Now that BlackBerry services are returning to full functionality, RIM founder Mike Lazaridis has decided to issue a public apology for this week’s mysterious global outage. In a video address published today, Lazaridis acknowledged that RIM dropped the ball this week, but assured that his company is working hard to remedy the situation. “I apologize for the service outages this week,” Lazaridis said. “We’ve let many of you down.” The executive went on to say that services are approaching normal levels across Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa, but could not give an estimate as to when RIM may see full global recovery. “It’s too soon to say that this issue is fully resolved,” Lazaridis explained, adding that there may be some instability as the system returns to normalcy. He reiterated, however, that his company is “working tirelessly” to restore services and, perhaps more important, consumer trust. Skip past the break to see the full video for yourself.
It’s day three of RIM’s BlackBerry service outage in much of the world, including Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil and Chile. But now the problem appears to have spread into Canada — RIM’s home turf — and we’re even hearing reports of some service issues in the US as well. We’ve reached out to RIM for comment, but we’d like to hear from you. Let us know whether or not you’re having issues in the poll below, and jump past the break to sound off in the comments.
Update: RIM has posted the following statement to its BlackBerry Service Update page:
BlackBerry subscribers in the Americas may be experiencing intermittent service delays this morning. We are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and we apologize to our customers for any inconvenience. We will provide a further update as soon as more information is available.
Update 2: RIM UK has also posted a statement:
We know that many of you are still experiencing service problems. The resolution of this service issue is our Number One priority right now and we are working night and day to restore all BlackBerry services to normal levels.
We’ve been hit by a big batch of dismayed tips from PlayStation gamers this morning, who are finding themselves unable to log in to the PlayStation Network (again). Sony’s response has been to acknowledge there’s a problem in the vaguest of terms — “We’re aware certain functions of PlayStation Network are down” — and to promise an update on the situation as soon as it’s available. Alas, that statement was issued over nine hours ago and there’s still no word of either a rectification or an explanation for the outage. The error code provided by the console is, as you can see above, somewhat uninformative as well. So come on, Sony, what is going on with your Network?
Acer’s board and CEO don’t seem to have been getting along too brilliantly lately and now the situation’s come to a point with the resignation of one Mr. Gianfranco Lanci from the company’s helm. In a press release just distributed, Acer points out that Lanci held different views from the majority of board members about the “importance on scale, growth, customer value creation, brand position enhancement, and on resource allocation and methods of implementation.” Following a few months of discussions that failed to deliver a consensus, both parties have decided it’s best to part ways. For now, things continue as normal with Acer’s goal still being globalization of its product portfolio, whose centerpiece will remain the personal computer, according to Chairman JT Wang. He’ll be the man to take over for Lanci while Acer seeks out a replacement for the outspoken Italian.
We’re sure that the debate of a carefully controlled and curated environment like Apple’s App Store versus a free-for-all like the Android Market will rage on for years to come, but here’s something to chew on: Google just removed some 21 apps from the Market in the last day from a publisher going by Myournet for doing all sorts of naughty things to your device. Offenses include attempting to root your phone, uploading phone information (including IMEI) to who-knows-where, and — most egregiously — adding a backdoor that allows additional code to be pulled down and executed.
At least some of the apps are pirated versions of existing apps that have been re-uploaded at zero cost to the user, which makes them appealing… and the trick apparently works quite well, because the 21 managed to clock over 50,000 downloads before getting taken down. This isn’t the first time malicious apps have shown up on smartphones — far from it — but it’s probably the highest-profile case of a first-party app store being infiltrated by really bad stuff. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that Google was extraordinarily quick to respond once Android Police reported the situation — the site says it took less than five minutes from the time they reached out to the time the apps actually went offline. Still, that’s little consolation if you’ve already installed your “free” copy of Super History Eraser.
We’re hearing from… well, let’s call them “people familiar with the matter” that HTC’s Thunderbolt — a phone that’s supposed to be Verizon’s first with LTE — is experiencing positively miserable battery life that’s making it difficult for testers to avoid carrying a second phone around as a backup. How bad? Two to three hours from full to empty in some cases. Of course, we wouldn’t be surprised if battery life was really bad with the LTE radio left on — the EVO 4G wasn’t much different at launch with WiMAX lit up — but the word on the street is that the power situation is largely responsible for the delays we’ve been seeing. In fact, our source tells us the phone is currently working on its sixth retail delay at the moment. More on this situation as we get it.
Update: We’ve just heard from another trusted tipster that there’s definitely a new firmware in the works to address battery life and signal issues (which — you guessed it — are interrelated). Thanks, HTC Kid!
Over 1,000 disgruntled Nokistas walked off the job last week and, while presumably all of them showed up punctually on Monday morning, it remains to be seen how many will get proverbial pink slips as Elop starts making cuts. When that time comes Skype is happy to say that they’d like to hire as many as possible. CEO Tony Bates has no qualms about making the best of this situation, saying the following to Reuters:
There is going to be tremendous talent out there… “Our primary engineering focus just so happens to be somewhere between Finland, Estonia and Stockholm, so you can imagine that’s a great opportunity and we’re hiring.
Hear that, shunned Nokia elite? Now turn that frown upside down.
On Friday (might have been early Saturday morning), as we predicted, Apple’s App store had its 10th billion, not million, app downloaded. To promote this momentous occasion Apple offered a $10,000 iTunes gift card to the lucky shopper as a way of promoting their overwhelming and sometimes ridiculous amount of success.
This is the woman, Gail Davis of Orpington Kent, who won it, then almost squandered it and then some how, with a bit of luck, which she clearly has, managed to finagle the winnings back.
The story goes something like this: the phone rang and her first reaction was to hang up assuming it was a prank call, which she did. Unbeknownst to her, her 14 and 17 year old daughters had been downloading apps that morning. When they realized the atrocity their mother had committed they prompted (whined and yelled) her to call Apple back. Unfortunately, Davis’ attempts were to no avail, that is until iTunes’ VP, Eddy Cue, got wind of the debacle and rectified the situation.
It’s probably safe to say Gail Davis is one lucky person and her daughters will be downloading apps for years to come, all on Apple’s tab.
There isn’t any confirmation that this is really the situation with Samsung, so you might want to take it with a pinch of salt. According to an anonymous source working for T-Mobile, Samsung is purposely holding back the Android 2.2 update for the original Vibrant in order to differentiate and drive sales of the recently leaked Vibrant 4G. Considering that many Android phones out there are already running Android 2.2 or newer, it wouldn’t make too much sense for Samsung to make its device run an outdated version of Android, as such a move didn’t work out too well for Sony Ericsson. Still, we’re hoping that this is just a misunderstanding and that the Android 2.2 update will be on its way soon. The source was quoted:
“Some disturbing things have happened the last week or so concerning our “Vibrant”. Samsung has NOT allowed us to push the update OTA for 2.2 because they feel it will decrease the value of the upcoming Vibrant4G +. While from a marketing aspect i totally understand, as the Vibrant 4G is what the original Vibrant should have been in the 1st place. But to shun off and bold face lie to customers is NOT what T-Mobile is about.
…Being that, Vibrant 4G and Vibrant have exactly same stats, added FFC and a new movie and the 4G. But i will tell you this, the original vibrant CAN utilize 4G FULLY. Yes FULLY. not what they are telling you.”
We caught sight of the super slim Xperia Arc during CES 2011 and it was definitely a good looking phone. Strangely enough, the phone was pictured running Android 2.4, so many folks were left scratching their heads. We already know that Android 2.3 is Gingerbread and Android 3.0 is Honeycomb, so did Google miss something out? According to the Sony Ericsson product blog, the higher version number seen on the Xperia Arc phone was due to a misconfiguration in some samples and there is “nothing to get too excited about.” Is that really the situation, or is it some kind of cover up? Considering that most of us are already looking towards Android 3.0 Honeycomb for future devices, we are inclined to believe that it was some minor mistake that caused it. What do you think?
