Contrast BlackBerry Twitter and Opera Mini

Two weeks I half-heartedly signed up again with UberTwitter so that I could keep up with my latest addiction; Twitter. After an upgrade by Twitter I was not able to go beyond the first page using the browser on my BlackBerry 8010. I had tried UberTwitter 2 months ago but freaked out because my battery was draining too quickly; I think my refresh settings then were too frequent.

I was therefore thrilled, last week, with the announcement of the release of the BlackBerry application for Twitter. That was soon dashed when my attempt to install it failed. I got the error message; "Sorry your device does not meet the system requirements that are needed to support Twitter for Blackberry Smartphones." My initial reaction was what!!! Isn't my low-end BlackBerry a smartphone? Later on I figured out that one of the three systems requirement is "BlackBerry® Device Software Version 4.5" and my BlackBerry is running on version 4.2.2.170. I think it is crazy, and insane, that the application is not backwards compatible especially when it was developed by BlackBerry. The BlackBerry is from the office and I am at the mercy of the IT guys, they get to decide when we upgrade to version 4.5.

It is such a contrast to see the approach by Opera on the mobile and mini browsers, they declare on their website that "... whichever phone you have, a smooth user experience awaits. Last week there was an announcement of a collaboration between Vodafone and Opera to customize Opera Mini 5 to work on low cost handsets which would enable many mobile phone subscribers in Africa to access the Internet even on GPRS networks (aka 2 generation networks).

5 days later Apple approved the use of the same Opera Mini version 5 on the iPhone, by allowing it into their iPhone app store. This makes it the first independent browser that will compete with Apple's browser Safari. Interestingly Opera promotes the Mini 5 by telling users that they will "notice an uptake in speed, especially on slower networks such as the 2G Edge network." Not too sure AT&T will be thrilled to hear that as they are still deluded and believe their network is super fast. Opera Mini has 50 million plus users worldwide.

I installed the Opera Mini on my BlackBerry yesterday and was very happy with their approach. In stark contrast to BlackBerry which just gave me an error message that was not specific. The first message I got when I started the process of installing the app was device detected BlackBerry 8010, recommended software Opera 5.1 for USA. But they also offered me alternatives, critical because I may have been visiting the USA and headed back to Kenya next week.

Such a contrast from BlackBerry who left me wondering if my phone was a smartphone; and what is a smart phone anyway? Are they not all smart!!!