My Blackberry Rant

I am a brand new Blackberry user. I switched from an original iPhone to a BB Bold 9000.

I am frustrated by a number of things, but I fear that I may be wrong on some of them (as in, maybe there is a solution that I am not aware of). I spend way too much time on this website trying to learn as much as I can, but I'm sure I've missed a bunch.

1) Lack of Mac Support. Windows/iPhone users never had a problem syncing their devices with their PC's - even from the first model. In one week, I've had to upgrade my Mac OS, just so I could install the BB Desktop Manager. Considering my MacBook is only 3 years old (one year older than my iPhone was), I find it absurd that by RIM's standards, my Macbook was too out-of-date to make software for.

2) No OFFICIAL BB OS 5.0 release (through my AT&T carrier) for my BB Bold 9000. Really? Even if I downloaded an unofficial version for my Bold, I wouldn't be able to get it onto my device, because I am on a Mac.
* The reason I find this totally crazy is because I just bought my Bold 9000 (in white) from AT&T this week for $150 (pre-mail-in-rebate). I should not be buying a $150 phone and finding out that it technically is not running on the most recent OS ALREADY.

3) Loooong reboots (which drain the battery). God forbid I try to download/install an app OTA while I'm at work. I can have a full battery and download BBM to update and 15 minutes later, after my phone has (mandatorily) rebooted itself, I am down 1 1/2 to 2 battery bars, PLUS 10 minutes of my life waiting for it.

4) Poor call audio. I don't know if this is just me, but if I'm on the phone with someone and I am speaking and she tries to speak, there is a weird audio distortion that happens. I can't really explain it, but it's almost as though two people can't talk at the same time. Again, this could just be me.

5) Supplied themes/customization. I can't believe that my Bold came with TWO pre-installed Themes. Maybe it was just because there is only 1 gb of memory on-board, but it doesn't give you any idea of how much a BB can be personalized. And I wanted to make my own theme, but cannot because I am a Mac user.

6) iTunes music not playable on BB. Again, maybe I'm missing something, but it seems that any music I've downloaded from iTunes is protected and can't play on my Blackberry? Maybe this is more of an issue to discuss with iTunes, but I paid for that music - how can I not play it on a Blackberry device?

7) Inability to set multiple alarms. I am only able to set one per day through the alarm clock function. I need two alarms per day. One to wake me up and one to remind me to take my multivitamin later in the day. But I am only able to set one. Is this true?

I actually love my Blackberry. It's so beautiful to look at, I don't want to put a case on it and I have a MUCH easier time talking/texting/typing on it. It's great in those ways, but the lack of Mac support seems unnecessarily stubborn and regressive on RIM's part. I almost feel insulted. Mac users are a HUGE market who care deeply about the technology in their lives. If we so choose to adopt a Blackberry, we should be given equal treatment and the ability to keep it up to date via whichever computer OS/platform we choose to use. I believe this is sort of what discrimination might feel like.

Another issue I have is not with RIM, but with AT&T. They are not upfront about any compatibility issues Mac users may experience while trying to integrate a Blackberry into their lives. I specifically asked my AT&T rep about this and he gave me misinformation. He also said AT&T charges a 10% restocking fee if you were to return the device. From that statement alone, I probably should never have purchased the Bold from AT&T.

I hope these issues are resolved soon and if I happen to be misinformed on any of them, please correct me.

Thank you to all of the very informed and helpful people here. You've made my BB conversion experience that much more bearable.

You might as well take it back and get the 3GS. Nothing else to add.

Re: #6, that is an iTunes issue. DRM protected songs will only play on an iPod or iPhone. Even if you tried to use a cheap $15 MP3 player, you could not add them. You will need to burn them to CD, then rip them back into iTunes to remove the DRM. iTunes has since changed their policy, but that is something that affects anybody who wants to put older songs purchased from iTunes on a device not made by Apple.

You know most people in your situation would have just taken it back by now. Im sure some of what your experiencing is you comparing the bold to the iphone. In some respects the bold will fall short of your expectations. As for some of your concerns the official os 5 release is handled by att. They will give it up when they want. Mac support is relativley new for bb. Be patient im sure it will get better. Long reboots will be a thing of the past with os 5. Just the nature of the beast now. Poor call audio may be your device sounds as if it may be device specific. My tour only came with one theme. Try the themes section here in the forums im sure you will find something to your liking. As far as setting multiple alarms, we have an app or two for that. I tunes music can play on a bb, there is an app for that aswell

OS5 will solve a lot of your issues. If you can't use a Mac to upgrade your phone, I suggest using a friend's PC, preferably someone with a BlackBerry so you won't have to download additional software. An official version is out, but not by your carrier. However, if you delete the vendor.xml file that comes with the files for the other carrier, it will install just fine.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

You can set up additional alarms through the calendar. Go to the calendar, press the BB button, then select New Alarm. I have two or three alarms set up depending on the day of the week.

Originally Posted by csteen85

I am a brand new Blackberry user. I switched from an original iPhone to a BB Bold 9000.

I am frustrated by a number of things, but I fear that I may be wrong on some of them (as in, maybe there is a solution that I am not aware of). I spend way too much time on this website trying to learn as much as I can, but I'm sure I've missed a bunch.

1) Lack of Mac Support. Windows/iPhone users never had a problem syncing their devices with their PC's - even from the first model. In one week, I've had to upgrade my Mac OS, just so I could install the BB Desktop Manager. Considering my MacBook is only 3 years old (one year older than my iPhone was), I find it absurd that by RIM's standards, my Macbook was too out-of-date to make software for.

2) No OFFICIAL BB OS 5.0 release (through my AT&T carrier) for my BB Bold 9000. Really? Even if I downloaded an unofficial version for my Bold, I wouldn't be able to get it onto my device, because I am on a Mac.
* The reason I find this totally crazy is because I just bought my Bold 9000 (in white) from AT&T this week for $150 (pre-mail-in-rebate). I should not be buying a $150 phone and finding out that it technically is not running on the most recent OS ALREADY.

3) Loooong reboots (which drain the battery). God forbid I try to download/install an app OTA while I'm at work. I can have a full battery and download BBM to update and 15 minutes later, after my phone has (mandatorily) rebooted itself, I am down 1 1/2 to 2 battery bars, PLUS 10 minutes of my life waiting for it.

4) Poor call audio. I don't know if this is just me, but if I'm on the phone with someone and I am speaking and she tries to speak, there is a weird audio distortion that happens. I can't really explain it, but it's almost as though two people can't talk at the same time. Again, this could just be me.

5) Supplied themes/customization. I can't believe that my Bold came with TWO pre-installed Themes. Maybe it was just because there is only 1 gb of memory on-board, but it doesn't give you any idea of how much a BB can be personalized. And I wanted to make my own theme, but cannot because I am a Mac user.

6) iTunes music not playable on BB. Again, maybe I'm missing something, but it seems that any music I've downloaded from iTunes is protected and can't play on my Blackberry? Maybe this is more of an issue to discuss with iTunes, but I paid for that music - how can I not play it on a Blackberry device?

7) Inability to set multiple alarms. I am only able to set one per day through the alarm clock function. I need two alarms per day. One to wake me up and one to remind me to take my multivitamin later in the day. But I am only able to set one. Is this true?

I actually love my Blackberry. It's so beautiful to look at, I don't want to put a case on it and I have a MUCH easier time talking/texting/typing on it. It's great in those ways, but the lack of Mac support seems unnecessarily stubborn and regressive on RIM's part. I almost feel insulted. Mac users are a HUGE market who care deeply about the technology in their lives. If we so choose to adopt a Blackberry, we should be given equal treatment and the ability to keep it up to date via whichever computer OS/platform we choose to use. I believe this is sort of what discrimination might feel like.

Another issue I have is not with RIM, but with AT&T. They are not upfront about any compatibility issues Mac users may experience while trying to integrate a Blackberry into their lives. I specifically asked my AT&T rep about this and he gave me misinformation. He also said AT&T charges a 10% restocking fee if you were to return the device. From that statement alone, I probably should never have purchased the Bold from AT&T.

I hope these issues are resolved soon and if I happen to be misinformed on any of them, please correct me.

Thank you to all of the very informed and helpful people here. You've made my BB conversion experience that much more bearable.

I don't know anything about your mac issues because I've never used one before, but I will help out where I can.

2) No 5.0 isn't available "officially" but there are many leaks that work just as well with minimal problems. I personally think that AT&T and TMo are holding back because they want to get as many people as they can to buy the 9700. To be honest, though...and again, this is just my opinion...there isn't a huge difference between 4.6 and 5.0. I see a lot of upset users every day who feel that RIM isn't really creating anything earth shattering. Same product, slightly different package. My point is that you aren't missing much.

3) Yes there are long reboots, and like someone else said they've been taken care of in 5.0, but your battery shouldn't drain at all just from a reboot on 4.6. I've had multiple Bolds and none of them did so. Might be a phone issue, or maybe I was just lucky. I don't think that's normal, though.

4) Call quality might be another phone issue, or again I could be lucky, but my Bolds have had the best voice quality of any phone I've ever used. My friends can't ever tell whether I'm on a cell or a landline.

5) There are TONS of free/paid themes here on CB alone. Go to forums.crackberry.com/f130. Also, try www.pimpmyberry.com. They have an amazing amount of themes, as well. It's easy to waste hours looking through them all. :)

6) All you have to do is create an MP3 copy of the songs, delete the AAC file, and it should work. If you have problems after that, check your memory card and make sure that it's not accidentally locked. That happened to me once and it fixed it. I have all of my Itunes songs on my phone, though, so it is possible to do.

7) You can set multiple alarms within your calendar. I've seen a lot of people use the calendar (the "task" app has alarms, too, I think.) for that very purpose.

Also, I'm pretty sure that AT&T isn't the only carrier to charge a restocking fee.

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well i went from iphone to bold...my first bold died last week and i got another bold(white at&t) on friday and to my suprise 5.0.0.464 came out and its running flawlessly...i just like the form factor and i felt naked having to put my sim back in the iphone...and hey atleast you get DM on mac, i run linux and have to go to my friends house for backing up and all that...i havnt looked up solutions for linux yet so please dont flame if there are programs for it lol.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I will try them all and report back.

Crackdezberries - How did you get 5.0.0.464 for the white Bold from AT&T??

I am sure media sync syncs Itunes music.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

First off, live with the OS thing. Give it time, just because you hear about it doesn't mean it's ready for prime time. Let them work the bugs out and you will be happy. Besides, ask yourself, what is in OS 5 that you absolutely require to make the device work for you? Chances are, nothing.

As for battery drain, I suspect that's not the truth of the matter. Sure, you reboot when it says 90% and you come back to 75% but that can be normal and you should appreciate it.

LiOn batteries are a little tricky and over time the voltage monitor drifts. So you think you have 90% charge but really you have less. A reboot can reset that so you get an accurate count. It's all good.

I won't comment on the Mac aspect as I'm a known Mac hater for many reasons. But bottom line Mac's are in the minority like Linux (which hey, they basically run that) so you get what you pay for. If they become as dominant as regular PC's then you can expect developers will actually take the time to support them. In my job (software engineer) we don't even consider them and we sell product to most of the world. It's just not worth the development cost to make something no one uses.

Having said that, ATT is not really responsible for compatibility issues. Welcome to the corporate world, they are just a reseller. To them you are a wallet with legs and they can easily tell you to suck it up, contact RIM as it's their responsibility. Sad but true.

Dude I thought Samsung made the Rant, not BB. :)

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Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Originally Posted by scorpiodsu

You might as well take it back and get the 3GS. Nothing else to add.

perfectly summed up.

1) Lack of Mac Support. Windows/iPhone users never had a problem syncing their devices with their PC's - even from the first model. In one week, I've had to upgrade my Mac OS, just so I could install the BB Desktop Manager. Considering my MacBook is only 3 years old (one year older than my iPhone was), I find it absurd that by RIM's standards, my Macbook was too out-of-date to make software for.

Mac support hasn't been around for even a year yet. I would say they developed the new app using the newest Mac OS. This happens on the PC side as well when companies make software for the latest OS and other users feel left behind (happened to a lot when XP came out and Win98 apps wouldn't run anymore).

2) No OFFICIAL BB OS 5.0 release (through my AT&T carrier) for my BB Bold 9000. Really? Even if I downloaded an unofficial version for my Bold, I wouldn't be able to get it onto my device, because I am on a Mac.
* The reason I find this totally crazy is because I just bought my Bold 9000 (in white) from AT&T this week for $150 (pre-mail-in-rebate). I should not be buying a $150 phone and finding out that it technically is not running on the most recent OS ALREADY.

My understanding is that RIM did release OS 5.0 to the carriers. It is up to the carriers to approve and release the software from there. There are many leaks out for the 9000, and once the vendor.xml file is removed, should install without issue. I know my carrier takes a while to release the latest OS version, so moving to another version is my only choice until my carrier catches up.

3) Loooong reboots (which drain the battery). God forbid I try to download/install an app OTA while I'm at work. I can have a full battery and download BBM to update and 15 minutes later, after my phone has (mandatorily) rebooted itself, I am down 1 1/2 to 2 battery bars, PLUS 10 minutes of my life waiting for it.

OS 5.0 does make this faster. Plus, 5.0 has a progress bar during boot so you can see when it is close to fully rebooting. It would be great if it could boot up faster. Hopefully this is something that will just keep getting better as new OS updates come out.

4) Poor call audio. I don't know if this is just me, but if I'm on the phone with someone and I am speaking and she tries to speak, there is a weird audio distortion that happens. I can't really explain it, but it's almost as though two people can't talk at the same time. Again, this could just be me.

It might be hardware, or it might also be the OS. I know that some people have better radio reception, different volume levels, and other phone settings that change with different OS versions. You might want to try 5.0 and see if your call quality improves.

5) Supplied themes/customization. I can't believe that my Bold came with TWO pre-installed Themes. Maybe it was just because there is only 1 gb of memory on-board, but it doesn't give you any idea of how much a BB can be personalized. And I wanted to make my own theme, but cannot because I am a Mac user.

There are plenty of free and paid themes out there. I'm glad that RIM didn't load up my memory with a bunch of themes (each theme takes up about 600K, depending on the amount of graphics). I prefer being able to choose which themes I want on my phone.

6) iTunes music not playable on BB. Again, maybe I'm missing something, but it seems that any music I've downloaded from iTunes is protected and can't play on my Blackberry? Maybe this is more of an issue to discuss with iTunes, but I paid for that music - how can I not play it on a Blackberry device?

If your music has DRM on it, then no, it won't play. Your two options are to either burn to CD, then rip to mp3 to remove the DRM, or use the iTunes option to strip the DRM (I think there is a small fee for this). Once the DRM is removed, you can move music manually to your BB, or use Media Sync, which works with iTunes.

7) Inability to set multiple alarms. I am only able to set one per day through the alarm clock function. I need two alarms per day. One to wake me up and one to remind me to take my multivitamin later in the day. But I am only able to set one. Is this true?

The base alarm clock only has one alarm. But as others have said, you have the ability to set more alarms in the calendar. There are also several 3rd party apps that let you set multiple alarms.

Going with short and sweet on this. First off, call quality on the BB cannt be beat, probably the other phone.

And for iTunes music have you tried Media Sync on Desktop Manager? Its made for iTunes.

And OS 5 would solve looong reboots.

But Macs are pretty much the kid on timeout in corner in this classroom, even if he didn't do anything. Try to get access to a PC just for your inital OS installation, if possible. And then start getting familiar with your BB and a Mac.

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For your iTunes problem, you have to download the plus version of the song you already own for an extra 30 cents a song, cause Applw thought at first that iTunes should only be played n iPods.

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