Blackberry Z10, BB10. First impressions

So its been almost 24 hours since my Z10 showed up, so I thought I would put down some thoughts onto screen and the WWW.
So where shall we start, how about at the beginning.
A call to Orange / EE on Thursday (release day) and some haggling later, I was happy I had got the best deal I could for a new phone to market etc, and it was on its way. However waiting 18 hours was going to be a nightmare, but somehow I coped lol.

Yesterday morning the courier showed up and handed me a bag with a little box in it, as pictured. Restraining myself from excitement I went back inside and started unpacking.

Retail pack  / unboxing

This is where the review really starts for me, and I'm going to be as honest as a Crackberry fan possibly can be, in order to help others form their own decisions. Opening the retail box it was all neatly packed up, presented first by a very clean looking BB Z10. So what goodies would lay beneath? Well to be brutally honest, not a whole lot. The usual instructions, USB lead and separate wall plug, Headphones, there they were, the latest variant. I shall come back to those in a moment. So what else was in there. its a touchscreen, and the Playbook came with a micro fibre cloth..... Nope, no cloth in the box. Thankfully all Blackberry's have come with cases, so surely there was one..... Errm nope, no case of any sort either.

Now I know it sounds like I'm being picky already, but as a long term consumer, and someone who has unpacked MANY Blackberry handsets in my time, and the Playbook, I was disappointed to say the least to see that the retail pack doesn't include any form of case, let alone even a wipe. I know this is a new beginning for Blackberry (formerly known as RIM), but to me its a punch on the nose. I have always liked the fact that the phone gets unpacked, device swapped and can safely snuggle up in its new OEM case. Oh well, im sure I will get over it, and go buy one (or three) instead.

Continuing to be fussy about things, lets look at what else was in the box. USB lead and wall plug for charging, no issues there, the micro end of the USB is a little tight but works fine. So onto the headphones. A few generations of handset back, even going back to my original 8320, Blackberry packaged some really nice headphones. Fit for purpose, good feel to them, practical, the whole package worked for me. The ones with the chrome accents on them, and the chrome button on the inline mic. Then alas they moved over to the plain black cheaper plastic feeling ones which have been around a while now. So when I knew there was a fresh start coming, I assumed the headphones would be replaced.... And they have been. Some how with EVEN cheaper feeling headphones, which look like something you would get with a £5.99 MP3 player from a tech fair. Audio quality bearable, build quality horrible, their future is at the bottom of a drawer somewhere.

So far we have a handset and retail box which is approx £450, with no case, or cloth and terrible headphones. Just to add to things missing, there is also no form of SD memory card in there either. Now I know the carrier / network is also responsible in what goes into these packages, so to Orange and to Blackberry... Seriously? Is there anything else you could have scrimped on? One of the 3 would have been nice.

So lets get to the handset, anyone that found this blog through a websearch will be waiting for this part I'm sure.

The handset / Getting started


OK so lets get this baby up and running. Immediately out of the box the Z10 feels great in the hand. Having heard that it was far from the thinnest handset on the market (9mm I believe), and being the owner of a Samsung Galaxy S2, I wasn't sure what to expect. But it lived up to the hype, and the feel in the hand is just right, decent weight, yet noticeably present, balanced, and the shape and grip on the device for my hands certainly is great. There is hope yet after a bad start. Time to get the micro SIM in, no SD card at this time as there isnt one, and the battery in. The SD card can go in at any time as its hot swappable, so no battery removal needed. Popping the back cover off is simple enough, and experience with the S2 gave me the confidence to keep pulling even though the cover flexes slightly as you pry it off. Replacing is the same, a simple place and pop, and the job is done.

SIM in, battery in, 9900 backed up to Blackberry Protect, im ready to go. Watching the Z10 start up was somewhat reminiscent of watching a Playbook start, very clean and pretty but still takes a while. Having recently purchased a Nokia 100 handset for emergencies, I remember how far we have come from pressing the power button, waiting for the annoying Nokia tune, then its ready to go. Anyway, its a smartphone, these things take time these days, right? Once started I registered the SIM, watched the life drain from my 9900 as the G turned into a g, and the Z10 sprung into life.
Now at this point I would usually log into my carriers BB service, check the swap had taken place for my BIS and that it had the new PIN in there, validate my emails, et voila.... But NO !

Houston, we have a problem. All the right things were showing on the screen for the BIS, everything live and valid, but no sign of any email accounts on my Z10. A reboot should do the trick....nope! Ah I know what I haven't done, Blackberry ID, I have not signed into the Z10 with my ID yet, so lets do that now. All signed in, and nothing. Still no contacts, email accounts. Obviously I would just need to go to good old Blackberry Protect and choose my last restore point from my 9900. Errm, nope! For some reason Protect on the Z10 has no real function to it at all, no backup or restore, just the location on or off setting.
Great, so how am I going to do this? I guess I will have to plug it into the laptop and do it the old fashioned way. Now this is where it gets interesting. Blackberry replaced Desktop Manager with  Blackberry Link. A new start was needed because as they rightfully point out, there is not one single line of script from the OS7 that makes it over to BB10, so start fresh. So I ran a backup on the 9900 on DM, which for some reason would not complete because of a file it could not read. Apparently it cant skip it, so it just hangs. So I ran a custom backup and took only the bare essentials like contacts and calender. Plugging the Z10 in and finding the restore or swap function was fun, took a while as Link seems to like to focus on the media side of things.

Come on guys, this is a new start for everyone here, no one is moving from BB10 to another BB10, we are all going from at least OS6 I would guess. Make the transition a little easier? Why doesn't Protect handle the swap like it used to be able to, why has Protect lost its back up function. So many questions at this stage and SO frustrating. Swapping on the BIS would usually purge all email accounts to my device... But it didn't.

At this stage I have to thank Google, the owners of Android for coming to the rescue. Because I use gmail fully and all my calenders and contacts are attached to that account for my S2, when I manually added my Gmail account to the Z10 it finally pulled down all my contacts and calender events. Phew, what a relief!

Right, so finally after an hour of messing about, I kid you not, I can finally start to relax a bit and get to know the Z10 and BB10.

The Device

This is where the fun begins, and maybe things will start to get a little better for the Z10.
Once up and running, getting to know the Z10 is really quite easy, especially if you have followed the developer videos, sneek peeks and other media online that has shown and explained the gesture controls for the device. Having used a Playbook and being used to gestures with no buttons is probably a distinct advantage at this stage. I wont go into too much about how each gesture works, thats more for the video bloggers to do, but instead I will focus on the over all experience.
At this early stage with a brand new device and OS, there is no previous knowledge that is going to help you, its pretty much new from the ground up. So a long time Blackberry user has no advantage getting to grips with BB10 than any other handset user. Obviously once the Q10 comes to our shelves the bias will turn slightly towards those with experience of the Blackberry QWERTY keyboards. What I am trying to say is its a learning curve for all, but not too painful at all. There are a few key gestures to get to grips with, waking the device, peek to the hub, and returning to the apps screen. Once those are mastered they become second nature quite quickly, and you are away.

Keyboard
Let me skim through a few points about the Z10 and using it. First up I have start with the keyboard. Honestly, WOW! I have read so many reviews saying its the best touchscreen keyboard experience out there, so natural to use, almost comparable to the physical keyboard of the Bold etc. But honestly, it really is great to use. I regularly use the S2 keyboard, the Playbook, have a lot of experience with the iPad, and the iPod touch 5th Gen, and have to say the Z10 with BB10 does indeed have the best touchscreen I have used to date, period!
Putting to one side the flick capabilities of its predictive word suggestion, the accuracy and usability of the Z10 keyboard is really very nice. If I was to be told I would not be able to use a physical keyboard every again, for the first time I would  just be annoyed and not petrified. Then include the flick, and spell check, and you realise just where all the focus and research has gone with the BB10 project, and just how worth it it has been. The reassuring click of the physical keyboard is missing, and that is something that is strange getting used to, so I look forwards to getting my hands on a Q10 to get that feeling back. But for now, I can happily speed along through long text entries, without getting frustrated by the 3rd line, as I would with the S2 and Playbook. An iPhone, Apple argument made that point nicely for me last night. 70 replies or so into the epic Facebook discussion I realised that I was knocking out long replies on a device I had only been using for 5 hours or so, and wasn't thinking twice about it.
So the keyboard gets 2 thumbs up from me, if you can catch them not in use for a moment.

Gestures
As mentioned there are a few key gestures which enable you to interact with the device fully, flicking the screen up to get back to your active panes, and back and forth from the hub to the apps is all pretty straight forward. There have been points made about what state the hub is in when you return to it from an app with peek, should it been the main hub screen or the last message you were in. In reality its no hardship. If you left a BBM open for example, and are returning to the hub for a notification, at worst its one extra swipe to the right to get back to the main hub past the BBM. Switching between multiple conversations takes a little bit of getting used to though. Yesterday morning with 10+ BBM convo's going, and a constant update from Facebook and Twitter, while getting to grips with the handset, that was a challenge to say the least. But its one that I came out of victorious.

Apps
This is said to be the make or break point for BB10, and hearing there were 70,000 to launch with was interesting. But as most critics have said, 69,000 would be junk, like the majority of apps in a Google Play, and App Store. So it was always going to be the main apps that counted. There are a few apps on the 9900 that I have grown used to having, such as multi coloured LED notifications from BeBuzz, and Whatsapp to stay in touch with non BB users. Sadly neither of these are to be found right now, but I was sure I had heard Whatsapp WOULD be available after all the initial concerns. So to anyone I speak to on Whatsapp, for now, text or email me if you need me lol.
As for the rest, there are some good apps out there for all categories, including some very good games. Not that I play games of course. But its only fair to say that there are some key players that are indeed missing, and thats something I am hoping to see change very soon. For such a long build up to such an important product, its sad that some developers have chosen to abstain.  Like any mobile platform, it is only as good as the app developers make it. If they dont produce, the platform slowly sinks. Apple being first to the market with the true smart phone beat the crowd and single handedly invented the modern day app developer. With such a huge user base, you can see why they focus on iOS and Droid apps. Lets just hope that the ease in which some Droid apps can be ported over to BB10 proves a success, and that more and more port their apps too. For now I reserve my judgement, I will still be using my S2 for a long time to come, so am not without apps. But the BB apps are getting there, slowly.

Battery
Well its removable, thats a good start. A good start because like all smartphones these days, no matter what claims the manufacturers make, the battery life isnt the same as my trusty Nokia 100. Understandably so, they do so much more, and we interact with them so much these days, no tiny battery could possibly give us great usage and still hold out. We the consumer demand certain things of manufacturers, such as weight and size we are happy to hold and carry, and this dictates what we get as the end users. I am currently running my first full cycle with the battery, so will reserve judgement for a week or so until it has cycled a few times. Worst case scenario, I will pop a spare in my man-bag for when I am out all day. Never too far from a micro USB plug these days though eh.

Camera
Oh the camera. Coming from the 9700 to the 9900 I was devastated to see they had thrown a fixed focus, poor quality camera into the 9900. For 18 months I have been disappointed with most pictures coming out of the 9900, with the occasional gem being worth sharing with @blackberry themselves for #BlackBerryPhoto. And I am grateful that some even got retweeted or featured on their blog. But it was never a great camera.
So on to the Z10 camera. The early reviews have been quite harsh about it, poor low light, grainy shots, faded colours etc, so I prepared myself for disappointment when I finally got to use it.
First up, any pictures I take with the Z10 are instantly compared by thinking, is it as good as my S2 camera. The S2 has a fantastic camera on it, and this was going to be what the Z10 got put up against. Later on today I will be going out to do a side by side test with them both.
But straight off the bat, wow, its actually a really good camera in the Z10. Good colours in natural light, amazing depth of field for close up shots. Gets crazy close for macro. And who can forget TimeShift. Is it as good as it says... hell yes ! Simple to use, great results. As are all the other features on there, like burst mode, something I didn't even know it had. It can just rattle off shot after shot. And yes I know other smart phones have this, its just pleasant to see on a Blackberry.

The rest
By the rest I mean email use, BBM , notifications and all the other things Blackberry are known for. So here we go.
BBM, yet another great step forwards with this application, and given all its features and function it now has, screen sharing, video calls, voice calls, broadcasts, joint conversations etc, it has just stepped its game up yet again. BBM certainly goes from strength to strength.
Email, to be honest I haven't sent too many as its the weekend, but its function is comparable to that of OS7, smooth, easy to use and manage, and pleasant to work with. Add to it the new functions and how it integrates into other apps like calender and BBM, and it remains one of the most powerful email platforms out there.
The Hub, the unified inbox as its known to some. This takes some getting used to in the way it functions, and can get a little crazy at times when incoming notifications are going a bit wild. Lots of notifications coming in can confuse you for a bit, and not having that simple option to mass highlight in a single stroke of a trackpad takes a bit of getting used to. But once you learn to mass select and prune back whats happening in the Hub, its all ok.
Notifications, once again all the sounds have changed, as have the options of how you manage notifications. Gone are the OS6 days where you could select from a simple long list of sounds, now it has suggested tones, or you can browse for more. gets quite tedious when setting up 5 email accounts, Facebook, Twitter, BBM, you get the gist! Also with the lack of a decent LED notification app at the moment, I am stuck with a red LED, which feels like part of me has been removed. I dont want to know I just have a notification, especially if I missed the sound. I want to know WHAT it is, specifically. Give my BeBuzz or something comparable soon pleaser Blackberry, before I go mad!

There is plenty more to talk about but this will do for now, so I will leave you with my closing summary, and some pics both of the device and from it.

In closing I have to say BB10 and the Z10 have really changed the image of Blackberry. As well as changing from being RIM, they have also changed from being a satisfactory handset and OS maker, to something fully fledged and ready to take flight. Its not ready to fly with the eagles just yet, but its up and out there, and ready to start growing for sure.
Was all the hype worth it? Mixed emotions there, my reaction is tainted still by the battle to get everything set up and running. This isnt something im used to as a Blackberry user, and found myself frustrated. So I am hoping that I simply did something terribly wrong, and that I missed a trick somewhere along the line.. Swapping from a totally different device like an iPhone I would accept issues, but from Blackberry to Blackberry, there should have been more certainty in what was happening. The BIS login and Protect services that I am used to dealing with 90% of it didnt, and im not comfortable with that.
But the hype was so worth it when it comes to the OS, how it flows, and the effortless operation of the device once up and running. I have no doubt that I will be using a Z10 for a while yet, at least until I give the Q10 a damn good going over. The keyboard is a triumph for BB, and the key component that restores my confidence in using a BB touchscreen.

Worth the wait, YES, plain and simple.

More to follow as it get to know my Z10 more.

Finally service resumes for Blackberry

As covered thoroughly by the worlds media over the past 24 hours, making the news summary, tech news, and even the on screen BREAKING NEWS ticker, the coverage of the Blackberry outage of the past 3 days has not gone un-noticed. Every opportunity possible has been ceased upon to expose, critique and cast doubt over RIM and its ability to run a stable network for its 70 million users. Of course, without knowing the in's and out's of the issue, or for that matter understanding what the hell a core switch is, it is impossible to judge fairly. The Playstation network was down for over a month when it underwent a cyber attack, so 3 days in some respects is not too bad. However as Lord Sugar pointed out, the Playstation network was for entertainment, RIM is for livelihood and communication.



Naturally companies like Apple have rejoiced at this outage, with the launch of iOS5 rolling out last night, and the iPhone4S going on general release from tomorrow, what better time to be convinced to jump ship than smack bang in the middle of that. I'm sure there are a good few percent of people who have been considering the switch for a while now, so well done to RIM / Blackberry for giving that group of customers the push they needed. That's not to mention the number of large corporations who are currently trialling iPhone as an alternative to their long term favourite the Blackberry. Again, an outage for this period of time to a business is totally unacceptable, and will have caused chaos I am sure.



However, its OK now because the world is returning to normal, becoming a sane place once again, and the trains and buses ring out with the steady flow of BBM messages being received by commuters. For me this morning it was a wake up call, literally. As the service resumed I realised how annoying people BBM'ing you can be, and how often it bing, bing, bings.... Silent is the chosen profile today! Amazing how a few days away from something can change your perspective of things, and make you rethink your approach. I'm not going to BBM any less I'm sure, nor become less dependent on it for my email, and information flow, but i am aware of how much control it has over me at times.



The biggest thing I missed i think was email, and the ability to make entries to this blog. Sitting at the train station with things to say, but no platform to use (so to speak from, no pun intended). Maybe that is it, Blackberry has become my new voice. My chosen way to communicate with the world in all respects. if so, is that such a bad thing I wonder. A wider audience, I can speak at any time and people will 'hear' in their own time. I can be concise, direct, and open about my feelings without having to experience the reaction first hand. So looking at that aspect of things, i am quite happy with this new found voice. Needless to say, i am still very capable at the real spoken word, and am happy and able to vocalise my thoughts and feelings too.



So, how does the Blackberry crowd feel about all this. An outage for 3 days, that's coming on for 1% downtime, which by any hosting or server company is just completely unacceptable, especially for such a large global company with resources all around the world. 70 million+ customers to serve, BIS and BES, high profile customers like Lord Sugar, President Obama, David Cameron, and countless celebrities. This is the age of the Internet, lightening communication (if your device connects!) and word travels fast... But not as fast as rumours, they travel at warp speed, and carry far more clout than a short empty statement from the company itself. And what exactly did we get over those 3 days.... Day 1, a couple of 'oops' Tweets from Blackberry saying there were some issues they were working on. By the end of the day it was tweeted that it was OK now. Day 2, it was all broken again, and again a few words on Twitter saying they thought they had found the problem and service would soon resume. All this time it was only affecting EMEA..



Day 3, this is when it got serious.. North America was now affected, and the shit had hit the fan. High profile business and entertainment names became involved on Twitter. Suddenly The RIM and Blackberry Twitter accounts exploded into activity. The first BIG statement on Twitter from RIM was ironically about a hoax BBM circulating. ironic considering 90% of users had no BBM, yet their priority was suddenly quashing a rumour. Bad show. From that point on the information begun to flow properly, high ranking RIM exec's making statements apologising for the issues, the Blackberry website also sprouted a Service Status page. Today as the service starts to return to normal we are told on Twitter hourly that there is a video statement to be watched on the Blackberry website from the Co-CEO himself. Where was that when the service was down?



So like I say, BBM is now binging away again, and service seems to be going nicely, however I have one problem remaining that has been there for the past 3 days.... My email is not bloody working! Why I hear you ask. Well as the server outage begun I was switching from my 9700 to my new shiny 9900. It appears that for some reason the RIM servers are caught convinced that my 9700 is still in use on my account, so i cannot register my phone on the network. Everything else BIS works, BBM, PUSH apps etc, but it wont let me transfer my email accounts over. All i get is a message saying it is not registered on the wireless network, and if I try via the Blackberry I get a message saying it cannot communicate with the server. *sigh



Not really much more I can say on the matter really, other than its VERY frustrating not having my email right now, and while the outage was unwanted, it has been an eye opener, for many! So many people not realising how much they used the BBM side of things until they didn't have it. While Apple and other device users sneer, it is worth pointing out that NO other provider offers a service similar to BBM, so all the ner ner nerner ner comments about "my phone is working, look at your useless Blackberry" were a little inaccurate, but RIM deserved it all the same.



Right that's me done. Only thing left to say is I hope those having update problems getting to iOS5 get sorted soon, and those who have lost all their data due to corrupt back-ups get sorted soon.



PS, I was shocked when I suggested to Apple fans that I was going to get an iPhone 3GS for a bit of fun, and as a back up, only to be told it was not worth it, was too slow, and no good..... A few weeks ago this was the next best thing to an iPhone4 and still a very worthy handset, now its rubbish.... Go figure.

The great Blackberry outage.... Day 3

And so it continues, or so it seems..
Late last night RIM / Blackberry issued a statement saying the issue had been found, and was a core switch which had failed, and that they were working on the matter. The failsafe had also failed.
Users should expect slow service until the data backlog was cleared.... However, most woke this morning to very little more than one or two BBM messages that had slipped through, but very little more.

People in the UK are having a range of issues now, from almost full service, to nothing at all. Even big names like Sir Alan Sugar are getting on the action, questioning the information flow from RIM, and the resolution time. It was pointed out by a friend last night that he was pretty sure RIM were not taking their time on purpose, and that they would no doubt have their best people on it. Not forgetting that when the Playstation network went down, it was down for over a month.

It is fair to say that times like this make us all look at our mobile phone usage and dependency, and question has it all gone too far. For me, I am more annoyed at the failure to let me know what was going on, but now I know, I am happier about the matter. Now I am left thinking what impact not having BIS really has on me. Sure I have no BBM, and no email, and browsing is crippled, but my life still works fine, im breathing, and I can still walk. So all is NOT lost. I am however paying for a service I cannot use. So I am left with a simple question.... Do I NEED this service, or while I have the opportunity, do I contact my carrier and arrange an alternative device, contract or even cancel.

I did consider last night ordering an iPhone 3GS, but was subsequently told by Apple fans that it was basically a piece of junk and that I should go for the newer shinier iPhone4 or even the 4S.... So last week it was still a great phone, and this week its crap.... That view alone has quashed the idea of entering the Apple folds, I just cant follow something that is binned so quickly after a new product comes out. To me the Blackberry 9700 is still a very good phone, and I would own another if I needed to, same with the 8520 too. But apparently this does not apply in Apple circles.

So another afternoon of WTF is going on begins, and Blackberry owners will wonder how long until 100% service is restored. Hopefully however we can all look back and remember the great RIM outage of 2011 and respect the technology we all take for granted just a little more.

EMEA wide RIM server outage affects Blackberry users

OK, I will be the first to admit that it has been amusing to see the over the top reactions that some have been posting on forums and Twitter etc. The hatred and anger experienced by some is laughable, but at the same time the BES side of things is somewhat more serious. Losing a whole infrastructure like that in one hit is not good for business on the best of days, and to be honest I would not be surprised if a few people/companies reconsider their loyalties to RIM/Blackberry. It is one thing to have a problem as a service provider for a short period of time, but its something completely different to have a 24 hour EUROPE wide outage, and to say nothing more that a couple of little tweets on Twitter.

Why was it down, how long will it take to restore, what is affected, what action can users take, when it does come back on will there be lag... And so on. A multitude of questions people had, and bombarded their network carriers with, who were sadly as in the dark as the rest of the RIM users. Its somewhat ironic that a company who prides themselves in revolutionising the world of wireless communication failed so badly to in any way communicate what the hell was, and still is going on.

An outage apparently starting at 11am Monday, but my carrier Orange UK was already having issues communicating with the RIM servers on Sunday afternoon, hence why my device swap has been in limbo now for over 36 hours. At this point there were already lag issues, maybe this would have been the right time to contact users to notify them of service issues. I'm sure RIM can do this somehow.

OK so I guess I should show my hand at this point, and say, as pissed off as I am, I still remain 'loyal' to Blackberry at this point, as the device and services are what I am used to using, and as a whole until yesterday was more than happy with. But it raises questions in my head. How the HELL did something like this happen, and why in god's name has it taken so long to get anywhere near to resolving the issue.

Dear RIM, Its a bloody joke! I don't get it. Twitter was working fine yesterday, so fine in fact that 'blackberry', 'rim' and 'BB' have become trend topics. The outage is all over the news, forums are full of anger and upset at this poorly managed outage, yet the official websites say NOTHING about it, not so much as a link to some info if you don't want to splatter your front pages with it. Poor show I say.

The worst part for RIM at this point, is how much of a laughing stock they have become. And speaking of stocks, I wonder if they have been affected by this total failure of service and customer service. Apple will be laughing their socks off at this gift thrown towards them. While the two are not comparable, it has certainly spiced up Apple's argument for which is the superior device. BBM failure just in time for iMessenger to be launched. Free advertising if I ever saw it.

So what now? When will the service be up to 100% again, when will I finally be able to finish my device switch, when will I be able to reply to people who BBM me, that RIM has decided I currently cant contact.

I really hope serious lessons are learned here, and that a repeat of this is impossible, but lets wait and see eh. Will we ever know the real reason for the outage, and reason it could not be restored using back-up servers quickly? All I want is a rough explanation of what happened, how and why..... But I'm not gonna hold my breath for that.

RIP Steve Jobs 1955-2011

I thought it only fair to say my peace on the passing of such a motivational and inspirational person.
Set in his ways, but determined for things to change, he had a vision for the future and followed it by any means necessary to achieve his goals and dreams. Often controversial, and always in the media for both good and bad, Steve Jobs is on the short list of the few people in the world who have set themselves a goal early on, and never deviated from their path. Occasionally adding more to his ideas, and raising the bar, Steve Jobs proved determination, and a whole bunch of money earned by previous success could make things happen.

Sadly as all families of cancer victims know, money cannot solve everything, and whilst being one of the wealthiest self made men around, none of his rich gains could cure the cancer which would finally take his life.

He has truly created a legacy that will live on for a long long time, and that's just his reputation. Then there is Apple, the company that has taken the world by storm, and motivated others to up their game, and move in the direction of the demands of the consumer market. Causing frenzy each time they launch a new product (ok maybe not the last one so much), and having the true definition of a loyal fan base. Almost a fanatical fan base in fact, but I guess in business that's not such a bad thing. Moving product is the name of the game here after all.

There is a huge gap in opinion between Apple users and users of other products, a void filled with arguments, and point proving, ego battles and some weird people who are FAR too involved in the companies and products for a mere consumer. But the sane ones in those groups will all agree that Steve Jobs was a key part in Apple, and Apple has at some point been a key part in moving the mobile phone market forwards in directions no one saw coming for a while yet.
That's not to say that others have not taken the ball and moved on with it, but there was definitely a line in the sand drawn by Apple at some point, there is no denying that.

So without taking sides, and without casting a shadow over an already dark day, I will end with R.I.P Steve Jobs.... Millions will miss you for a long time to come.

POTD.... iPad overspend?

Is it even worth buying one... Let alone two... You decide.
Regards
Michael

Sent using BlackBerry®