BlackBerry World 2012

I am back from my week in Orlando and I must say I had a great time.  I was lucky enough to win a conference pass and 3 nights hotel stay at the Marriott World Center from berryreview.com .

I arrived Monday afternoon in Orlando and took the shuttle to the resort (it's not a hotel but a full resort).  They had already setup the conference center in preparation for the week and were having a few pre-event events.  I walked around and got to meet a few attendees and a few vendors. It was a great way to start the week off.

On Tuesday was the keynote speech by CEO Thorsten Heins to kick off the conference. He came out with energy and a great speech.  He showed off a few features of the new BB10 handset from the Dev Alpha Device which was given to all the developers at the conference.  The top feature that I thought was amazing was the ability of the camera.  It takes a photo in a type of time lapse which you can then zoom in on an area of the picture and move forward or backward to get the perfect shot.  I can think of several ways this could become a very useful tool for someone who is always taking pictures with my phone instead of bringing a camera with me.  One of the other features they showed off was the touch screen keyboard.  I am not a huge fan of these virtual keyboards but the one they put on this device was kind of cool with the ability to swipe up as you type to put full words into what your working on.

After Thorsten was done they brought on several app developers showing off items that they have already created for the BB10 after only having the Dev Alpha for a week.  RIM is really pushing and focusing on getting the developers to have apps ready for when the BB10 is released, which I think is very smart as that is one of the biggest complaints people have about RIM devices.  They also showed a few new apps that were coming out for the PlayBook which they are also really pushing development for.

Once the keynote was done the breakout sessions started, all week I focused on going to sessions to do with BDS, UDS and Mobile Fusion, which are the replacements to BES servers.  BDS will be used to control BB10 phones and PlayBooks.  UDS is the way for companies to put security and controls on iPhones, Androids and any tablets that users might want connected to the enterprise.  To make managing everything as easy as possible RIM has created Mobile Fusion, which is the front window to all RIM services.  You can go into Mobile Fusion and it will connect to your current BES, BDS and UDS servers so that you can manage all devices from the one screen.  After getting some theoretical knowledge I was also able to go to the hands on lab and install a server and play around with it.  Very slick and very well done by RIM.  The server itself is free and then you buy the CAL's for every device you want to connect.  Makes it affordable and easy to use.

Tuesday night we were all bussed to Universal Studio's where they had a section of it closed off for the BlackBerry World party.  There was food and alcohol all over the area and DJ's playing music on the main stage.  One of the DJ's was using a PlayBook connected to the sound system and running the beta version of PaceMaker to show off what you are able to do with a PlayBook.  It was a fun night with lots to do and to hang out with people outside of the conference.

The rest of the week flew by with breakout sessions and time spent in the Solutions Hall talking to vendors.  They had two car's in the solution hall, both run by PlayBooks.  One was a police car from Chatham that had a PlayBook on the dash instead of a computer and was wired in to control everything in the car.  The second was a Porsche concept car that had three PlayBooks in it. One was the center console and then they had two in the back seats.  All were interconnected and could be streaming different items.  It was very cool to see how powerful these devices are and what you could do with them.

I flew home on Friday which gave me an extra day to relax a bit, I woke up to see the palm trees and a warm sunny day.  Saturday morning I woke in Calgary to a snow storm, I should have stayed a couple more days in Orlando.

All in all it was a great week, I got to see some cool things and I learned some new things.  It also showed me that RIM is far from being obsolete or dead, they are being innovative and with over 100 different countries represented at BBWorld 2012 they have a true world wide reach.  Now I wait for the new BB10 phones to come out and see what the final product will look like.

 

My BOLD Adventure

Yesterday I received my new phone from Blackberry, it was the shiny, sleek new Bold 9900 (I know it's been out for a while but I have been unable to upgrade till now).  After trying to use the switch device from my 8700 and having it fail due to some of my Apps not being compatible I went old school and manually transferred everything over.  This got me thinking about the past and my road with cell phones to today.

When I started with my first consulting company they gave me a Motorola flip phone with the high capacity battery and a pager.  This was simply amazing when I got it as I had never had a cell phone before. I used it a lot for work and a bit for personal use to but the phone was always so hot if you talked for to long on it.

After I left that company I started with a new company and was given a much smaller flip phone as I was "the IT guy" and was on call 24/7.  It worked well for the longest time as I used it for only a phone.  No texting, no internet just a phone.  Then they purchased another company that had a handful of BlackBerry's for the executives.  I quickly rounded them all up and hid them as I said there was no way that technology was every going to be used in a company that I was doing IT for.  About a year later I was invited to a BlackBerry launch party from my friendly Rogers sales rep.  It was for the Blackberry 8700.

  

After the event we were told that everyone in attendance would receive one of these devices for free.  After seeing the demo's and the device in action I must admit I was quite excited.  So when I finally got my 8700 I quickly signed up for a personal plan and then set it up to receive my work and home email to it.  There were a few things I found annoying but the ability to answer my emails while sitting in a car wash or while out with my kids was so amazing that I was hooked on this device and was never going to give it up.  I was fairly hard on my poor 8700 and did go through a couple of them but all in all it was a great mobile device.

Next up was the Blackberry 8900, it got rid of the annoying scroll wheel and gave you a mouse ball in the center.  This device was great until the mouse ball stopped working.  I did have to replace it a couple times as well but the advancement in the technology and what I could do with the device was great.  Again it was more than a phone, it was a mobile device that allowed me to stay in touch with everything while I was on the go.

My next upgrade was to the Bold 9700.  I had this device until yesterday.  I only needed to replace it once as I broke the USB adapter piece so I could no longer charge it.  It replaced the annoying mouse ball to the track pad.  I find the track pad is much more responsive and less chance of breaking.  This device was great, the GPS, Apps, the link to a BES server and all the utilities that I had downloaded for it turned it from a mobile device to a mobile office.  I was able to do most things with the Bold so I didn't need to be always in front of a computer.  I then got a Playbook and with the two of them sync'd together I have been able to travel without a laptop and do everything with my two devices.

The combination of a Playbook and Blackberry gives me full mobility and allows me to work on almost everything I need to do without having to sit in front of a computer or needing internet access as I can tether them together and use my phones data plan.

This brings me to my newest device, the Bold 9900.  It is a combination touch screen and keyboard, so far I am loving this device.  I have avoided touch screen phones as I don't really like the feel to them and I really like my QWERTY keyboard to type emails and texts, with this combination it is the best of both worlds.  I can still type very quickly and when I need to I can use the touch screen for browsing or zooming in on stuff.  Although it was not an easy flip over RIM does have multiple ways to flip phones.  I activated it on my BES which allowed me to get all my emails, calendar, and contacts.  Then I setup my appworld ID and was able to switch devices and reinstall all of my Apps.  It was a bit more work but it worked well and that is where I am at now.  I have my new device fully functioning and have been working with it for the last two days and really loving it.