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ABOUT
Simon Sage

Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.

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Posts by Simon Sage

Government of Indonesia threatening to shut down BlackBerry service

Although most indications point to Indonesia loving BlackBerry, there are a few kinks in the country’s relationship with RIM. The big one is that for over a year, the Indonesian government has wanted a RIM server set up within the country so they could engage in lawful interception and filter porn. Heru Sutadi, from the Indonesian Telecommunication Regulation Body, said: “Because RIM has not been cooperative, it is possible that we will soon end BIS (BlackBerry Internet Service) and BBM service. BlackBerry therefore, would just be like other cellular phones … Read more

6 months ago

Simon Sage

Motorola wins 3G patent case against Apple in Germany

It looks like Motorola’s preliminary injunction against iPhone and iPad products in Germany has translated to a full-blown win. While the specific damages have yet to be dallied, it’s safe to assume that since the patent is an integral part of the GPRS standard, and the case win relates to all 3G Apple products released before the iPhone 4S, it could be a doozy. Of course, Apple is still in a position to make an appeal, so the fight’s not over quite yet. If Motorola wants to start enforcing their … Read more

Motorola-logo-2 6 months ago

Simon Sage

BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0 OS contains LTE icons, 1280 x 768 graphics

Some digging around the BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0 operating system (possibly with the help of root access) has revealed a few graphical elements that suggest where RIM’s headed next. A bunch of LTE coverage icons were found, indicating that the long-promised 4G PlayBook is still a real possibility. What’s even more interesting is that there’s a folder full of graphical assets at a 1280 x 768 resolution, which may be in preparation for RIM’s next-gen smartphones, or maybe even that 10-inch LTE PlayBook rumored awhile back. While it might feel like … Read more

BlackBerry-PlayBook-lte 6 months ago

Simon Sage

2011 in review: BlackBerry and Research In Motion

It’s been a rough year for Research In Motion. BlackBerry has been battling uphill against stiff competition, while caught trying to transition from an aging platform to a new one. In the process, they’ve weathered a flurry of bad press, investor downgrades, a massive service outage, product delays, steadily shrinking market share, and multiple PR gaffes, but BlackBerry isn’t dead – 2012 is a new year, and holds a lot of promise for Canada’s plucky wireless underdog. Although we aren’t quite done with the year just yet, let’s take a … Read more

BlackBerry-logo-marble3 6 months ago

Simon Sage

BlackBerry News for PlayBook now includes Google Reader import

RIM’s RSS reader app for the BlackBerry PlayBook has had a tiny update to now let you haul in your news feeds from Google Reader. The update to BlackBerry News for the PlayBook will also let you manuall mark stories as read or unread, delete stories, as well as drill down into detailed information about individual feeds. BlackBerry News is an app borne out of RIM’s acquisition of Viigo, who did a lot of interesting stuff with RSS feeds a few years ago, most of which have disappeared since joining … Read more

IMG_00000167 6 months ago

Simon Sage

Leaked BlackBerry Torch 9810 OS includes mobile hotspot

Following up on the recent leak of a BlackBerry Bold 9900 OS with a new mobile hotspot feature, another build for the BlackBerry Torch 9810 has recently found its way into the wild. After sideloading it through the BlackBerry desktop software, you would be able to share your HSPA+ connection with up to 5 nearby gadgets over Wi-Fi, which is something most smartphones have been doing for years now, but RIM’s still playing catch-up. The BlackBerry Torch 9810 launched over the summer on AT&T, and the AWS-compatible version recently found … Read more

BlackBerry-9810-hotspot 6 months ago

Simon Sage

Evernote launches new iOS apps to help you remember food and people

It looks like Evernote is starting to branch out a little from their usual cut-and-dry cloud storage service. Today they’ve launched two new iOS apps, called Evernote Hello and Evernote Food tailored to saving information specifically about certain foodstuffs and certain people. Hello goes a little bit beyond just recording contact data in a few interesting ways.  After punching in their contact data, people are e-mail the contact info of the phone owner, so the swap can come around full loop, even if both parties don’t have the app. Hello … Read more

iPhone-EverHello 6 months ago

Simon Sage

Wikitude for BlackBerry updated for OS 6 devices, sans augmented reality

When RIM launched their OS 7 devices over the summer, one of the key features was augmented reality support, thanks to a magnetic compass built into their new phones and a graphical overlay API on the software side. Wikitude was the showcased partner for this tech, but at DevCon Asia, they’ve announced a fresh version for older BlackBerry handsets. Of course, you won’t be able to get the cool effect of pointing your camera in a given direction and seeing location-contextual information put on top, but at least the BBM … Read more

BlackBerry-wikitude6 6 months ago

Simon Sage

BlackBerry Milan, RIM’s first BB10 slider spotted

Those of you who saw the first of RIM’s next-generation BlackBerry lineup may have been turned off by the lack of a physical keyboard, but this spiritual successor to the Torch is looking pretty sharp. This slider, code-named Milan, is one of many upcoming BlackBerry 10 devices, bearing code-names like Lisbon, Nevada, and London. Details on specs are slim, but the display apparently has better pixel density than the iPhone 4, which is certainly saying something. Of course it will be running a new operating system akin to that on … Read more

blackberry-milan 6 months ago

Simon Sage

Twitter for BlackBerry updated with multiple account support

Following up on a brief beta period, RIM has updated the official Twitter client for BlackBerry with support for multiple accounts. Now if you tweet as more than one person, you can swap between the two accounts pretty seamlessly; in fact, they’ve even tossed in an alt+space keyboard shortcut to make swapping back and forth easy as pie. Twitter for BlackBerry 2.1 also ties in with the Social Feeds app so you can monitor up to five timelines at once, as well as BBM, so you can share tweets with … Read more

BlackBerry-Twitter-multiaccount 6 months ago

Simon Sage

BlackBerry Mobile Conferencing 2.0 app makes calls out of e-mails

Over the summer, RIM launched a call conferencing app which tied tightly into the native BlackBerry calendar, phone, and e-mail functions. Today they’ve tacked on a few new features. One is the ability to automatically generate a conference call entry in your calendar based on information within e-mail messages, like the body, subject, and recipients. Within the phone app, the conference call’s name shows up as the caller ID when you’re getting dialed in. To make setting up these meetings easier, there are 10 presets available right off the bat, … Read more

BlackBerry-conferencing 6 months ago

Simon Sage