Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with blackberry

when is the blackberry q10, with physical keyboard, being released?

jdaura — Fri, 10 May 2013 17:25:41 -0800

When is the company formally known as RIM releasing the Q10 model (that's the one with the physical keyboard as opposed to the Z10 which is their touchscreen phone and is currently available) ? I don't understand why the company-formally-known-as-RIM is being so coy about it. It was originally called the X10, then when they announced the existence of it they changed the name to the Q10 and all I can find is vague speculation that it may be May or June.

Getting multiple Outlook task and contacts folders on Blackberry

Mechitar — Thu, 09 May 2013 11:02:25 -0800

I use Outlook pretty heavily at home - not for email, but for everything else (calendar, tasks, contacts lists). This includes keeping various tasks folders (e.g. To Do This Week, To Do Soon, Errands, Music to Download) and a few contacts folders (e.g. Personal, Business, Online Accounts (where I keep my login info and other details for my many online accounts)). I decided to go with a Blackberry for my first smart phone because it sounded like it would be the one that would most smoothly mesh with the Outlook info on my PC so that I could have my calendar/task/contact info in both places at all times. I was prepared to do daily (or more) syncs between my PC and phone to make this happen. Per the question title, I got a Blackberry Curve. Alas, it turns out that I was sorely mistaken. The Curve (and who knows how many other versions of BB before and since) allows only one folder each for tasks and for contacts on the device. I'm an individual user (not a corporate user) and don't use (or want to use) Exchange Server - although I don't think that would help this particular problem anyway. So is there anything I can do to get my Curve to handle anything more than one folder for tasks and contacts? I have put this question up on the Crackberry forum, but no one could help (the answers came down to: 1. I'm S.O.L., and 2. I might be able to get some of this kind of function using Evernote (my preliminary research on Evernote suggests otherwise, but I admit that I didn't dig any deeper than that).

For what purpose was enterprise push email designed?

aydeejones — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 14:01:31 -0800

Would you agree that enterprise push email technology was primarily designed to push email from a single enterprise mailbox (unless you happen to work for multiple enterprises)? At my place of employment we run Exchange and most folks with mobile devices have separate, dedicated "mobile mailboxes" that are dedicated to mobile use. They essentially use their devices as pagers. This is typical across the medical staff and prior to the push-email setup, the medical staff used alpha-pagers, so this is a logical continuation of that setup. They want to be woken up in the middle of the night if it's important, but they don't want every email flowing into their phone.

As of late, most new managers that start in the organization immediately request the ability to synchronize with their primary mailbox, often eschewing the use of a separate dedicated mailbox. Our sysadmin finds this unfathomable.

I would argue that this is the most common "use case" of enterprise push email: retrieving any message you wish, getting notified of new email messages in your single solitary mailbox. I think it's beyond debate and feel sheepish posting this, but it's hard to find supporting evidence of what I think is a pretty obvious conclusion: of course this is what BlackBerry Enterprise Server was designed to do, along with other technologies like Good and ActiveSync, and most users are interested in retrieving all of their corporate email. I personally do this, using rules to move the less-important email to other folders so I don't get notified when they arrive.

Our sysadmin is adamant that this is foolish, I suspect because he personally doesn't like this approach himself, and because "we've always done it the other way." These might be uncharitable interpretations but I just don't get it.

I think he's behind the times and he's literally accused me of "thinking I'm god" when I explained that this technology was really intended for syncing with a "primary mailbox" and not some extra dumping ground.

To be honest I want something to be able to point at, and I think the internet might benefit from this thread if future people in my role are forced to question their sanity about such a simple concept.

I want to save this moment forever

decathecting — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 06:08:50 -0800

I'm looking for phone apps that will allow me to easily and simply record sound and simultaneously back up the recording offsite (send it to email, save to a cloud server, etc.). I want to be able to hit a button on my phone that will start recording and automatically save that recording somewhere other than (or in addition to) in my phone's memory. I realize that the quality of the recording will mostly depend on the physical capabilities of the phone, but I'd like the recording to be as high-quality as possible. And I'd love to make a list of apps available for a wide variety of phones. If there is some way to do this on non-smartphones (i.e., by saving the message to voicemail or something), that would also be awesome.

I know these sorts of apps exist, because I've heard of people using them to record encounters with police, fights with significant others, etc., in which their phones ended up lost or destroyed, but the recordings were still accessible to them later. You would think I'd easily be able to find this on Google, but either it is hard to find, or I am terrible at Google. Thanks for your help!

Blackberry/iPhone sim compatibility

billtron — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 16:47:41 -0800

Can I put my iPhone 4 AT&T sim card in an AT&T Blackberry Curve 8310 and still send and receive calls and SMS messages without accruing additional fees or contract extensions? My iPhone 4 died recently, due to a disappointing hot tub experience. While I wait until I buy a new iPhone 5, I'm looking to use another phone to make and receive phone calls and SMS messages. A friend gave me her old Blackberry. I don't want to change my plan if possible. Possible?

Seamless syncing suggestions?

Happydaz — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 21:22:41 -0800

How to sync my iPad/Outlook calendar to my Blackberry? Bonus points for WiFi or Bluetooth options. I don't have a dataplan for my Blackberry 8320, although I can grab WiFi on it with no problem. I bought it merely to quickly calendar court dates, which is a pretty important task when I'm carrying a dozen files to court at any given time -- for all the niftyness of my iPad, its calendar is a dinosaur, thanks to those annoying scrolling minutes/hours/days. I used to simply plug the phone in to my computer with Blackberry's desktop software, but the software bugged out on me a few weeks ago and it now causes an error every time I sync.

I've read some suggestions about jailbreaking my iPad so it talks to the Blackberry through WiFi. I'm willing to do that if necessary, if it would actually work. I'm open to anything, but would prefer a solution with no wires. Oh, and I'm using Google's calendar sync program as well, if that adds any solutions.

Group Calendar for BlackBerry

forkisbetter — Wed, 02 May 2012 08:41:18 -0800

I need to find a way to share a group calendar that will work with a Blackberry and a boss who doesn't like technology. Special Snowflake details inside. My boss is very technophobic. We have been keeping our department events calendar on a shared Google Spreadsheet so that everyone can access and modify their own events at any time.

Boss does not like this because 1) she does not like having to open a browser window to look at the bookmark for the calendar 2) she has issues viewing the calendar on a Blackberry (she does not use Gmail) 3) she wants a very simple layout more like a to-do list with lots of detail than a typical boxy calendar view (hence the Google Doc Spreadsheet rather than a shared Google Calendar).

I need to find a shared calendar of some kind that allows all to view and edit, easily viewable on a Blackberry (like one button, no syncing with Google because my boss finds it too complicated), and has an "agenda" list-like view so you can see detailed information about events for the full year in one view.

Also note, my boss is the only one with a Blackberry so everyone else would need web access to edit.

Need GMail standalone app for Blackberry Storm 9530

JohnnyGunn — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:15:31 -0800

Looking for the app (or files) for GMail on my Blackberry Storm. Yes, Storm and yes Storm (original not Storm 2). Google no longer supports this and will not allow me to download the app. Last night when I went to bed, I had a perfectly working Blackberry Storm. While that is not saying a lot, it was a small comfort to me. When I awoke this morning, I had the dreaded "JVM Error 545".

I spent the morning wiping my device, reinstalling the OS and trying to recreate what I had. I was able to find a download for the Google Voice app by changing my internet settings to "Firefox". The only application and only thing I cannot get back is the GMail app.

Yes, I can and do get my email through IMAP and the native Blackberry email software. I want to be able to access the app as well. I want to be able to see my various tags (folders), be able to see my starred items, etc. I want my GMail!! The only option for me for now is going to a browser and using that. Remember folks, I am using a Blackberry Storm. No wifi. The browser is really not a viable option.

I have searched for it online. I cannot find it. It could be because I am not using the correct search terms. I have checked the Crackberry forums, but again, I am so old I am using a Storm and I could be screwing up the search terms there too.

Does anyone know where and how I can download the app to my Storm 9530 and get around Google's lack of support?

Want to feel proud of my to-done

Gilbert — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:06:37 -0800

I'm looking for a to-do list app that holds on to a list of done tasks Hi all. After years using index cards and notepads to track my short and long-term to-do's, I'm hoping to find a digital solution. I am looking for the following features:

- Runs and synchs on iMac, iPod Touch, and Blackberry.

- Allows you to sort and re-arrange tasks easily without having to re-enter.

- Moves checked-off items to a list of completed tasks (this seems to be the hardest to find).

Is there anything out there like this?

What is the best phone for an active, mobile senior?

any portmanteau in a storm — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:29:23 -0800

What is the best phone for an active, mobile senior? My mom is 75 and is on the phone all the time when she is at home. What would be the best cell phone for her so that she can keep in touch with people when she's on the go? My mom is really active. She is on the phone all the time and out of the house doing things almost every day. Because she is out of the house so often and her plans have a habit of changing it would be a really good idea for her to have and use a cell phone.

One of the organizations she volunteers for gave her a cell phone (a Samsung featurephone) but she can't use it because doing anything (like looking up a phone number) requires using a really unintuitive menu system. Any time I've had to call her on her phone it was turned off because she doesn't use it anyway. So it is really a waste of a phone for her.

My solution to this would be to get her a better phone, but which one?

I have a Blackberry and for making calls it is great, I can just start entering someone's name on the keypad and it will give me their number. It easily syncs with my gmail contact list and calendar and the battery life is pretty good. I think a phone like this would be much more useful for her than her current one, and as a result it wouldn't be turned off all the time like her current one. My concerns with the blackberry are that the keys are kind of small, and while they are nicely textured and illuminated, the tiny keys may be frustrating for her. Also the screen is small so she would not get much use of it for email. Finally, if she wants to do anything off of the home screen then she will get lost in the sea of small icons for everything else.

The other option is something with a big screen, either an iphone or android. The big screen should make it easy for her to see what's on it, and provided she doesn't download too many apps the homescreen will be relatively uncluttered. Do either iOS or android have a mode for people with weaker eyesight? (ie bigger text and buttons). If either offers turn by turn GPS with voice navigation that would be good too as it would help when she drives somewhere unfamiliar (which right now she gets really apprehensive about).

Another advantage of getting her a new phone is that her current digital camera is pretty old (3.2 megapixels!) and I figure that any new phone she got would have a much better camera, and she would have it with her all the time. I was going to buy her a new camera, but I'm thinking that a modern phone would be even better.

She's been using a computer for the last 10 years or so and is fine with email, document creation in OpenOffice (LibreOffice now) and general internet stuff like searching and using facebook. The computer she's using is running Ubuntu, but there's a windows computer in the house if necessary for the phone.

I'd be covering the monthly phone/data plan as well so there wouldn't be any additional expenses for her. You can still tell me this is a bad idea, but not for that reason.

Thanks!

Lost phone in Philadelphia

furious — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:46:22 -0800

A friend of mine lost her blackberry phone. What can be done on our end to get it back or get copies of the irreplaceable pictures of loved ones from it? Long-winded weepy details inside. Lost a blackberry two nights ago and really, really would like to get it back, or at least get copies of the pictures from it. We've been calling it - no answer. The phone is locked. On the lock screen (if someone pushes to make a call) is a working email address. No emails have been come, and the spam has been checked. The phone is on Tmobile. Tmobile had nothing they could do, they said.

We're fairly sure the phone was lost in a gym. Looked under the machines, called it, looked under more machines, called it. Nothing. The phone has a morning alarm, so it should be going off loudly over and over again.

The curious thing is at first it went straight to voicemail overnight. Then yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon it would ring a couple of times and then go to voicemail. During that time, we did more searches and calls at the gym.

Since then, it has been just going straight to voicemail. Does that signal someone having it and taking it places? We have looked everywhere - car, purse, jackets, laundry, fridge, the ground, craigslist, etc.

We've called the few places we were and have narrowed down the disappearance window to 90 minutes on monday. None of the few places have it. My last resort is about to be hitting the gym at closing time, calling it, and hoping it lights up in the dark under a machine somewhere. The battery of the phone was fine on Monday but by tomorrow the phone will likely be dead.

I saw a post online where someone had been using their phone's bluetooth with their laptop, so they just took around their laptop until it detected the phone. Anybody got any clever ideas like that? Is there a way to track it with Carrier IQ or some little known method of finding a missing phone?

I need any ideas you have for ways to find the phone tonight. Thank you!

Stop my phone driving me mad, please!

LyzzyBee — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 20:28:13 -0800

My BlackBerry (Curve) has a Facebook app. Suddenly (last few days) it's been alerting me whenever there's a new reply to my post, etc. Drives me mad - I just want to be alerted (noise and flashing light) when I get a an email (for my work) and I don't mind the flashing light when I get a new Twitter mention. But this Facebook thing is driving me mad. BUT when I go in to ask it not to alert me to these things on the Blackberry, it stops alerting me on my home email to responses to my posts, etc. When I turn on alerting on the Facebook website, hey presto, they're back on my phone. I like looking at Facebook on the phone every now and again, but if I have to delete it, FINE! And I have tried to Google, but I'm so tired, and there is so much stuff if you google BB and FB and alerts, so, please!

Put the new battery ino the phone again, it can be working.

TuxHeDoh — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 11:36:47 -0800

Can anyone tell me what the purpose of this "Battery Connector" is? We purchased some replacement batteries for blackberries, and while we can read the engrish, we don't understand what exactly is taking place when we follow the instructions. Help me mefi!

bb 9900

MechEng — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:48:25 -0800

What are the best blackberry apps that take advantage of the bb 9900 touch screen. (Preferably Free)? Neatest one I've seen so far is wikitude

Sprint stealth upgrade by adding/dropping lines

kindall — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 22:03:49 -0800

Has anyone ever added a line to their Sprint account to be able to upgrade their phone early? If so, how did it go? Any catches? Last Christmas I got my wife a Blackberry Style, which was the phone she wanted, and reluctantly signed up for a 2-year contract with Sprint because they were the carrier who had that phone. Unfortunately the Style turns out to be a crappy phone which crashes all the time, loses texts, does not multitask reliably, and has horrible battery life if she so much as installs a game on it. This phone is not defective, except in the sense that it was programmed by a bunch of idiots; replacing the phone would not solve these problems. Naturally, she hates this phone and has wanted to replace it for months.

(Later I got an Evo 4G, so we now have a 2-line Sprint family plan.)

What she really wants now is an iPhone 4S. Unfortunately, we are many months away from being eligible to get that phone as an upgrade, and despite repeated entreaties to Sprint reps over them selling us a phone that is essentially broken and unfixable, we cannot get them to cut us a break.

Now, the early termination fee for her Blackberry is $160 (confirmed just a couple days ago with a Sprint rep). So, in theory, we could add the iPhone as another line on our plan at the subsidized price, swap the phone numbers between the Blackberry and iPhone, and then a couple days later pay the $160 to drop the Blackberry. Even counting the activation fee on the extra line, this would be $250 less expensive than buying the iPhone outright. (Even when we're eligible for an upgrade, it would only be worth $150, so this seems a better deal even than that.)

This seems too simple, and a huge loophole, so I'm thinking there must be some reason it won't work. Anyone done something like this on Sprint, and if so, how did it go?

Easiest way to pull contacts off of a Blackberry Bold and onto an iPhone 4S?

wooh — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 21:52:14 -0800

Easiest way to pull contacts off of a Blackberry Bold and onto an iPhone 4S? I have a Blackberry bold and want to pull my contacts off of it and onto my iPhone, ideally as painlessly as possible.

Caveats: I do not have access to windows. I only have Mac. If I HAVE to get access to a windows PC I probably could but it'd be a pain, so I'd like to avoid it.

If any other info would help, let me know. Thanks!

Let's Go For a Test Drive!!

JohnnyGunn — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:58:48 -0800

I want to buy a new "smart phone". (Hopefully smarter than its soon to be owner.) I want to try (or test drive) them out first. Is there a way to try various phones for a few days before actually purchasing one? I am a Verizon customer. I currently have a Blackberry Storm. That is a first generation Storm. That is a brick; almost literally. But it works for me. I was recently given to use an iPad 2. Not much of a fan, but it has opened my eyes to the world around me when it comes to phones. I am glad I did not go out and just purchase an iPhone as I am pretty sure it is not for me.

But how do I know what I will like in a phone if I cannot try one out for a few days? I would love to have an Android phone for a few days, then a new blackberry then a windows 7 phone, etc for 3 or 4 days each. I would then strap on a set and make a decision. Is there a way I can test drive a phone for a few days?

I found a story about Sprint setting up virtual phones to look at, but could not actually find the link or the virtual phones or what I thought a virtual phone would be. I could buy a phone with Verizon and return it, but they have $50 restocking fees. They sort of laughed when I suggested they let me try one for a few days.

(Maybe this is a business to be in? Rent a phone for a week or less?)

Cost of developing mobile apps

Cloud King — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:54:01 -0800

What do I need to develop mobile apps? My job asked me to look into developing mobile apps for iOS, Android and possibly Blackberry (all of the apps will be free)

Here is what I discovered so far, please tell me if I'm missing anything:

iOS:
- need a Mac to create the app
- Apple Developer Program (99$)
- XCode 4 and iOS SDK 4 (free with Developer program)
- iPhone/iPod Touch, obviously

Android:
- 25$ fee for putting app on market
- Java SDK, Android SDK all free

Blackberry:
- Java and Blackberry SDK (free?)
- Developer Zone

Does anyone know if I need to pay to join some kind of Blackberry developer program or to release the app? I googled around and found posts from a year or two ago taking about spending 200$ to buy tokens that I could use to release/update apps, but I can't find any more info on the Blackberry Developer Zone website

Does checking a BlackBerry count as working?

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 13:10:09 -0800

Will US Immigration get upset if I take my BlackBerry with me to the US on vacation? I'm about to visit the US soon, on vacation. I would ordinarily take my BlackBerry on vacation with me, in order to check work messages once or twice a day and make sure that there are no emergencies. Can I do so without raising issues of "working" in the US?

I remember that when I was a child, the people at the immigration counter always asked my father if he had any work papers with him when we went to the US on holiday, and said that doing work in the US was strictly prohibited. Now that BlackBerries are ubiquitous, has anything changed or do I need to leave it at home?

Free Remote-Desktop S/W For My Blackberry?

whitebird — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 07:22:52 -0800

I'm looking for free remote-desktop software for my BlackBerry Curve 3G, similar to LogMeIn (which is free, but not not compatible) and RDM+ (which is compatible, but $39.95). Any ideas? Thanks much.

Billions of berries for Blackberry Jamble

silsurf — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:46:44 -0800

Can I move a blackberry plant safely? We recently moved into a new home and much to our delight there is a hole slew of blackberry vines on one side of the house.

We came in and early summer and they were ripe and they were excellent. our neighbor told us that the vines came from cuttings from another neighbor almost twenty years ago. They run along our communal fence.

I have built a nice way for them to crawl and look forward to next season, but here is my question.

90% of the berries are on the fence line, which is where we want them, but a few are on the other side of the walkway, which is up against the side of the house.

We really would like to have them just on the one side, can I move the plants that are on the house side? Are blackberries complete plants, or is each one just a vine that has kind of broken through the ground?

I hope my question makes sense, any other words of wisdom greatly appreciated.

Henry

Why must I justify the equipment I need to do my job?

emptybowl — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 05:12:24 -0800

My company is doing more and more development for phones, so I'm trying to convince the higher-ups to buy the development team some phones to test on, rather than rely on coworker's personal phones. If I merely plan to hook each phone (Blackberry, iPhone and Android) to our company Wi-Fi for website and app testing, do we still need to find a carrier and pay for a data plan for each one? Or can I just buy the phones and set them up to only work locally in the office?

(And, yes, I am aware there are emulators for each phone, but for final testing, I'd prefer to have the real thing.)

Thorns, Thorns Everywhere!

leigh1 — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 11:38:31 -0800

I am going to inherit neglected piece of land that is covered in wild blackberry bush. There are fruit trees and currants somewhere in there, but I can't get to them. I don't know where to start with this - I would like to make this piece of land manageable, but I don't want to use herbicides and kill everything in sight. Are there any earth-friendly/permaculture solutions to this?

Fruit Smoothie Nutrition

frankly mister — Sat, 28 May 2011 07:40:41 -0800

Couple nutrition-related questions concerning fruit smoothies. 3 questions:

1) I'm wondering if blending fruits tears up the cells of the fruits and what not and hence significantly diminishes the nutritional value of a smoothie, compared to eating the fruits whole. I mean, I imagine the juice of the fruits is largely unaffected by the blending, so this probably only concerns the pulp and other solids.

2) I heard somewhere that the metal blade of the blender causes oxidation in the smoothie. But I remember also reading that the oxidation is minimized if you drink the smoothie soon after blending it. Is there any truth to this oxidation thing?

3) Raspberry and blackberry seeds remain pretty much in tact when using my blender. Can the body extract and/or digest the nutrients from the seeds when they're still whole? Or must they be ground up or pulverized to get any real value? And this question extends to all such small seeds, like flax for example.

Thanks!

ugh, weeds

otherwordlyglow — Wed, 25 May 2011 09:38:48 -0800

We have the holy trinity of major weed problems: Bermudagrass, Oxalis, Wild Blackberry. What should we do? We moved into our San Francisco house in January and inherited a large, very unkempt backyard. It clearly has not been maintained for many years. We're not expert gardeners and are clearly outmatched by the weeds.

It's terraced up on about 6 levels from the back of the house up the hill We've weeded (by hand) hundreds of gallons of weeds but still have much to do and are trying to avoid using herbicides but are not completely opposed to them. The oxalis is pretty benign and though it's a pain to weed, it's not quite as obnoxious as the other two main problems. After pulling 10-foot long, inch-thick, thorny vines out of the trees, the wild blackberry (Himalaya Berry?) is still popping up all over and we've been digging it up as far down as we can but I'm sure there's still more to come. Our neighbors to the back are infested with it so I know it's just a matter of time.

The Bermudagrass is particularly awful and there is a tangled mat of runners several inches thick in places AND there's landscape/weed cloth underneath a lot of it (clearly not doing its job). I pulled up some of the weed cloth and there's MORE runners underneath it. Do we just have to scrape off a foot of soil and start all over? How do we eradicate the Bermudagrass?

Luckily, there's almost nothing in the yard that's worth keeping so wholesale destruction is fine. No fine-grain weeding is really required yet. Another difficulty is that the backyard is only accessible through the house (it's attached on both sides to the neighbors) by way of a standard-sized door so any equipment has to be small enough to get through there. A rototiller would fit but is that going to make the problem worse? Do we just need to pour poison on our yard? I don't mind hand-weeding if it's really going to help.