a world clock. Many businesspeople travel extensively and/or deal with clients around the world.

    3.) Poor multitasking: I actually don't know how the newer iPhones are, but I remember the older ones didn't do multitasking well either. However my brother's Android has a beautiful graphical representation of al the apps currently open by sliding it into the screen. Palm Pre has the fantastic deck-of-cards multitasking thing. I know you hold the blackberry button and the apps currently open will show up, but it's counterintuitive and easy to forget how many apps are open.

    4.) Calender: On my old Palm Centro you could specify a different colour for each category of event you put in. Exams can be red, vacation times were light blue, and classtime can be orange, and if I'm on-call (I'm a resident physician) it is purple, etc. I'm used to my colours. All events on BB's calender are grey and it saddens me.

    5.) Keyboard: I miss the gel keyboard on my Centro, but the BB Torch keyboard is not too bad either. I don't like how you have to press two buttons to put caps lock on though.

    Okay my rant is over. Like I said the things I like about the Torch far outweigh the gripes, but I don't need to gush about things I like about it to a bunch of people who already love BB. :-p
    01-17-11 08:58 PM
  2. Rootbrian's Avatar
    First of all, BeWeather is free, you probably didn't sort ther apps in app world by price (free being first). WeatherEye is a great app and it's free. Perhapse you could have played around with a few devices and if you still have the palm unit, keep it handy to have appointments on it. Might come in handy and it's not abnormal or weird for some to carry more than one device on them. Not all devices are made to be for everybody either. And another thing, to each their own.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    01-18-11 05:56 AM
  3. blackstrat's Avatar
    I came to BB from a Palm 755... I had waited patiently for the Pre to come out, but when it did, I was sadly disapointed. I came to Blackberry a bit leary of the device... I was quickly won over!!! The things you mention will soon be overlooked by how much better the device is compared to Palm. You can also hold your head high when friends and family complain how they are on their 3rd Android or Itoy... Whilst your device works without fail.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    01-18-11 07:22 AM
  4. Heavy Fluid's Avatar
    I can comment on the weather app. On the Android, that beautiful animated weather app that changes with the current weather....that eats the battery, and is more of a show piece than anything. So it's raining out, you need to see raindrops on your phone? BerryWeather, or BeWeather as found in App World, is the best weather application, and most customizable for the BlackBerry. There are free ones, but they are not as nice as BerryWeather.

    Battery life is one thing that BlackBerry is known for, and in comparison to Android, the battery life is significantly greater. That can be said for all the fancy animated graphics that show you what apps are currently running. Simply long press the BB logo button, and they show. No fancy sliding graphics or animations. That is not what BlackBerry is about.

    As for the clock, I can't say much. I would expect the clock to have world functions on it, but it looks like it doesn't.
    01-18-11 09:54 AM
  5. Messerschmitts's Avatar
    First of all, BeWeather is free, you probably didn't sort ther apps in app world by price (free being first). WeatherEye is a great app and it's free. Perhapse you could have played around with a few devices and if you still have the palm unit, keep it handy to have appointments on it. Might come in handy and it's not abnormal or weird for some to carry more than one device on them. Not all devices are made to be for everybody either. And another thing, to each their own.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    Well...I wanted to be able to see the weather from my homescreen and the free version of Beweather didn't have that :-P. I wish you could have that Day/Night self-changing background on the homescreen wallpaper of Beweather though

    But like I said on the original post, overall I'm really happy with the BB, just some gripes. For one thing, LOVE the trackball/pad thing, that little black square is genius.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    Last edited by Messerschmitts; 01-18-11 at 10:08 AM.
    01-18-11 09:59 AM
  6. Heavy Fluid's Avatar
    Well...I wanted to be able to see the weather from my homescreen and the free version of Beweather didn't have that :-P. I wish you could have that Day/Night self-changing background on the homescreen wallpaper of Beweather though

    But like I said on the original post, overall I'm really happy with the BB, just some gripes. For one thing, LOVE the trackball/pad thing, that little black square is genius.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    Simply move your weather icon to one of the positions on your main screen, and you are set. You an also add just the temperature to your notification area within BerryWeather.
    01-18-11 10:14 AM
  7. valhalla1759's Avatar
    Totally off topic....but nice user name!



    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    01-18-11 10:28 AM
  8. 1812dave's Avatar
    Hello, all! I recently got a Blackberry Torch for Christmas. I used to have a Palm Centro and wanted a Palm Pre, the Torch was not what I was expecting, but since it was a gift I was not going to complain. After having played with my new Blackberry Torch for a few weeks now I am surprisingly happy with it, and am for the most part fairly satisfied with my new life as a Blackberry user.

    However, I have a few major gripes that I want to vent about regarding the functionalities and apps that ship with (or I guess didn't ship with) the BBOS. I feel these are major oversights.

    1.) Lack of decent weather app: First of all, both Android and iPhone have built-in weather applications that are very pretty, easy to scroll through, and allow you to browse multiple cities at once. I believe on the iPhone one you can even see what time it is in each city. Why does BBOS only come with a cheapo link to Weather.com? I downloaded the Beweather app and it is close to what I want in a weather app, but I had to pay $10 for it, and it is sadly STILL not as good as the ones that came for free on iPhone and Android. On my brother's Android phone the weather app has animated rain and cloude effects, and it is part of the main screen that you can scroll directly into. On BeWeather you can put the weather as your wallpaper but the rest of it is black and ugly and you cannot get the "day/night" effect into the background. I am very disappointed and could not beleive that this was not part of the package.

    2.) Lack of a World Clock: both Android and iPhone come with built-in ability to show time in multiple locations. Why not BB? I know, I downloaded WorldMate for free and you can see 4 locations. However it is not easy to get to, I have to go into the programme and then click another tiny button, very annoying. I see lots of apps for sale for world clocks on the app store, but I shouldn't have to! One would think that a machine supposedly built for business and productivity would have a world clock. Many businesspeople travel extensively and/or deal with clients around the world.

    3.) Poor multitasking: I actually don't know how the newer iPhones are, but I remember the older ones didn't do multitasking well either. However my brother's Android has a beautiful graphical representation of al the apps currently open by sliding it into the screen. Palm Pre has the fantastic deck-of-cards multitasking thing. I know you hold the blackberry button and the apps currently open will show up, but it's counterintuitive and easy to forget how many apps are open.


    4.) Calender: On my old Palm Centro you could specify a different colour for each category of event you put in. Exams can be red, vacation times were light blue, and classtime can be orange, and if I'm on-call (I'm a resident physician) it is purple, etc. I'm used to my colours. All events on BB's calender are grey and it saddens me.

    5.) Keyboard: I miss the gel keyboard on my Centro, but the BB Torch keyboard is not too bad either. I don't like how you have to press two buttons to put caps lock on though.

    Okay my rant is over. Like I said the things I like about the Torch far outweigh the gripes, but I don't need to gush about things I like about it to a bunch of people who already love BB. :-p
    If you stick with BB, there will be a future OS version that has the WebOS-like interface that you miss. No timetable or phones have been announced, but eventually, the OS issues you complain of, will be history.
    01-18-11 10:30 AM
  9. metalsair's Avatar
    To make a letter capital you can just long press the letter. That's how I do it, way easier than hitting two buttons.
    01-18-11 10:58 AM
  10. pantlesspenguin's Avatar
    I can comment on the weather app. On the Android, that beautiful animated weather app that changes with the current weather....that eats the battery, and is more of a show piece than anything. So it's raining out, you need to see raindrops on your phone?
    To be fair, this is just an HTC Sense widget, which is not on all Android phones. I'm pretty sure you can also customize it to turn the animations off or display weather in a different way. I have it displayed on my phone, & the animation just lasts a couple seconds when you wake the phone up & stops once you enter a different app. When I wake my phone up I typically don't stay on the home screen for very long since I have a task in mind.

    Also, BeWeather is free now??? When I had my 9700 the full version was like, $10 .
    01-18-11 11:11 AM
  11. JimiMack's Avatar
    BeWeather has a Free and Full. The full will allow you to putt eh weather on your home screen. The free will show you the present weather on an Icon that when hit will show the 5 day forecast.
    01-18-11 12:21 PM
  12. lssanjose's Avatar
    To be fair, this is just an HTC Sense widget, which is not on all Android phones. I'm pretty sure you can also customize it to turn the animations off or display weather in a different way. I have it displayed on my phone, & the animation just lasts a couple seconds when you wake the phone up & stops once you enter a different app. When I wake my phone up I typically don't stay on the home screen for very long since I have a task in mind.

    Also, BeWeather is free now??? When I had my 9700 the full version was like, $10 .
    Also, some people will have known by now the ability to check what's taking up your battery life, and how long it's using it on Android. So, in some cases, whatever weather app used, may not necessarily be the culprit behind leaking battery life.
    01-18-11 01:46 PM
  13. Xopher's Avatar
    After switching from BlackBerry to Android (and still using a BlackBerry), I have pretty much the opposite feeling.

    1) Weather. Yes, you can have a widget like Fancy Widgets or Beautiful Widgets to display changing weather on the screen, but most of those apps don't have multiple locations, radar, ability to add weather cameras, and weather alerts. Some do (Weather Bug has all of that included), but they don't have the fancy weather widgets to display on the screen. I enjoyed Berry Weather (aka BeWeather) on my BlackBerry because it had all of those things, and all I really wanted was the changing weather icon on my BB screen (which does change and show weather and temp).

    Some models come with default widgets not available on every Android phone. My Galaxy S has a round clock with the weather inside it, and all it does is link to a mobile weather site (yuck). It was one of the first things I got off of my screen. If I could find a widget that looked like Fancy Widgets (or Beautiful Widgets) with all of the features that Berry Weather includes, I'd be really happy.

    2) Android (the OS) doesn't come with a World Clock. Maybe a carrier added it as part of their default included apps, but the world clock in not part of the OS. One of the things I had to do with my Galaxy S was add apps onto it to get the usability out of it that I wanted. There is a world clock you can add onto BB. If I wanted to have a world clock on my SGS, I'd have to add it as well.

    3) iPhone can't match BlackBerry for multitasking. You can have multiple apps running at the same time, be able to share info between apps, and have copy/paste just about anywhere. All of the running apps are just one button away (holding the menu key). To get the running apps on Andriod, I hold down the Home key (same exact type of action as BB - and Android shows the last used apps, not the running apps, so you don't know which ones are really running in the background). This is probably more from coming from a different platform than a BlackBerry oversight. Personally, I think BlackBerry has the right idea on accessing running apps.

    4) The default calendar is a little lacking. Although you can have multiple calendars and be able to keep work and personal separate (and those do show up in different colors). There are 3rd party apps that add more functionality to the calendar.

    The same can be said about the Android calendar. It is quite lacking on what it displays. Of course, there are 3rd party apps that make it much better as well.

    5) I've always liked the BlackBerry keyboard. It took a little getting used to, but any device will. Hold a key down to capitalize is something I miss on Android, and autotext is awesome. I had so many shortcuts set up I could type extremely quickly (hv = have, hru = how are you, tdy = today....) with all the shortcut words I added to the autotext library.

    Keyboards are also a preference thing. My wife loved her Curve keyboard. The way the buttons pop up separately made it easy for her to type on her Curve. She didn't like typing on my Tour - the keys were too flat for her. I didn't like typing on her Curve after I got used to the Bold-style keyboard (which I had been using since having the 8830). Even after a month away from having my Tour as my daily driver, I can still type very quickly on the keyboard (although the trackball now feels funny).
    01-18-11 02:03 PM
  14. iN8ter's Avatar
    To make a letter capital you can just long press the letter. That's how I do it, way easier than hitting two buttons.
    I just checked this, and it works. That's a nice tip.

    What do I long press to get a period without having to press two buttons. the period is probably the most used punctuation mark in the English language. Why was RIM dumb enough to make it a Shift-Character?

    This keyboard layout looks totally illogical compared to the Samsung Jack in my drawer. I could easily type twice as fast on that simply due to it having a more logical layout, even though the keyboard on that device was much more cramped.

    If the Period wasn't in such an odd place I would hardly need to long press letters to capitalize since the phone automatically capitalizes the first letter of a sentence, anyways. All I'd have to do it period-space-keep typing and only worry about capitalizing proper nouns, etc.
    To be fair, this is just an HTC Sense widget, which is not on all Android phones. I'm pretty sure you can also customize it to turn the animations off or display weather in a different way. I have it displayed on my phone, & the animation just lasts a couple seconds when you wake the phone up & stops once you enter a different app. When I wake my phone up I typically don't stay on the home screen for very long since I have a task in mind.

    Also, BeWeather is free now??? When I had my 9700 the full version was like, $10 .
    Nope. Beautiful Widgets is one of the top Apps on the market and it's a Clock/Weather Widget (and toggle widgets) that does that. It supports skinning and can be made to look almost identical to the HTC Sense Widget, and when you click on the weather it brings up a full screen animation with the current weather and the forecast.

    It's one of the only 2 apps I feel is worth purchasing off the Android market (IMO).

    I can comment on the weather app. On the Android, that beautiful animated weather app that changes with the current weather....that eats the battery, and is more of a show piece than anything. So it's raining out, you need to see raindrops on your phone? BerryWeather, or BeWeather as found in App World, is the best weather application, and most customizable for the BlackBerry. There are free ones, but they are not as nice as BerryWeather.

    Battery life is one thing that BlackBerry is known for, and in comparison to Android, the battery life is significantly greater. That can be said for all the fancy animated graphics that show you what apps are currently running. Simply long press the BB logo button, and they show. No fancy sliding graphics or animations. That is not what BlackBerry is about.

    As for the clock, I can't say much. I would expect the clock to have world functions on it, but it looks like it doesn't.
    1. The HTC Sense or Beautiful Widget doesn't eat battery. Lol. I bet you cannot even come up with any proof of that other than your assumed common sense.

    2. Blackberries aren't known for great battery life. They're known for Push Services and Secure Enterprise Email.

    Blackberry battery life being good is a component of underpowered internals being paired with smartphone-level batteries. The QWERTY blackberries aren't that much more advanced than features phones (which can run some of the same java apps unmodified, just as Windows Mobile phones can in some cases). It's RIM's services that sells them.

    Yes, when you put a small low res screen, slow processor/gpu on a device with a 1500 mAh battery, you get great battery life.

    Nokia phones are also known for their great battery life (eSeries in particular), and guess what, they use the same form factor as the blackberryes (small underpowered QWERTY phones with big batteries). Torch Battery Life isn't comparable to Bolds, for example.

    However, the PIM apps on the blackberry are terrible. The email client is quite terrible. On the flip side, email delivery is fast and reliable. Navigation is clunky at best and filled with time-wasters. OS performance isn't good. The Options menu is a mess and somethign as trivial as setting ringtones is turned into a monumental undertaking. I did that last night on my Vibrant and it took like 10 minutes. It was at least twice as long on the blackberry. There are also options with obscure names, but really no easy way to find out what it all means.

    I don't even want to start on the lack fo Application Memory in the devices...

    I just got my new BB in, and It's going back to T-mobile tomorrow. I don't see any use for the devices. I'll gimp along on my Galaxy S and hope the update situation gets solved sooner rather than later.

    I left my Android phone home and took just the blackberry just to see how well it would function as a daily driver, and I'm about ready to throw it in the toilet and **** on it. It feels like a complete and utter feature phone compared to the Palm/WP7/Android/iOS devices out there. Waste of a data plan.

    A feature phone with a bad menu system, to boot.
    Last edited by N8ter; 01-18-11 at 02:24 PM.
    01-18-11 02:17 PM
  15. grover5's Avatar
    Hit the space bar twice to drop a period and capitalize the first letter of the next word.
    01-18-11 02:25 PM
  16. elvin1983's Avatar
    I just checked this, and it works. That's a nice tip.

    What do I long press to get a period without having to press two buttons. the period is probably the most used punctuation mark in the English language. Why was RIM dumb enough to make it a Shift-Character?

    This keyboard layout looks totally illogical compared to the Samsung Jack in my drawer. I could easily type twice as fast on that simply due to it having a more logical layout, even though the keyboard on that device was much more cramped.

    If the Period wasn't in such an odd place I would hardly need to long press letters to capitalize since the phone automatically capitalizes the first letter of a sentence, anyways. All I'd have to do it period-space-keep typing and only worry about capitalizing proper nouns, etc.

    Nope. Beautiful Widgets is one of the top Apps on the market and it's a Clock/Weather Widget (and toggle widgets) that does that. It supports skinning and can be made to look almost identical to the HTC Sense Widget, and when you click on the weather it brings up a full screen animation with the current weather and the forecast.

    It's one of the only 2 apps I feel is worth purchasing off the Android market (IMO).



    1. The HTC Sense or Beautiful Widget doesn't eat battery. Lol. I bet you cannot even come up with any proof of that other than your assumed common sense.

    2. Blackberries aren't known for great battery life. They're known for Push Services and Secure Enterprise Email.

    Blackberry battery life being good is a component of underpowered internals being paired with smartphone-level batteries. The QWERTY blackberries aren't that much more advanced than features phones (which can run some of the same java apps unmodified, just as Windows Mobile phones can in some cases). It's RIM's services that sells them.

    Yes, when you put a small low res screen, slow processor/gpu on a device with a 1500 mAh battery, you get great battery life.

    Nokia phones are also known for their great battery life (eSeries in particular), and guess what, they use the same form factor as the blackberryes (small underpowered QWERTY phones with big batteries). Torch Battery Life isn't comparable to Bolds, for example.

    However, the PIM apps on the blackberry are terrible. The email client is quite terrible. On the flip side, email delivery is fast and reliable. Navigation is clunky at best and filled with time-wasters. OS performance isn't good. The Options menu is a mess and somethign as trivial as setting ringtones is turned into a monumental undertaking. I did that last night on my Vibrant and it took like 10 minutes. It was at least twice as long on the blackberry. There are also options with obscure names, but really no easy way to find out what it all means.

    I don't even want to start on the lack fo Application Memory in the devices...

    I just got my new BB in, and It's going back to T-mobile tomorrow. I don't see any use for the devices. I'll gimp along on my Galaxy S and hope the update situation gets solved sooner rather than later.

    I left my Android phone home and took just the blackberry just to see how well it would function as a daily driver, and I'm about ready to throw it in the toilet and **** on it. It feels like a complete and utter feature phone compared to the Palm/WP7/Android/iOS devices out there. Waste of a data plan.

    A feature phone with a bad menu system, to boot.
    *sigh* Well if you don't like your BB, do as you say. Return it, and enjoy your Android device with it's poor battery life. Make sure you download Advanced Task Killer Free to keep the applications that magically open on their own closed out...
    01-18-11 02:37 PM
  17. lssanjose's Avatar
    What a gross generalization about Android devices. I got no better battery battery life out of my Storm 2 when I had it. And this phone's much more capable than it. Secondly, task killers are a big no no. Android can manage tasks on its own.
    01-18-11 02:42 PM
  18. howarmat's Avatar
    *sigh* Well if you don't like your BB, do as you say. Return it, and enjoy your Android device with it's poor battery life. Make sure you download Advanced Task Killer Free to keep the applications that magically open on their own closed out...
    task killers are bad for the performance of phone actually, ignorant statements like this are funny and show how much knowledge people have and those that just want to bash someone/something
    JoelTruckerDude likes this.
    01-18-11 02:57 PM
  19. elvin1983's Avatar
    I actually have no problem with Android. If I didn't like my BB and were going to switch platforms, I would go with Android. They are very nice multimedia devices.

    And while you may say that there is no reason to run a task killer, I beg to differ, especially when the Samsung rep that I spoke to said that it's recommended that you run one on the Galaxy S devices. (I will say that the HTC rep told me that you don't need to run a task killer on their devices, so have at that.)

    Like I said, I've got nothing against Android, but when I open up Task Killer on one of the demo Android devices at my work, and I see 16 different applications running when the phone has been sitting idle...
    01-18-11 02:57 PM
  20. pantlesspenguin's Avatar
    2) Android (the OS) doesn't come with a World Clock. Maybe a carrier added it as part of their default included apps, but the world clock in not part of the OS. One of the things I had to do with my Galaxy S was add apps onto it to get the usability out of it that I wanted. There is a world clock you can add onto BB. If I wanted to have a world clock on my SGS, I'd have to add it as well.
    Actually my phone DID come with a world clock built in. It's built into the desk mode. I don't know if it's a carrier thing or an HTC Sense thing, though.
    01-18-11 02:59 PM
  21. elvin1983's Avatar
    task killers are bad for the performance of phone, irgnorant statements like this are funny and show how credible peoples info are
    You can challenge the credibility of my information, but when a guy comes up to me complaining of the battery life on his EVO, and I tell him to give a task killer a try, and he comes back to me two weeks later happier than he could ever be because his battery life is now tolerable, that says all it needs to.

    They may be bad for the performance of the phone, but I don't understand why its acceptable for an operating system to keep services running after a program is closed out. I'm just saying.
    01-18-11 03:01 PM
  22. howarmat's Avatar
    You can challenge the credibility of my information, but when a guy comes up to me complaining of the battery life on his EVO, and I tell him to give a task killer a try, and he comes back to me two weeks later happier than he could ever be because his battery life is now tolerable, that says all it needs to.

    They may be bad for the performance of the phone, but I don't understand why its acceptable for an operating system to keep services running after a program is closed out. I'm just saying.
    like i said, you dont know how it operates. just because an application appears open, doesnt mean its running. it can be open and NOT using any CPU cycles at all. Therefore its not using any battery or slowing down the phone. its just cached and ready to go.

    Downloading a badly coded app that is continuously running will run the battery down. The task killer is masking that bad app by shutting it off. It look like the task killer is doing a great job when its really making it worse for the user
    01-18-11 03:07 PM
  23. 13echo4's Avatar
    Weatherbug is a good app and is free.. None of my wifes iphones came with a weather app she had to install it. My BB has multitasking. You might not some time with yours to figure out how to work it. The calender color code I'm not so sure about. I'm sure there's an app for that?

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    01-18-11 03:10 PM
  24. elvin1983's Avatar
    I would like to add that if I am wrong, I'd like someone to please correct me, and to include a link or some form of evidence to show me that I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, I'll have no problem admitting I'm wrong, but not unless I'm convinced of my error.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    01-18-11 03:10 PM
  25. howarmat's Avatar
    Android Task Killers Explained: What They Do and Why You Shouldn't Use Them

    FAQ: Why You Shouldn�t Be Using a Task Killer with Android

    Task Killer -- Do I need one? - Android Forums

    And dont believe the uneducated person that works for VZW and ATK onto your phone with your permission either. When the people that wrote the OS told you not to run a task killer i think they know what they are talking about
    01-18-11 03:23 PM
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