The BlackBerry App World is trying to provide a similar service for BlackBerry users, however BlackBerry developers are also able to distribute and/or sell their apps directly from their own sites and/or through other online etailers. I think this is a better model overall, but it’s far from perfect.

BerryWeather (called BeWeather in the App World) is a bloody fantastic weather application. I’ve been using it since September, and it was the first app I purchased through the App World (Sept. 9th, for $9.99).

$10 is a bit steep for a weather app – especially contrasted with the great free options for the iPhone, but it’s beautiful, works wonderfully, and I am happy to pay for good software.

About a month or two ago, right around the time I upgraded to OS 4.7, BerryWeather started getting times confused. Instead of showing the weather for the next few hours, the times were off and it was showing me nighttime weather in the morning. Very annoying.

I tried:

• reinstalling
• contacting support (even sent a screenshot, never received a reply)
• doing a reset

but nothing helped.

Then I saw that there was a 2.0 release on their web site – I had been running 1.5.x. I deleted my 1.5.x install and installed 2.0 and voila – everything was working properly again. According to the notes in 2.0, this version uses a new data source (WUnderground). It also had an upgrade price of $3.99.

Here’s where things got messy.

The 2.0 version was not available in App World (it is now). The 2.0 version was available from MobiHand, but since I hadn’t purchased from them originally I could only buy the 2.0 version at the full $9.99 price. Also, I just bought this thing less than 3 months ago, charging for an upgrade already is a bit ridiculous.

So in order to purchase the upgrade at the appropriate price, I had to wait several weeks for the App World to push out the update.

A bunch of things are frustrating here:

1. I had to buy an ugprade after 3 months because the old version stopped working properly. Paid upgrades should be to add features, not to fix problems.
2. There is no set of rules about how pricing is done – no expectations that the user can feel comfortable with.
3. I got no response from Bellshare’s support.
4. The App World didn’t have the newest version available for purchase while other etailers did.
5. I couldn’t purchase an upgrade from a different etailer (one who had the latest version).

So there you have it. Another app store, but still plenty of problems. For all it’s problems, the iTunes App Store delivers on a consistent set of expectations for its users. The App World may be a better model for developers, but it doesn’t deliver the same simple experience to end users.

I’m not entirely convinced we’re making progress in the mobile arena. There is lots of churn and activity, but I’m not sure things are getting better. Hopefully all of that churn and activity will be better channeled and directed as people learn and understand the space better.

The only complication with this is that I got the info on Monday and my free trial was expiring on Tuesday. If I bought MobileMe from Amazon on Monday, I wouldn’t receive the activation key until Tuesday at the earliest. This was a concern because I had no idea how MobileMe would handle it when I canceled my account, then tried to re-activate it without having ever had a paid account.

In the end I chose to cancel mainly out of curiosity, and ordered the MobileMe subscription from Amazon (with free 2-day delivery via Prime). It’s really annoying that they didn’t offer digital delivery of the activation key, but they didn’t so I waited until today to receive my little box with a piece of paper in it with the activation key. I was without MobileMe for a day, but that was hardly a concern as I only use it for contact sync.

When I received the MobileMe activation key on Wednesday, I went back to me.com and signed in with my old account credentials. I was allowed in, then shown a note saying I needed to activate my account. I followed the steps, clicked the “I have an activation key” button, entered the key and that was that.

I was pretty sure something in this process would break. My experience with software, especially sync, is that edge cases are not well handled. I really thought it would break.

It didn’t.

I was able to activate the old trial account, and my sync just started working again. I didn’t get dozens of duplicated contacts or have to do an “overwrite this machine on next sync” or anything. It just worked.

Nice job, Apple. I’m impressed.

I tried hard to avoid this, having tried pretty much every other solution out there, but none of them worked properly across several Macs plus a BlackBerry.

In the end I just need contact sync that works, and so far MobileMe is the only one that hasn’t failed me. My 60 day trial is almost up, and I’m going to go ahead and let it bill me and stop wasting time trying other options.

There are two major exceptions to this.

1. Invisible Shield – For every mobile device I’ve had in the last 3 years or so (including digital cameras), I’ve used an Invisible Shield screen protector. I just put one on my BlackBerry Tour – I actually didn’t feel comfortable using the device without it. I think the longest I’ve used one is 3 years, and they last just like they claim to – never had a problem with one.
2. ShaggyMac Laptop Screen Protector – I got my first one of these when I got my black MacBook in 2006 and have had one for every laptop since. They prevent key marks from appearing on your laptop screen and fit and wear beautifully.

If you damage your screen, it’s going to drive you crazy using the device – at least it does for me. When I put in the order for a new device, I order one of these at the same time. Both are highly recommended.

Yes, the same laptop bag I’ve been carrying for over a year.

Incidentally, this is by far the best MacBook Air bag I could find.

It’s the Timbuk2 Blogger, 2007 model. I had to do some looking to find the older model, which has an internal laptop compartment rather than the more rigid external zipper laptop compartment.

For the Air I was looking for something that would hold the laptop vertically¹ and not have that stiff “this is a box at the end of a string” feel to it. I tried a number of bags including the STM Alley and the Coder. Both were returned because the laptop fit too snugly in them. This made the bag stand away from your body instead of being more compact against you.

The Blogger has been a great “briefcase” for me. It compresses well when mostly empty but will hold a surprising amount of stuff. And of course it has the famous Timbuk2 quality – so you have to choose to replace it rather than it wearing out. After a year of daily use, mine still looks new.

1. This vertical style laptop bag must be gaining in popularity as some looking around now shows a lot more options than a year ago. [back]

Things to like:

• Great browser.
• Great integration with Google Calendar, Gmail, etc.
• Fast Sprint 3G network.
• Crisp screen.
• Very nice maps/driving directions app which keeps working in the background – could have replaced my TomTom easily.
• Background processing and multi-tasking.

There were also some things not to like:

• It feels slow/underpowered.
• The keyboard is the first physical keyboard I’ve used that might be worse than the iPhone’s soft keyboard.
• It gets very hot during extended use (like with the driving directions).
• Form factor, while compact, was a little thick and the plastic body scratches easily.
• Lacks 3rd party apps – we’ll see how that changes in the future.
• Copy/paste is a bit hard to use.

Ultimately, I’d choose the BlackBerry Bold or iPhone 3GS over the Pre; but if I had to use the Pre for some reason, I think I’d be just fine with it. I’m interested in developing for the webOS platform, but am a bit in “wait and see” mode right now.

I basically narrowed my choices to the Dell Mini 9 and the Lenovo S10, after reviewing the available choices and reading up on the process of getting Mac OS X running on them. I decided to order both so that I could try them out – the major difference I expected was going to be the form factor, and you can’t really go to a store to test them out.

My initial reaction after receiving them was that the Dell was much more pleasing to hold/touch. It was a little more compact, felt more balanced, and I was surprised to like the taper effect (thicker in the back). The Lenovo feels heavier, less balanced, etc.

The specs on the machines were about the same, except the Lenovo had a 160GB 5400rpm HD while the Dell had a 32GB SSD drive. I’m a big fan of SSD drives after having a MacBook Air for about a year, so this was a big plus for the Dell in my book.

I tried to get the Lenovo running on OS X first using the great video tutorial here (with follow-up here and here). While the videos were great, I wasn’t initially able to get the USB drive working properly and thought I’d bricked the machine. Turns out, removing the battery for 30 seconds or so brought it right back.

After a few more attempts I was still unsuccessful, so I decided to try getting OS X running on the Dell. This was dead simple. Follow the instructions here – they worked great for me. That night, I happily took home the Dell Mini and used it a bit. That was when the honeymoon period started to wane.

The Dell form factor is smaller and feels nicer, but at the expense of reasonably sized keys. Some of the guys in the office couldn’t type on it at all. I was able to – but not that easily. Some of the key positioning was awkward as well – particularly the apostrophe/quote (‘/”) key being on the bottom row with the spacebar instead of the home row of keys. It was usable, but not comfortable.

After a day of using the Dell, I decided to try the install on the Lenovo again.

The Lenovo keyboard is far superior to the Dell. I can touch-type on it with few mistakes and little concentration. That ended up being the killer feature for me. The Lenovo isn’t perfect – among its problems are:

• A small trackpad, with uncomfortably stiff buttons.
• No SSD (which I’m solving by getting a 3rd party drive).
• Poor battery life (which I may solve with a 6 or 9 cell batter from ebay).
• A bigger power brick/cord.

On the plus side, the Lenovo doesn’t experience the “0″ issue on wake (acts like the “0″ key is being held down, hit any key to snap it out of it) that the Dell does.

I brought the Lenovo with me to SxSW and was really pleased with it as a conference machine. Easy to get out and use in cramped quarters – easy and light to carry in a small bag (no backpack or messenger bag needed). It’s not replacing my Air anytime soon – I don’t see myself doing development on it – but it’s great for quick communication needs, browsing and note taking. I’m looking forward to getting the more stable SSD drive to make it a real “take anywhere” machine.

I’m probably going to put the Dell Mini 9 on eBay. If you’re in the market for one with 2GB RAM, a 32GB SSD and OS X already installed, let me know. No longer available.

The basic set-up is pretty simple.

1. Set up networks on your card.
2. Set up preferences for what desktop machine and what web services you want to push your photos to.
3. Take photos.

I misunderstood what happened next. I thought that the card uploaded to your computer, using it as an intermediary to then go on to your web services. It’s actually much smarter than that. Here is what actually happens:

4. Eye-Fi card connects to the internet directly and uploads photos to the Eye-Fi service.
5. The Eye-Fi service pushes the photos to your web services.
6. The Eye-Fi app on your desktop downloads the photos from the Eye-Fi service.

This is a much better implementation than the one I understood from the Eye-Fi marketing materials. In particular, it means that I can take photos at work, have them upload to Flickr using the work WiFi network, and then also suck them down on my home desktop machine later that night.

The only downside to the Eye-Fi card is the need to keep your camera on in order for it to upload the photos. A trade-off that I don’t mind at all given the convenience that the card provides. I’m really pleased with it and highly recommend it.

Here’s an Amazon referral link if you decide to buy one: Eye-Fi Share

1. I wanted 3G
2. I wanted a faster processor for JavaScript, etc. in the browser
3. I played with it a bit and found the keyboard wasn’t as bad as it looked
4. The screen rocks
5. The device I really want (touchscreen WebKit browser with a BlackBerry keyboard and OS) is a ways out still

After using it for a day, I’m pretty pleased with it.

Applications

I run pretty lean on the BlackBerry. I mainly rely on e-mail and the browser, but there are some apps I install. All are free.

• TwitterBerry – the latest version is really nice.
• Google Maps – just keeps getting better. Love the GPS integration.
• Gmail – for quick pruning of my junk mail and web service notifications.
• Google BlackBerry Sync – OTA sync for my calendar, don’t sync contacts (yet).
• Google Mobile – mainly to track upgrades for Google Maps, Sync and Gmail.
• Yahoo Go – this is primarily a Flickr uploader and browser for me, but I should also mention that the graphics look stunning on the Bold.
• WeatherBug Direct – the icon looks like crap on the Bold, but it’s handy.

Notes

Some quick thoughts from the day and set-up.

• Set-up was easy.
• The battery life seems good (70% after a day and in bad coverage for much of the time).
• The included belt-clip case is a big improvement over the classic plastic holsters.
• The GPS really is pretty handy (over cell tower triangulation).
• The keyboard isn’t bad – the ridges on the keys make it work.
• It’s big – wide. It makes the iPhone feel tiny.
• The screen is gorgeous (though I was seeing some weird image banding in places, need to test more).
• The Zen theme seems to have a fatal flaw – the icons on the abbreviated home screen don’t update with status properly so you don’t see the little alert indicators.
• Network speed seems pretty good so far.
• Wifi was easy to set up. I used it until I switched the SIM card into the device, then turned it off. Not sure I’ll be using it much.
• If you’re doing anything that is more than a 1 step process, go to a real AT&T store instead of an authorized reseller. Trust me on this one.

Questions? Let me know in the comments and I’ll try to answer them.

BusySync works differently than SpanningSync. Instead of a service, it works directly with Google Calendar with no intermediary service. It does not suffer from any of the issues I had with SpanningSync (forgetting to sync, forgetting which calendars to sync after an upgrade, stopping working when an upgrade was required – BusySync has Sparkle built-in, and alarms sync).

I’ve had two issues with BusySync so far:

1. A “BusySync Conflicts” calendar has been created a few times on my Tiger desktop; this contains events that BusySync apparently isn’t sure what to do with. I haven’t seen this with either of my Leopard machines, so it may be a bug/issue with Tiger.
2. One of my Leopard machines stopped syncing for a time entirely. I tried the “Reset Sync History” options, tried unchecking and rechecking the calendars to sync. It stayed broken for about a week. Finally I deleted all of the calendars locally, reset everything, and re-added them from Google. Since then, smooth sailing.

If you need to sync iCal and Google Calendar, I recommend using BusySync based on my experience so far.

I first brought it with me on a quick trip to LA last month, then again last week when I went to Ohio to spend some time with the ShareThis team. This last trip, it really came in handy.

I arrived in Ohio late, and around 12:30am local my drive to my hotel was interrupted by an accident on the freeway. After about 45 minutes parked, we were turned around and directed back to the previous exit. Of course, I didn’t have directions to the hotel from this exit – just hit the “avoid roadblock” button and Bob’s yer uncle.

The GPS is nice around town, but It’s in my travel bag to stay.

Advantages (over the MacBook Pro):

• Smaller and lighter, of course.
• The battery life is much better.
• It fits a lot better on the plane, especially when the person in front of you decides to recline into your space.
• It doesn’t get as hot during use.
• Smaller/lighter power cord.

Drawbacks:

• The battery takes a long time to charge. I was a little more paranoid about this than I needed to be as it turns out. With wireless off on the plane, and the screen not too bright, I was getting reports of 5+ hours available.
• The screen is smaller/shorter, which resulted in me hunching over more while using the machine. Bad for my back/shoulders.

The overall impression is that for me it’s an incremental improvement while traveling on more than a day trip. I generally pack the following gear in my backpack:

• Laptop
• Power cord
• Mini surge protector
• Targus lap desk (I have the old while model)
• Bag of goodies including my EVDO modem, wireless router, and various cables and adapters
• Noise reduction headphones in their big ‘ol case
• One or two magazines

At the end of the day, the couple pounds and space in the bag that the Air affords me over the Pro is nice, but can get a little lost in the shuffle.

On the flip side, I absolutely love the size and weight of the Air in day to day use. I’ve gone to a smaller bag and don’t carry as much around with me when I’m local, so I really notice the difference.

1. I plan to be sell the MacBook Pro soon and replacing it with a Mac Pro at the office. I don’t need two laptops. [back]

Here are the reasons I’m turning Spanning Sync off (for now):

• It would somehow decide not to do scheduled syncs for long periods of time (8+ hours, sometimes days) with no notification to me. I’d have to go look for issues when I realized things were out of sync.
• Every time I upgraded it would forget which calendars to sync. This meant I’d have to reselect all of the calendars on every machine and it would take a very long time to do the first sync again.
• When an upgrade was required, the app would just stop working. It wouldn’t tell you this – you had to open the preference pane to discover the reason why.
• Event alarms did not sync, and there was no setting (that I could find) to set default alarms for items being synced in to iCal. This resulted in me being late for things because I rely on those reminders.

I’m hopeful that this will be a temporary departure from Spanning Sync, and that in a couple of months when I try it again I’ll be able to rely on it. It was a very handy service when it was working and now that we have over-the-air sync between Google Calendar and the BlackBerry, this would really make a nice solution.

Love ‘em.

However, over the last couple of months I’ve started using it as a business tool, and it’s been incredibly useful.

1. Take a screen grab.
2. Scribble all over it – arrows, comments, boxes, etc.
3. Paste it into an e-mail and send.

It’s filling a very nice niche for me.

I see they’ve started noting this use case on their site as well, though the styling and focus of the site remain on the consumer.