While reading this article on BoyGenius I could not help but think that RIM should have done this ages ago. Turns out that Apple is putting the screws to Rogers in Canada for announcing ridiculously high data rate plans for the upcoming iPhone 3G.

The fact of the matter is that this might just be a big ploy to show a limited supply of iPhones. On the other hand Rogers really needs to get smacked upside the head with regard to them skinning their customers with ridiculous data charges. This just reminds me of when AT&T used to make me pay $10 a month for 1MB of data usage.

Can anybody make Rogers see sense? Or will Rogers customers always have to take heart medication when they get their monthly bill?

I have no idea but RIM does not seem to care…

via smithereens via BoyGenius

Another scheduled outage… At this stage this one is only confined to the Asia/Pacific area but that can change latter in the week. Courtesy; Dataoutages.com (and Remzi). Thanks guys.

Maintenance Summary: BlackBerry Internet Service - hardware component update
Impact: BlackBerry Internet Service subscribers may be unable to send or receive messages, use the BlackBerry Internet Service web site, or  perform activities such as creating new accounts, accessing their Internet mailbox, integrating third-party email accounts, or viewing email attachments during the maintenance.
Wireless service providers and device resellers may be unable to use
BlackBerry administration web sites or perform activities such as creating subscriber accounts or provisioning services for subscribers during the maintenance.

Ticket Number: BBCHG36326
Change Window Start Date and Time: 12 July 2008 15:00:00 (GMT)
Change Window End Date and Time: 12 July 2008 19:00:00 (GMT)
Estimated Duration of Service Impact: 4 hour(s) and 0 minute(s)
% of Subscribers Affected: 100.00 (estimated)
Purpose: Server Installation

EST = GMT - 5 hours
EDT = GMT - 4 hours
AEST = GMT + 10 hours

Astraware is just entering the BlackBerry application market so I will give them a bit of slack. Especially since they did give us a free fireworks application last week.

They just released their first commercial BlackBerry application titled “Holy Bible: Unleashed.” While I commend them on the ballsy name I have one problem with their product. They are asking for a monthly fee of $4.99 for the pleasure of mobilizing the Bible. I am not a big fan of monthly fees for software.

That price is quite high considering the fact that many of these bibles are in the public domain and you can read them free by just converting them to MobiPocket. You can also get the highly touted BEIKS Noah Bible Viewer with SD card storage support for a one time $19.95 fee. There is also www.KJVBible.mobi with free access to the King James Bible and Olivetree with a couple of other free bibles.

While I don’t see this selling like hotcakes they do have a nice collection of available bible versions including:

If you are still interested you can check it out at www.bibleunleashed.com. Hopefully Astraware will consider changing the monthly subscription to a one time fee at a more reasonable price.

Josep sent me a link to this great tutorial on PSDtuts.com by Jeremy Roux. It teaches you step by step how to create your own Photoshop mockup of a BlackBerry Bold. You can obviously extend this and start making your own mockups of the BlackBerry Thunder/Javelin/Air/Inspiration or whatever codename you wish to make up.

So if you were wondering how BoyGenius and the other myriads of fans create their own mockups check out the directions. Keep in mind you will need to have a copy of Photoshop handy. You might be able to get away with the free GIMP but your going to have to cut some corners and figure it out by yourself.

Check it out at PSDtuts.com

This company www.usablenet.com has been helping quite a few companies to get their websites mobilized. The latest one I have come across was Amtrak.mobi which is quite powerful.

You can:

• Check train status
• Book a train reservation
• Cancel or view your reservation
• or even login

Very useful to know about if you take Amtrak. It earned itself a bookmark on my BlackBerry.

Check it out at www.Amtrak.mobi

I know many of you were interested in the free MetrO application when we mentioned the first beta. So I was happy when Nathan told me about an updated beta version that MetrO just released. If you don’t know what MetrO is in a nutshell it allows you to get public transportation directions for over 400 cities free!

Thanks to Luciano the developers have managed to fix some connection issues for users with no APN access. It is not a 100% fix but it is great to see them working on it. They have also fixed some connection issues for other users.

Also included in this latest beta are two new features. The first is that the application will now store you transportation system preferences between users. It also adds some nice functionality for calculating the best route for you to take.

You can read all about it on the MetrO blog. Or pick up the latest version at this link OTA: download.nanika.net/MetrO.jad. Please read the instructions at this link.

I was having a look around for an emailing application for BlackBerry that schedules your email to send out at a pre-set time but couldn’t find one. Does any one know if such an application exists? 

This would be such a handy piece of software. You could set up pre-set emails messages for your friends or workmates birthday (especially if you are on a business trip or holiday), reminders to group emails for meeting etc, set a scheduled email to your house-sitter that the garbage is due to be collected the next day, etc, etc. Another example would be if you need to send an unimportant email to someone overseas and if you sent it straight away you would probably wake them up. Or even a cooling off period for those angry emails we sometimes write. (If you set say a 3 hour delay on the send then you have that time to think about what you wrote and change/delete it if you want).

So if there is nothing out there like this come on developers, this could be the next Big Application. Your thoughts ???

I know we have been keeping you up to date on this promising beta of MyPoynt. I love the software and find it very useful even in the beta. Fred just sent me an email that the beta version has been updated to version 0.8.5.

This version just brings a bunch of bug fixes. So if your having issues…. download the new version at m.mypoynt.com

Kevin @ CrackBerry has been on a roll catching all of the latest news on Rogers. First he caught wind of the July 25th release date for the Bold that really got me jealous but the clincher is this roadmap you see below.

As Kevin describes that Bold should be available in stores July 29th after the announcement on the 25^th. The KickStart is coming in September and the Javelin will be around for Christmas. If you got some questions on the Rogers releases I highly recommend leaving a comment on CrackBerry. Kevin seems to have a reliable Rogers source.

He also got word that the KickStart will be making a show on T-Mobile USA for $49.99 to really undercut the smartphone market.

Future Shop, Canada’s largest electronics superstore, has decided to join the BlackBerry Revolution with a couple of new features. The first is what they call a “Mobile Browser” which in reality is little more than a home screen shortcut to their mobile website with a few added menu options. The second, and in my opinion “coolest” feature, is that they have implemented the use of BlackBerry Wallet! It looks like this idea is finally starting to catch on after a month of waiting patiently.

The mobile site is clean and simple to use, designed to perfectly fit the BlackBerry screen. You can easily search the site by product, or by category.

The desktop installation is a bit unusual however. Start by heading over to this link with your blackberry plugged in to your computer. Unfortunatly you need to be using Internet Explorer for this page to load properly. Install the Active X control and follow the prompts. The website connects to your BlackBerry and loads the shortcut. Pretty cool I must say! They say you can install this OTA, but I was unable to get it to work… Give it a shot from this link and let me know if it works for you!

The Mobile Cart is also pretty impressive, not only does it sync up with your BlackBerry Wallet, you can also choose to pay using your existing Future Shop account. Finally we are able to buy electronics without getting out of bed!

You know you have a good idea when others start copying you. I was just reading about the Motorola Napoleon Q9 on BoyGenius when I things started sounding familiar. How many Dual CDMA/GSM Verizon worldphones are there?

Turns out that the phone has a CDMA radio with EVDO Rev A! (Come on RIM) It also includes a Quadband GSM radio so it will even let you stick in an AT&T sim card as BGR tried.

It adds some interesting stuff on top of the 8830 such as a fingerprint scanner, WiFi, stereo speakers, and the previously mentioned Rev A. If this were not plagued with Windows Mobile 6.1 I would say the 8830 Worldphone is in for some competition.

Hopefully the Touchscreen Thunder Worldphone will come on the scene with Rev A at least. Check out the Napoleon Q9 to compare.

I was just reading a great article on CrackBerry giving a look at some of RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry accessories. Some of the stuff is new like a personalized stereo headset. I also am starting to really warm up to these battery covers. The batteries look nice and slick but who ever really shows one off. I also like the Bold charging pod but I hope it has audio out… that would really clinch the deal.

On the other hand most of it is the same regurgitated accessories we have all grown to ignore. For example, the power station is the same old fugly look you would hide in the corner of your office.

What I really wish RIM would bring back is a normal snap holster like we had with the 7290. That swivel clip holster was the best! The closest I have now is a Seidio holster.

Pretty please RIM?

I know many of you have been trying the new FutureShop.ca support of BlackBerry wallet that we told you about. Everybody who installed the support was asked to install an application called RIM’s ECOE or Ecommerce Content Optimization Engine.

This little application is a homescreen shortcut on steroids. Essentially it hijacks you browser and adds website specific menu options the the browser. Pretty cool idea but I wish it were more integrated. For example if you click on a link in an email you will not be taken to the optimized site. You have to go through the homescreen shortcut.

If you no longer like the ECOE you can always just remove the application and the option is taken away.

It is really nice to see that RIM is serious about their Wallet application and ecommerce functionality. Now if only they could get eBay or Amazon or some other big name retailer with a mobile website to drink the coolade… I believe in you RIM!

You can read more about the ECOE at this link

I know some of you are using LaunchPads as your shortcut utility so I thought I would let you know about the last two updates. Phil sent me a link telling me that this latest update has improved a bit of the functionality to really round out the application. I also thought the rudimentary backup option was nice and worthy of mention.

New update (v1.5):
- Function to send the button-names and modules to your eMail address for backup
- Search Dialog can be launched through the application
- Media application can be launched
- On devices without the menu-button (87xx), press P to reach the preferences and H for help
- Module-List for many applications included in the zip file
- ReadMe included in zip file

New update (v1.4):
- Create new Contacts/Notes/Tasks/Events with just one click
- Preference to show the time in the title
- Bugs fixed
- Open the bluetooth panel