As most of you know, I run a small mobile development team (Bitsmedia) which has so far been focusing on the iOS platform (iPhone and iPad apps). One of our goal for 2011 is to diversify ourselves by offering development services for other platforms as well. If Android is the obvious new platform after which we are going, the January Blackberry developer conference was the perfect opportunity for me to evaluate the real opportunities and challenges of developing apps for the Blackberry platforms (the smartphones AND the Playbook).
The Blackberry DevconAsia (developer conference Asia) has now been over for a few weeks and I wanted to share with you why it’s left me with a very mitigated impression. Make sure to read more after the break… Read more…
Facebook has just announced their latest evolution: a newly revamped messaging platform. It groups conversations by friend and is modelled after chat rather than traditional emailing. With more and more people using Facebook on their phone, read more to see why I believe it is a real threat to Blackberry.
Read more…
If you read my blog and follow my tweets, you might have noticed that I keep switching between my three favorite phones: an iPhone 3GS, a Nexus One and a Blackberry Bold 9700.
Three great devices. Three beautiful and powerful gadgets. But certainly three sources of frustrations with each their very own set of caveats and downsides such as the iPhone and the lack of multi-tasking, the Nexus and its poor touchscreen accuracy, as well as the Blackberry and its terrible browsing experience or app catalogue.
If your Telco has an affordable Multi-SIM option, it might be the end of your frustrations. Read more to find out how to seamlessly switch among your various phones without the hassle of removing the SIM card. Read more…
If you own a smartphone (some even now call them app-phones), chances are that you’re constantly looking for the best and latest apps! Here is my top-20 non game list of applications for the three devices I use on regular basis.
I use a iPhone 3GS, a Google Nexus One and a Blackberry Bold 9700: 6 of my top apps actually run on all three devices and the other 14 are either platform-specific or only run on two of my devices. Make sure to read more to quickly get the best out of that brand new smartphone you just bought 
Read more…
Google Apps is Google’s set of messaging and collaborative tools for groups and businesses. It is basically a customizable version of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Sites and Google Docs for your own domain name. That means you can start enjoying all the benefits of Gmail (conversation threads, huge storage, great anti-spam, integrated Gtalk, etc…) with a personalized email address like <yourname@yourbusiness.com>.
Whereas the standard edition is free for up to 50 users, Google Apps also comes in a Premier Edition should you require Google Groups, Google Videos, more users and storage, as well as support and SLA. Check this page to compare both editions. It actually even comes in two more versions specially packaged for Educational and Government use.
I personally use the free standard edition as the emailing and collaboration platform of my mobile applications company (Bitsmedia Pte Ltd) and, despite a few frustrations, I simply love it. Make sure to read more to find out if Google Apps is the perfect tool for your organization.
Read more…
Because I know keeping all your different devices in sync can quickly become a hassle, I thought I would share with you the best method I have found so far to properly sync contacts, calendars and emails across multiple platforms.
Syncing Mac, iPhone, Nexus and Blackberry
If like me, you own more than one phone and/or more than one computer, and enjoy the freedom to switch from one device to another without troubling yourself and risking to miss some important data at some point in time, the rest of this post is for you. Most importantly this approach allows me to stay away from annoying duplicates and, worse, lost data.
Read more…
As most of you know, I run a small mobile development team (Bitsmedia) which has so far been focusing on the iOS platform (iPhone and iPad apps). One of our goal for 2011 is to diversify ourselves by offering development services for other platforms as well. If Android is the obvious new platform after which we are going, the January Blackberry developer conference was the perfect opportunity for me to evaluate the real opportunities and challenges of developing apps for the Blackberry platforms (the smartphones AND the Playbook).
