Blackberry Playbook, Eh.

Not exactly the most interesting title, but it matches the product that I am reviewing.  The Blackberry Playbook, which was supposed to be the Holy Grail of the business world seems to have arrived and disappointed throughly.  Awkward dimensions, hard-to-learn operating systems, and just general uncool factors have made the Playbook (dare I say) the worst tablet of the year.

Now, calm your trackballs.  It may be brutal, but accurate.  Blackberry is slowly, but surely becoming famous for missing the mark when it comes to their technology.  This due to loss of market share.  See before in happy-blackberry land, they were the top dogs and there wasn't much competition to drive how fast new technology came out, so you guys were happy when small things like application multi-tasking, new bodies, or over-the-air sync came about.  Now, there are a lot more players in the market and RIM (the company that makes Blackberry products) is very far from being the kings of the playground.  Apple dominates, Android comes in a strong second, and RIM comes at the end of this list.  RIM is going to have to learn how to actually make a product that is not just marketed for familiarity, but that actually works.

SO, my advice is hold out on buying the Blackberry Playbook.  Go for an Android or maybe even the iPad 2.  I would suggest one of the newer Honeycomb OS Androids, because the OS is great (although it does take some getting used to) and to save $$$ go with an older version of an Android.  iPads are always reliable, but pricey in most cases.

Blackberry Sucks

And Yeah... you know.

'Til Later,

B.C.

Your Biggest Stalker...

Okay, so they don't do the creep (Ha,haaaa), but they are actually a lot closer than you may think.

Let's recap: So we ended the era of Garmins, Tom Toms, and Magellans when smartphones came along.  Then came our beloved Android came the cancellation of our cell phone companies charging us for turn-by-turn directions.  Now it seems that GPS location comes standard on every new phone that is released, but is this so much of a good thing?

Now:  Think about the break down some of the highest operating expenses for a business.  One of them for most big companies happen to be promotions and advertising (commercials, street ads, etc.) those same promotions.  Remember that standard GPS we were talking about?  Your cell phone company has and uses this information.  It's usually used for weather or map apps, but now the conversation is turning to the big companies.  If you were the CEO of Macy's and you had the option of delivering a text message to any consumer that got CLOSE to a Macy's would you exercise that right? Of course.

Let's sum it all up: With Verizon being the only exception most cell phone carriers are seemingly against this sale of their subscribers' information, but with companies like Sprint losing subscribers by the quarter (and adding a $10 fee on top of your data plan's fee every month) I don't think our privacy is safe.  Just a word to the wise, with most smartphones you can disable the location services and if selling information does actually happen I'd advise turning off your location if you don't want to be tracked.  Personally, I feel like virtual ads are invasive enough (i.e. tracking cookies that display that one pair of shoes you looked at on Overstock.com one time in EVERY ad space they can).  You've gotta fight...for your right... to not be preyed on by monster corporations. (I'll work on making that one a little catchier)

'Til Later,
B.Carter