The latest results from data firm GfK show that BlackBerry® was the #1 selling smartphone in the British market for the second year running. It continues to dominate the market, grabbing 26.3% of December sales and averaging 27.7% through 2011.

The BlackBerry® global subscriber base grew 35% year on year in December to 75 million. The UK customer base is going from strength to strength with over eight and a half million active subscribers by the end of 2011.

This is good news for RIM. They surely need it.

I’m going to be posting more about them as I’m due an updated opinion post given the shenanigans over the last few weeks. The short version: RIM is down but most definitely not out. Depending on how the company responds to the new chap, I think RIM could come back very strong.

I recognise that this is less than scientific but they can certainly be considered anecdotal. I simply spoke to the IT director or senior manager — whoever was available to have a chat.

When I called, I introduced myself as the Editor at Mobile Industry Review and gave them a quick overview, pointing out that I was doing a quick bit of BlackBerry research.

I came up with three questions as I didn’t want to impose too much on their time. Indeed I didn’t expect them to be as polite as they were. (I ended up getting a whole load of feedback from each question.)

Here are the questions I asked along with the rather simple results:

- – - – -

Do you have BlackBerry email services?

100% (all five said yes)

Do you intend staying with BlackBerry for the foreseeable future? (i.e. 12-24 months)

80% (4 out of 5)

Are you considering other smartphone platforms?

60% (3 out of 5)

- – - – -

So, yes, RIM are going through a lot of trauma but I wonder whether their core business will still remain relatively secure. That said, relying on core business simply won’t cut it in the smartphone wars. Also rather worrying is that 3 out of 5 are having their heads turned by other platforms. This is not surprising given the consumerisation of IT and the amount of employees hankering to try out the latest gizmos.

[An interesting aside -- one of the chaps I spoke to pointed out that they currently pay for their BlackBerry services and licenses via their operator but plan to stop doing this soon because they intend swapping to Office365. They'll still need BlackBerry 'service' from their operator, but they won't need the client access license costs for their exchange server -- because it's all wrapped into the Office365 monthly service fee. This is good news for RIM's continuity but bad from a reduced license revenue perspective.]

Over to the team at BlackBerry Europe:

The inaugural BlackBerry® DevCon Europe 2012 takes place on February 7th and 8th in Amsterdam, and we want you to be there. By attending, you’ll be among the first to witness the birth of the next generation in application development, BlackBerry 10.

Whether you’re new to developing for the BlackBerry platform, or you’re an experienced app master, take up this offer and you’ll be able to attend at half the cost to learn all there is to know about developing for 70 million-strong BlackBerry community.

To get your 50% discount, visit online registration now, using this unique code before December 24th: DBRM03

Free PlayBook for all attendees By attending BlackBerry DevCon Europe 2012, you’ll also receive a free BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

To find out more about the event sessions, and how you could help shape the future of BlackBerry apps, visit http://www.blackberrydevcon.com/europe/content/sessions/topics.

All things being equal, I’m definitely going to be there (there’s a baby on the way at the end of February so I’m having to play things rather fluid).

Just a reminder — this 50% offer is only valid until tomorrow so you must be quick if you’re intending coming along.

Even today with phenomenal competition from Android, iPhone and Windows Phone, BlackBerry beats everything hands-down when it comes to messaging. I’m not just referring to email. I’m talking about Facebook, Twitter, BBM and of course, SMS. It really is a joy to use a BlackBerry especially when I’m going through periods of hyper-connectivity. The QWERTY keyboard along with the unified inbox makes it all brilliant.

With an iPhone 4, messaging is a painful experience for a geek like me. I simply can’t stand having to arse around swiping left to reveal an iMessage and then waiting for the app to boot up and then display the message. I also don’t like the way I have to keep on waiting around to check that my outgoing message has been sent (if you’re in-and-out of signal range, it’s common for your iMessage/SMS to simply fail to send — but you only discover this if you actually go and check).

Android is a little better because it’s able to retain some degree of persistent experience. You can swap quickly to the SMS app, for example. Integrated Gtalk is lovely. I should also point out that the iPhone 4S is a lot *faster* when it comes to messaging — indeed most of my speed/timing messaging frustrations have disappeared with the new, faster processor on the 4S.

RIM’s QWERTY keyboard is what makes the BlackBerry experience uber fast for me. I’m just not as fast on a virtual keyboard. Neither are you, right? It’s rare — very rare indeed — to find someone who is actually faster on a touchscreen than on a BlackBerry keyboard. Us geeks are all reminded of Steve Jobs on stage at the iPhone launch explaining why the physical keyboard was a problem.

How much does a super-fast messaging experience matter to the average consumer? Not much when they can’t perceive the difference between the experience on a BlackBerry or an iPhone. Except that the iPhone (or Android) “feels” better. I can see why. If you look at the BlackBerry — even with OS7 — it’s still quite a clunky experience compared to the fancy visuals and animations of iPhone/Android.

Then there’s the apps issue. But I won’t get into that today.

BBM rocks. I love that experience. But.. and this is becoming more and more of an issue, I don’t know many people who use it nowadays. In fact the only person I’ve BBM’d in the last *month* is one of the nice chaps who works for RIM. That’s a real problem for me. I’d like to use it more. But I can’t. If anything, I’m not young enough If I was 15, the chances are all of my peers would be with me on BBM.

However.. I’ve got about 15 currently active iMessage conversations on-the-go right now. Some of them are group chats, the majority are individual conversations. This is not good for RIM.

I’d love to see some kind of interoperability between iMessage and BBM. Or BBM to Gtalk directly. I doubt Apple would ever allow this.

Meanwhile, despite the stories you’re seeing daily now about RIM, do keep a level head on your shoulders when you’re thinking about them: Kantar Worldpanel’s research (released today) indicates that RIM is selling 17% of all Smartphones in the UK based on the 12 weeks to 27th November 2011. To put this in context, iOS accounts for 31% and Android 47%.

It’s going to be rather interesting to see what RIM comes up with next!

This is a reasonable argument. I’ve done this many times. Sometimes if you’ve got poor signal, you can’t immediately use the ‘more’ command to retrieve more of the message.

Here’s what he had to say via The Telegraph:

“Given the timing of my response, just over two minutes after Mr Myler had sent his email to me, and the fact that I typically received emails on my BlackBerry at weekends, I am confident that I did not review the full email chain at the time or afterwards, nor do I recall a conversation with Mr Myler over that weekend.”

via James Murdoch was told in email three years ago that phone hacking was ‘rife’ – Telegraph.

In many countries, RIM’s “touch and type” offer is going down a storm — as the crowds in Jakarta today attest. I strongly recommend reading this post from The Associated Press to find out all about the excitement for RIM’s latest device, the Bold 9790.

Just look at the people queuing! Apparently well over 3,000 queued to buy — and the first lucky 1,000 got the device at 50% of the standard $540 price. Good deal. No wonder the riot police had to be deployed.

In fairness to the other brands out there, I’m sure 3,000 folk would turn up for a half price iPhone or Android device at launch. Still, nice work RIM!

Waiting. Walking. Watching TV. Working out. Winding down. Waking up. We check email pretty much everywhere these days. And when we do, we want easy access to our important messages so we can respond quickly and get back to life — or slinging birds at thieving green pigs.

With that in mind, we’ve created a new Gmail app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. We’ve combined your favorite features from the Gmail mobile web app and iOS into one app so you can be more productive on the go. It’s designed to be fast, efficient and take full advantage of the touchscreen and notification capabilities of your device. And it’s one more reason to switch to Gmail.

via Introducing the Gmail app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch | Official Gmail Blog.

Why the obsession over apps for iOS when there are 70 million folk with a BlackBerry whose Gmail app you’re about to kill?

Fascinating.

This is a serious, serious problem for me.

Ultra serious.

Let me explain.

I have 12GB of email in my personal Google Apps account.

I have 7GB in my Mobile Industry Review Google Apps account.

I want quick, easy access to that mail. I love the fact that *anywhere* in the world, I can query my Google mail through the BlackBerry app really quickly. It’s a bit clunky because Google seems to have stopped evolving the app — but it gets the job done and I’ve found it highly reliable.

I also need to be able to easily, easily ‘manage’ my mail. The BlackBerry Gmail app is one of the *quickest* ways of managing my email. Much of the avalanche of email that comes in needs to be reviewed-n-archived (simply press ‘e’) or deleted (‘d’) or starred for follow-up (‘s’). I can get through my email SO quickly with these little keyboard commands.

Come November 22nd, however, I’ll need to lump it. Luckily I’ll still be able to *use* the app, since I’ve got it installed on all my BlackBerries. However Google are actively *removing* the app — that is, on November 23rd, you won’t be able to find it to install it.

It’s an interesting move.

Why are you doing this Google?

Of course, the key point is that they’d rather I do everything in the browser. Or on Android. Both are shite experiences. There is no Android hardware — NONE — worth looking at from a messaging/email standpoint. They’re all tinpot shit experiences for me. I need the BlackBerry UI. I need to be able to get shit done quickly using a decent physical keyboard — something that is beyond every Android device ever marketed to date.

And the browser? Don’t make me laugh.

Of course the fundamental problem here is the abomination that is Gmail support on BlackBerries. Google Sync works like a dream on every BlackBerry I’ve ever owned. The calendars and contacts all update beautifully. The email, however, is a nightmare. It certainly works. Just, deletes don’t seem to sync. Ever. It’s been winding me up something chronic for a long time. And, because deletes don’t sync, email begins to pile up on my device so that every few weeks I need to actually delete my Gmail account on the device and set it up again. Just so it becomes usable.

It’s a bit of a mess, frankly.

The solution?

Well, I’ve been looking for a decent solution for a while. I think the answer is definitely to stay on BlackBerry for my primary messaging experiences. I don’t think there’s anything better.

Google, on the other hand, by making this decision have seriously annoyed me. It’s a real inconvenience. I spend a lot of money with them on Google Apps accounts and don’t expect to be dicked around in this manner.

I’ve been quite enjoying using the ‘connector’ for Google Apps that makes it work natively like BES on my BlackBerry. The biggest issue I have is that I can’t search my 12GB & 7GB of email data easily this way. That’s why I have the Gmail App on the BlackBerry.

What a flipping annoyance.

I’m going to take another look at Office365 and their BES connectivity.

Meanwhile, beyond glaring at Google (and BlackBerry, for not sorting out their Gmail Plugin), do you have any suggestions?

Update: Ben Smith over at Wireless Worker has this perspective.

Over to Sean:

The business cloud services space is hotting up big time. Google’s been at it for quite a while with Google Apps and they’ve recently been joined by Microsoft’s Office365… which is getting rather compelling. I’ve checked it out and I found it pretty smart — indeed I remember commenting that if Office365 offered BlackBerry service (i.e. full email, calendar, task sync) then I’d think very, very carefully about possibly swapping to it away from Google Apps.

And whaddya know?

It’s been much rumoured but now it’s here — in beta form. If you’re an Office365 subscriber, you now get BlackBerry services — all that sync goodness — entirely free:

BlackBerry® Business Cloud Services delivers a simple and affordable way for companies to manage BlackBerry smartphones with Microsoft® Office 365.

BlackBerry Business Cloud Services is available at no additional charge to Microsoft Office 365 subscribers. This secure service, hosted by Research In Motion (RIM), directly links Microsoft® Exchange Online with BlackBerry smartphones to offer reliable, mobile access to synchronized email, calendar, contacts, tasks and memo pads.

From almost anywhere, the intuitive, web-based interface provides the tools administrators need to perform common tasks, password reset or find, lock or wipe lost or misplaced devices.

An integrated single sign-on between Office 365 and BlackBerry Business Cloud Services gives end users online self-service options that help make managing devices more efficient than ever.

Love it.

Highly, highly compelling. You can read all about it here.

I’m going to resurrect my Office365 trial account (if it’s not already been deleted — they did email me to warn me) and see if I can get this working.

Over to Nimrod:

I wasn’t sure what I’d encounter. If you believe any of the media stories circulating recently, RIM is toast. The service outage didn’t help the company’s reputation.

Alec Saunders is their new guy in charge of fixing everything. Or, in other words, “Developer Relations”. No longer a sideshow at RIM, the company has, I think, recognised that it is nothing without apps. Indeed, the services game is becoming such a business critical requirement for handsets nowadays that it’s almost impossible to launch a new handset into market — because you need the ‘ecosystem’ to support it, immediately.

It’s a strange conundrum for RIM, given that they’ve *always* been a service provider — you can’t buy a RIM device and use it properly without first buying the “BlackBerry” bolt-on or service plan. RIM’s been doing services since day one. Just, it’s not packaged in the same manner.

For instance, if you check out the iPhone 4S’s latest addition, Siri, you’ll find it’s voice interaction difficult to ignore. Android’s now got that too. The market’s waiting to see what Windows Phone will offer. Naturally, I expect the same from RIM shortly.

There are so many things RIM needs to get right: Device specification, user interface, price point… And then third-party applications and additional value-add services. Chucking cash at the Angry Birds team works. But until the experience is as-good-as the other platforms, the consumer will rightly assert that it’s not good enough. Witness, for example, the rather limited Evernote version for BlackBerry compared to the iPhone or Android alternative. Or if you really want a shocking experience, try out Instagram on iPhone and then InstaPhoto on BlackBerry. The difference in user experience is unfortunately horrendous.

The fault is with the developers. RIM themselves have created (or supervised) some phenomenally good looking ‘superapps’ for their platform such as Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter. The challenge for developers is investing the time to make their apps look good on RIM’s device portfolio. Most folk don’t bother. So you end up with a series of application abominations in the BlackBerry App World. RIM — unfortunately — is being judged by this bar.

Alec Saunders, the company’s new Developer chap, is working hard to change this. In his keynote he pointed out that RIM has scrapped it’s antiquated Java bollocks. I won’t bore you with the technology, suffice to say that you no longer need 3x rocket scientists at £1,500/day to write your RIM applications. Indeed you can now write phenomenally good looking functional apps with just HTML. Or use a common C framework such as Marmalade.

Alec is on a mission to change minds. He spent a large part of his keynote highlighting that RIM is still alive. Yup. He had to. He explained that the company’s subscribers increase 40% in the last year. Hardly a company that’s dead, eh? He explained that on average, 13% of developers on RIM’s platform are making $100k+ from their apps. RIM’s customers, he said, are downloading apps. Seriously. On average RIM reports each user downloads 24 apps a year. Highly respectable. Alex went through a host of different myths peddled by the market and exploded them. This was important to do.

But — and there is a but — unless RIM gets behind this messaging properly, with significant spend, it’ll all be irrelevant.

The facts don’t lie. People are still buying BlackBerries. RIM is still the number one smartphone maker in dozens of countries. I do mean *dozens*. Like the UK, for example. The new handsets are gorgeous. This is a fact. Well, it’s a perception. But I’m sure even the most outspoken BlackBerry haters will acknowledge the Bold 9900 (for example) is a nice phone.

The company’s fast move toward seriously adopting HTML5 into the DNA of their new platform (christened “BBX”) is laudable. If there weren’t so many continual media reputation issues, I’m confident the majority would be looking at RIM after last week’s event and expressing significant excitement at the company’s next generation of devices and services. What they showed from a platform viewpoint was hugely exciting. The efforts they’re making with improving platform development tools are brilliant. I’ve asked RIM for a video of the all new Rogers Cup tennis app — it’s made entirely in HTML5 (for the PlayBook) and it’s simply stunning to behold. I sat in on some HTML5 developer tutorials and, goodness me, it’s child’s play to write an app that looks beautiful on both the PlayBook and the raft of RIM handsets — with backward compatibility to all recent device generations. When I say child’s play, I mean it. You can knock up a gorgeous app with just a few lines of HTML and a bit of javascript.

This should bring attention. It should get web developers thinking about the BlackBerry platform — especially when they can actually *do* things with HTML5 (like interface with the address book and so on). It’s also going to become more and more easy to point-and-click port your apps to RIM.

But is it all too late? Well, no one’s announced a takeover yet, right?

So no, I don’t think it’s too late.

The next few months are going to be critical for the company though. We’re going to need to start seeing BBX devices (handsets and next gen PlayBooks) and we’re going to need to see more and more app/service developers adopt the platform.

I’m feeling pretty positive.

I’ve decided it’s high time we had a PlayBook application for Mobile Industry Review. I’ve been deliberating on this issue for far too long. I’ve made noises. I’ve written occasional tweets, but now I’ve decided to do it.

I really do like the PlayBook. I love it. It’s the right size, it’s super-super powerful. I very much enjoy the user interface. But…

You know what’s coming next. Apps. The app experience isn’t quite there yet. It’s certainly getting there. I’m pretty impressed with the (unofficial) DropBox app, BlueBox. I’m delighted to see PressDisplay’s PressReader there. InstaPhoto is pretty neat. I just need to see more. I want to see more. The platform is hugely capable.

So I thought I should put my money where my mouth is by building a Mobile Industry Review app. Just a simple newsreader — like I did for the iPhone platform a few years ago. I hired a nice chap called Pavel to sort it out.

Now then, I spent a whopping $440 on that application. I’m wondering if I can do similar for the PlayBook. I don’t know if that’s possible though. I’m not sure what the going rate is. There’s a chance the average PlayBook developer wouldn’t code the front screen for less than $500. We’ll see. I’ve set the budget to $500 and I’ve published an elance.com entry soliciting bids.

I wonder if the PlayBook developer marketplace is too small to support this kind of work? I don’t know.

Programming for the PlayBook definitely looks straight forward, especially if you use WebWorks. And I’m not asking the world — it’s a simple app I would like in the first instance. If I had more time I reckon I could definitely code an HTML5 app (that could be easily submitted to App World.

What kind of experience do you think I’m likely to have? Any predictions before we begin the journey?

Here’s a video introduction I made earlier…

1. It’s a tangible offering — real apps, real brand names
2. It’s a recognition of the annoyance and frustration that many did feel
3. It’s highlighting App World in the press
4. In order to take advantage of the deal, the consumer will need to have App World installed and activated — I’m sure there are still quite a lot out there who don’t have this properly setup yet, so this should convert a few more folk
5. It’s not actually $100 credit, indeed it should be quite cost effective for RIM
6. It draws a line in the sand for RIM — many that I’ve spoken to have already forgotten the outages

Now then you’d think that the $100 of apps would be in the form of a credit, right? Not quite. RIM has been very clever with the offer. Here are the apps you can get for free on Wednesday:

SIMS 3 (Electronic Arts)
Bejeweled (Electronic Arts)
N.O.V.A. (Gameloft)
Texas Hold’em Poker 2 (Gameloft)
Bubble Bash 2 (Gameloft)
Photo Editor Ultimate (Ice Cold Apps)
DriveSafe.ly Pro (iSpeech.org)
iSpeech Translator Pro (iSpeech.org)
Drive Safe.ly Enterprise (iSpeech.org)
Nobex Radio™ Premium (Nobex)
Shazam Encore (Shazam)
Vlingo Plus: Virtual Assistant (Vlingo)

Anyone that’s been around the BlackBerry ecosystem for any length of time will recognise every app there. I’d go so far as to say that it looks to me like RIM will have put together a really good deal for those developers to avoid having to pay anywhere near full price to include the app in this compensation offer. Each of the developers in the list is exceedingly well known to RIM.

The app list is well chosen. They’re all good ones.

If you’re an enterprise customer, then you’ll apparently be shortly getting details about how you can qualify for some free tech support from RIM. That is perfectly fine. It’s a line drawn under the sand. Although I suspect most of the enterprises in question will smile nicely and move on. Memories are short and I suspect a lot of enterprises are already getting on with life now that things are back to normal.

So good move RIM!

I’ve therefore managed to avoid using the Bold for a few days whilst I’ve actually been using my laptop more. You know how it is at conferences.

Back on the Bold this evening I had to breathe a mental sigh of relief. Welcome back! Oh how I missed the super-fast messaging capabilities of the Bold (and the BlackBerry platform).

I grabbed the Bold just now and rattled through about five Direct Messages in about 10 seconds. I can type *fast* on a Bold.

The device is connected through WiFi via the MacBook Air. My Air is running on the hotel connection, sharing it’s data connection wirelessly. So I don’t need to use AT&T or T-Mobile here at excruciating roaming rates.

The other super thing? Well, the moment you pick up WiFi the BlackBerry Services route everything intelligently through that. So my email is right there too. I’ve just been flying through that too.

The Google Talk integration, Twitter, Facebook plus email… Yup I still do like the BlackBerry experience!

[Authored on the Bold using the native WordPress app]

All you need to do is turn up on site with the app code (A “COD” file bundle, whatever the hell that is) and some assets (e.g. image/icon/logos) and baam — the team there, on site, will help you go through the deployment process there-and-then.

If you’ve got everything ready beforehand (like your file assets and whatnot) then the process will take just minutes. You will be able to more or less walk out of the App Express zone with your app deployed into App World.

Obviously there are bound to be one or two kinks in the process — especially if you’re like me and don’t quite read all the instructions in advance — but there will be a team of developers in the App Express area standing by to help out.

And if you haven’t yet picked up a PlayBook, just by registering and attending DevCon next week, you’ll be able to pick one up free of charge! (More details here.)

As for me I still haven’t had any success at getting a Mobile Industry Review app developed for the PlayBook yet. I’m going to see if I can hire a chap to sort that out. Perhaps I’ll try and get someone to make an HTML5 news reader ‘app’ that I can have deployed to the PlayBook next week? We shall see.

I’ve got an email account at one of the companies I consult with regularly. They’re a top FTSE 100 firm and they were seriously challenged by this week’s BlackBerry outage. One of the implications of the continued outage was that the company’s help desk team obviously sent out frequent updates to everyone in the company.

So everyone was told of the BlackBerry outage. Everybody. Everyone was reminded, constantly, just how reliant their business was on RIM technology.

Before today, I think it’s fair to say that most IT teams didn’t fully appreciate how much their businesses actually rely on the ‘BlackBerry Cloud’. It’s easy to consider the BlackBerry just a client device useful for checking mail, but, something you can certainly do without if needs be, especially since the IT team is also responsible for you laptop/desktop and the mail servers. This Monday, Tuesday and most of Wednesday, many executives got a rude awakening.

Those who’d already deployed iPhone or Android or Windows Phone were perfectly fine. Exchange via ActiveSync was obviously unaffected. The amount of crowing and ribbing I witnessed between those with iPhones and those with ‘dead’ BlackBerries was rather fun to watch.

My biggest disappointment with this week’s outage is the amount of phenomenally destructive free advertising that’s been dedicated to validating the media’s assertion that RIM is dead, dying or moving toward that state. This viewpoint has been building and building over the past year — despite the company’s devices retaining the #1 or #2 positions in dozens upon dozens of countries.

The way the company’s top management has handled the problem has been rather frustrating.

This wasn’t a mere technical hiccup. In fact, this week’s critical issue was next to nothing to do with server nodes or switches. No. It demonstrated that RIM’s top, top management has zero clue about the company’s market perception. The competitors were just waiting for this to happen. The timing, the scale, the length of the interruption was pitch perfect.

Staying broadly silent across 24 hours and then 48 hours was not the answer. Oh no. Not when EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR CUSTOMERS was sending emails to ALL OF THEIR STAFF telling them (I paraphrase), “BlackBerry services are still down and RIM aren’t saying anything, so we’ve nothing to tell you”

Not only did this make Europe’s IT help desk teams look rather impotent, it will also have served as a warm reminder for the top IT brass to shake off that, ‘bring your own device’ or ‘convert everyone to iPhone’ proposals.

I arrived into my hotel room last night in New York to find the team at CNN mocking BlackBerry in a live segment that must have lasted at least 5 minutes. Mocking the company! I do mean, mocking. They even included a segment of one of their producers going nuts about being unable to ‘make the news’ (or words to that effect) because of the outage.

I think I’m right in saying that if RIM experiences one more continued multi-business-day outage, they will be toast.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel though. In fact the light is arriving around about now. Most of us will forget the outages very, very quickly. The reality is that millions of folk really like their BlackBerry experience and provided service is working, they’ll remain happy.

Especially since many will have signed multi-year contracts with their operators

I’m sure a few will be going spare about the days of productivity they lost. Some uber frustrated individuals will have already swapped to another platform. The broad, broad majority though? They’ll carry on as normal.

Outages do happen. It’s significantly inconvenient. But it’s working now.

So I don’t think many consumers will be hacking their BlackBerries to pieces over the outage. I also think that provided RIM can continue to innovate with its handsets and operating systems, the future looks good.

I still don’t think there’s anything better than a BlackBerry for messaging.

Next week it’s DevCon Americas, the biggest BlackBerry event on the West Coast for quite a while. I’m hopeful that the company will reveal some exciting updates — or perhaps give some glimpses into what’s coming next. I’m also interested to see how the company addresses this week’s outage to the BlackBerry faithful.

So what do you think? What’s your view?

In today’s fast paced, always-on connected environment, it’s super-important for RIM to continue to manage their reputation aggressively and offensively (as apposed to playing defence — or, in some cases not bothering with defence at all).

The recent news of RIM’s network failing on Monday and Tuesday, however intermittent, are the proverbial nails in coffins that a lot of people have been searching around for.

The media has understandably seized on the downtime, highlighting this issue as ‘yet another misstep’. That, I don’t agree with. However I can’t argue with the fact that the timing is significantly inconvenient.

A catastrophic network failure really doesn’t help RIM’s image.

What’s worse, though, is that all the mainstream media reporting I’ve seen contains phrases like, “RIM could not be reached for comment,” or “RIM declined to comment on the issue.” This is the last thing folk want to be hearing, especially the fans, and especially the customers.

The design of the RIM infrastructure offers seriously advantages to end consumers, especially in the context of data consumption and compression. This is why so many operators are absolutely delighted to offer their consumers ‘unlimited’ fair use data on their BlackBerry service plans for next to nothing. Or, at the very least, unlimited email data — the point being that because most of the data is super-compressed and travels across RIM’s own networks, it’s fairly easy to deal with.

Historically, too, it’s been rather difficult to use a lot of data on your BlackBerry. Take the previous generation Curve — playing Youtube or streaming anything on it is rather complicated. It’s possible, but on an EDGE connection, the amount of time you waste staring at the little data arrows going back and forth is a great encouragement not to bother.

It’s been quite a while since we’ve seen a significant RIM outage so I wonder how user tolerance has changed over say, the last few years. How many RIM customers were mildly annoyed or supremely inconvenienced by a loss of connectivity? I suspect a lot more than, say, two or three years ago. A delay in email arriving is one thing, having your whole device basically switch off (from a data context) for a number of hours is a serious issue.

I doubt that the outage has done much to damage RIM’s on-going fortunes with those consumers impacted over the last few days. I reckon most people will be *annoyed* in bold, italics and possibly capital letters, but annoyed enough to change platform? I don’t think so. That’s a big decision, a big step — and only likely to impact RIM at the contract/device change point. So there’s time for people to forget.

I worry that RIM isn’t doing all it could be to counter the mainstream media. I almost wish that the company had been conducting crisis-PR operations 24/7 for the last year. The company can’t afford to be operating business as usual public relations outreach.

To allow the media to report that RIM’s EMEA network has been down and that the company ‘couldn’t be reached for comment’ is unacceptable. Here’s how the Telegraph recorded the news of Tuesday’s failure:

“A spokesman for RIM declined to comment on the latest technical failure, which struck at around 1PM.”

And here’s a hugely damaging statement from the Telegraph:

RIM has also been criticised for its public response to the failures. It only acknowledged the yesterday’s crash after millions of users had been without services for several hours and it has made no statement on the cause.

Dear me!

I’m off to the BlackBerry DevCon Americas event next week — I’m hugely excited to go along and see what they’ve got coming. It’s going to be interesting to take the temperature of audience there.

Come on RIM!

The new ‘Tag’ function arrives with the upcoming BlackBerry OS 7 update and will enable users to tap-n-share multimedia content between their devices — I think this is a little like what we’ve previously seen with the likes of the HP Touchpad and Palm devices.

Here’s the overview from RIM:

During his keynote presentation at the GITEX conference in Dubai, Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) Co-CEO Jim Balsillie today unveiled a new way for BlackBerry® smartphone users to connect with one another and share multimedia content.

BlackBerry® Tag, which will be incorporated in the next BlackBerry® 7 OS update*, will allow users to share contact information, documents, URLs, photos and other multimedia content by simply tapping their BlackBerry smartphones together. BlackBerry Tag will also enable friends to instantly add one another as contacts on BBM™ (BlackBerry® Messenger).

“BlackBerry Tag is an exciting and innovative feature that makes sharing contact information and multimedia content effortless and seamless,” said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “BlackBerry Tag opens a new dimension to the BlackBerry platform that is powerful, simple and intuitive and we think it will be welcomed by both users and developers.”

BlackBerry Tag takes advantage of Near Field Communications (NFC) technology included in the recently launched BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900/9930 and BlackBerry® Curve™ 9350/9360/9370 smartphones, and these are the first BlackBerry smartphones that will support BlackBerry Tag.

RIM also announced plans to expose BlackBerry Tag through APIs on the BlackBerry platform, allowing software developers to take advantage of “tap to share” functionality from within their own applications.

We need to see more and more of this from RIM. This could potentially make my BlackBerry rather useful for swapping stuff quickly. Of course, I need the other folk around to want to buy BlackBerries *so* that I can use this. More please RIM!

I’m looking forward to the software update.

It just a week-and-a-bit before I arrive into San Francisco for the BlackBerry DevCon event. I’m in Houston first, followed by New York, before flying into the Valley. So that means I’ve been doing the usual jiggery-pokery with hotels and flights. In many cases, I’ve been lucky enough to have a colleague or agency take part of some of the scheduling and booking. In other cases, I’ve sorted it out myself.

Mid-way through I thought I should really try out BlackBerry Travel properly. I’ve had a wee look previously but I’ve not really had the opportunity to use it in anger since the new Bold 9900 arrived.

It was about time.

BlackBerry Travel is a key offering on the platform — just like Facebook and Twitter. It’s a ‘super-app’ — that is, it makes full use of the device capabilities including calendar and messaging integration.

And it’s magic!

Perhaps the most challenging element of business travel nowadays is juggling everything and having the right information at your fingertips, *all* of the time. My schedule next week is a good example. I’m on 6 different flights, 4 different hotels, 3 cities. Trying to keep all the booking numbers and timings in order gets challenging. You end up having to print stuff out and place it in chronological order just to make sense of it all. Not any more.

Once activated on your phone (and entirely free of charge), BlackBerry Travel scans your inbox. The moment it comes across a booking record email — or any of those long complicated corporate travel confirmation emails, it springs into action. It’s really fast. The app parses the email and extracts all the relevant bits and builds a trip for you.

Now, I knew this. I’m sure I’ve actually had a briefing on this too. But seeing it in the flesh, using it in anger? Amazing.

The first part of my upcoming journey to be confirmed by email were the outbound flights. The email arrived and almost simultaneously, I received a prompt in my inbox from BlackBerry Travel telling me that it had added them.

I clicked through. And, I’m delighted to say I was stunned. Boom! There was the flight schedule and ticketing information organised beautifully. The app then pointed out that although I was due to arrive into Houston on the 10th, I didn’t have any accommodation arranged. Would I like some help with that, asked the app?

Geez! Yes. I clicked. Boom! Again! All of a sudden I saw a list of available hotels along with prices in my local currency. Unfortunately I couldn’t book them as that was being done for me via another email.

When that booking was made — woosh — the BlackBerry Travel app was updated immediately, now with all the relevant hotel details.

Simply phenomenal.

Plus, my device calendar now has the various flight details programmed in. Excellent.

My week has continued like this. As another booking is and received by my email, it’s automatically integrated. So now I have a beautiful itinerary on my phone. Hugely, hugely valuable.

I’ve hooked it up to LinkedIn so it helpfully tells me who amongst my network is nearby at the particular locations in my itinerary. Yelp is also directly integrated too so finding restaurants and the like is that bit easier.

Plus, weather is integrated as well. Useful, because it looks like it’s going to be rather hot in Houston.

I’m seriously impressed.

You’ll no doubt have seen similar from the likes of TripIt (which I also use) however the super-tight and seamless integration with BlackBerry Travel is nothing short of astounding. When I think of the amount of hassle I’ve had to go through in the past writing all this stuff down or printing sheet-after-sheet and placing it all into a special plastic cover.. I’m simply delighted with the app.

If you’re a BlackBerry user and you travel regularly, I strongly recommend taking a look and trying it out.

You can find out more at blackberry.com — you’ll get it on any modern BlackBerry.

One of my regular BlackBerry apps is BeReader. It’s a really nice Google Reader client for the BlackBerry platform. I bought it via App World last year and I’ve been a regular user ever since.

I very much enjoy the BeReader experience — I use it a lot when I’m in restaurants or on the train or delayed.

The company behind BeReader, Bellshare, are — as Kevin from Crackberry put it earlier — one of the best RIM developers out there.

So all is good.

Now, I am using lots of BlackBerries all the time. Whether it’s the Curve, the Bold, the Torch, I’m swapping between them regularly for evaluation purposes. I’ve 6 BlackBerries on the desk at the moment.

Normally when I’m properly testing a BlackBerry device, I will transfer everything to the phone. It’s quite a nice experience. Type in your RIM account details and all your apps come flying down and, if you wish, your email account settings/BBM details are all copied over.

BeReader is one of the first that I will re-install.

For a variety of (I’m sure) perfectly valid reasons, Bellshare integrated copy protection on to BeReader. That is, you need to have a license code to run the app. One would hope this is not needed given I bought it from RIM’s very own App World, however it’s still there. When you download the app, you’re assigned an activation license number and you need to cut/paste that to make BeReader actually work. Fair enough. Convoluted, especially in the “it just works” world.

I tried to do this on my new Bold 9900 and got an error. Apparently I’ve activated the license far too many times now. That’s it. Game over. Go and use our online form, the app reported, to tell us you’re transferring to a new device.

I went and hunted for my BlackBerry PIN number. I visited the non-mobile enabled Bellshare site and filled in the form.

My patience was already shot to shreds. My frustration palpable. Fair enough, I know what I’m doing, but my wife? A ‘normob’ (“normal mobile user”) — she’d have given up and started screaming by now.

I’m already cooking on gas with annoyance when the form returns an error. Nope, it says, you really need to email us. You’ve activated too many times.

I exploded.

I can’t stand exceptions. I really can’t. I just want this shit to work. I bought it through App World. You KNOW this.. I really, geez, come I can’t be doing with this level of involvement, not when Reeder — a brilliant, brilliant iPhone alternative — is about 0.5 milliseconds away from me.

And you know what? I’ve had this issue for a little while. I solved it by using my iPhone instead. Because I carry both.

It was only this evening that I thought I’d actually bother clicking through to the form as I had a bit of time sitting on the train.

As I pointed out earlier, Bellshare has an excellent reputation and the BeReader app is second to none.

What really took me by surprise was my total lack of tolerance for the process not working as I expected. Now then, is this just me?

I think it’s possible it could be.

I emailed Bellshare’s support and got a confirmation reply from their ticketing system 12 minutes later. Now I’m finding myself thinking, “What are they doing? Why are they taking so long?”

I almost want an instant response from them.

Goodness me.

I think it’s just me. Other folk would have more patience, right?

I have no doubt that I’ll get a note from Bellshare shortly rectifying the situation. In this particular case, it has to be an exception given the amount of devices I’ve been using.

I wanted to make the point about exceptions though. I wonder if I’m the vanguard for the rest of the world becoming completely intolerant to anything other than “it just works”.

What’s your view?

Here is the video:

Months ago when I first got hands-on with the BlackBerry Bold at BlackBerry World, I thought it was gorgeous.

But, it was pre-release.

And I try not to think too much about devices that are specifically marked as pre-release. There are often substantial changes before the device hits the shelves.

Now I stopped doing actual handset reviews years ago. I tired quickly of having to look objectively at a phone. Well, not even objectively. Laboriously listing out megapixel specs was, I recognised, virtually irrelevant to the Mobile Industry Review reader.

Instead, here is a set of viewpoints relating to the device.

I’ve had hands-on for two weeks. It’s been my primary device for this period. I swapped my BES service to this one from my old Bold 9780. I installed all my standard apps. It’s been used in anger.

It’s fast
I don’t give a toss about RAM or CPUs. They mean nothing unless the phone ‘works fast’. This is my viewpoint. I’ve used plenty of phones with brilliant specs only to find the actual usage rubbish. So I am happy to pronounce this Bold fast. Make sure you’re in a good signal area and try installing an app. It’s a dream — the download and installation is much improved.

Virtually no waiting
Related to the point above, I hardly ever see the hour glass now. This is important — whatever RIM did, it’s made it a lot nicer to use as a result.

The Web Browser
Finally you can load proper full-size websites with your Bold. That’s about it. It works nicely. It’s not a second-class experience any more.

Touch works
The whole touch thing works. I really like it. Now and again I want to touch the screen, whether it’s tapping a link on a webpage or hitting the send button on an email, it’s really nice to be able to use the screen in this way. Everything works as you expect. I haven’t encountered any exceptions. Previous RIM touch screen experiences required a little bit of patience and, sometimes, a few taps, before things worked as expected. Not any more. By the way, when you’re on a call and put the phone to your head, the screen switches off — just as the iPhone does. (And then it comes on again when you take it away). An important requirement. I’m pleased to see this one was added.

The keyboard
Without a doubt the keyboard is the best thing about the BlackBerry. This is not to minimise the device’s other achievements and capabilities. I want a BlackBerry primarily for the QWERTY keyboard. So do you, right? Precious few of us are actually good at typing on an iPhone for any length of time. If you need to message-in-anger, you need a physical keyboard and you need a BlackBerry. There’s almost an extra key’s worth of width added to this new Bold (compared to the old). It took me a day or so to adjust to having more space (it looks to be the same form factor as the original Bold 9000) but once I did, ahhh. Bisto. Genius. Love it. The clicks, the angle of the keys, the spacing, the forming of the whole experience: They really do know what they’re doing. RIM’s keyboards, particularly this one, make everything else look like a Fisher Price toy in comparison.

The width
It’s really slim. It feels slim. And when you’re typing on the keyboard, it feels really nice. I feel modern using it. Typing away on the slim keyboard feels very good.

Handsome
It is handsome. The metal edge — similar to the iPhone 4 — looks impressive. The device looks futuristic. It looks good on the table, on the desk, in the hand. It’s been drawing admiring glances from lots of people as I’ve been using it. This is good. It’s not a critical feature but it’s nice to have.

Materials
The 9900 is slim but chunky. It feels sturdy. Throw it gently on to the desk or restaurant table and it’ll make a pleasing sound. The back casing is really nice to touch. The metals, the screen, the whole package feels ‘worth’ it.

Main Buttons
The main buttons — call, blackberry menu, back, end — they have a lovely feel. They indent really nicely. I like pressing call/hanging up. It just feels good.

Speakerphone
Press ‘s’ during a call and the speaker phone switches on and just works. This is something I’ve been using a lot with the Bold and I’m delighted to say performance is maintained in this version of the device.

BlackBerry OS 7
I’m liking what RIM has done with OS version 7. They’ve retained the familiar RIM look and feel but brought a wealth of mini innovations that really improve the overall experience. For example, everything is nicely connected. Twitter integration is second-to-none. If you’re into Facebook, you’ll seriously enjoy what they’ve done with integration there too. Everything is accessible, connected and integrated into the device. For example, you can send stuff easily to Twitter/Facebook/Text/MMS/Email. They’ve really thought about the whole connected messaging experience.

Twitter integration
A supplemental on this. I am seriously impressed at the revisions the team has been doing with the Twitter client. Direct messages appear in the inbox. Hit ‘r’ and reply (with convenient character count). There’s no swapping into different clients or having to wait whilst an app opens. You can compose a Twitter message directly from the inbox. You’re also notified about replies — for example, “You have 4 replies” — within the inbox. Click on that and the Twitter client loads instantly (it’s running in the background, refreshing at the duration you set). I don’t think there’s a better, faster, integrated, more effective Twitter facility on any other mobile platform.

App World is fast
The App World is improving all the time and the current version is really zippy. I’m now enjoying flicking through the carousel of apps.

Calling, texting
Calling is perfectly fine. I’ve nothing particular to report. I just wanted to point this out. Texting, by the way, is a joy. I’m just incredibly fast on the Bold keyboard!

Niggles?
There are some niggles.

I absolutely LOVE the Bold 9780′s top-left screen-lock button. I use that more than everything. I really like the functionality. I like how it’s positioned. On the 9900, they’ve done away with this. There’s still a button — it’s on the top in the centre now. On pressing it, I sometimes involuntarily press the other side buttons, especially the camera button. Annoying. Over the past week or so it’s become less of a problem as I’ve adjusted.

The battery… It feels slightly less powerful than the last version of the Bold. I’m frequently hitting the amber empty sign by 9pm and 10pm — from a full charge that morning. So I am charging it a little more often. However I am pleased to say that I’ve not had it completely switch off. I’m just bothered by the sight of the amber/red battery warning. I have an aversion to it. Now I should point out that I’ve a few third party apps running including SmrtGuard, Google Mail and Google Sync – they will be having an affect. I think it’s fair to point out that battery is becoming an irrelevance nowadays, much to my annoyance. Any smartphone you’d care to mention is lucky if it gets through a full business day of usage. It’s not a RIM thing. It’s an industry thing.

I’m not particularly impressed with the camera. Like almost any smartphone out there, it’s nothing to write home about. I won’t bore you with the megapixels. It’s irrelevant. The pictures are ‘ok’. They’re par for the course. Expect decent photos but no more. The close-up option, for example, was laughably rubbish. It’s like the RIM engineers got to this point and didn’t go any further. I was trying to take a picture of a receipt and the camera simply wasn’t having it. I eventually had to use the touch-to-focus option on my iPhone 4 instead. So — don’t expect miracles.

There’s also an argument to say that the lack of ‘apps’ is a bit of a shortcoming. I’m half sold on this. Half. I do carry around an iPhone 4 precisely because of the app and media experience. However there’s a reason my Bold is my primary phone — messaging. Fundamentally, the number one app for me is messaging (email/Twitter/IM). Everything else is there — I use Google Maps a lot. Google Sync for my address book. BeReader to keep up with Google Reader. The Gmail app to access my back archive of mail across multiple accounts. Oh, and Evernote. I don’t miss the 400,000 other apps on the Bold because I use the primary function — messaging — so much.

The Package
As a package though, the Bold 9900 is simply magnificent.

If you’re a serious user of messaging functionality, definitely consider this device. I haven’t written about the email experience on the Bold because it’s not relevant — we all know RIM has this stuff down pat, nothing else comes close.

This is the smart workhorse. This is the machine you need to get shit done. If your primary need is to piss about with Angry Birds on the train home, then yeah, maybe you should be buying a £99 Android or a free iPhone 4. But if you’re like me — coming out of the office and wanting to race through your personal and work mail fast and get stuff sorted, seriously think about the new Bold.

If you’re a business person of some stature (and perhaps forced to carry a BlackBerry) make sure it’s the Bold. Do not accept anything else. Well, maybe the Torch if you like the slidey-keyboard. (I’ll be having a look at the new Torch shortly).

The recently launched Curves are nice, but if you’re a reader of Mobile Industry Review, yours should be the Bold 9900.

Accept nothing less!

Right then: What do you think? Are you with me?

Waterloo, ON – Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced BBM™ Music, a new BBM (BlackBerry® Messenger) service for socially connected music fans.

BBM Music is an easy-to-use cloud-based service that enables social and viral music discovery by allowing users to build an evolving, community-based music library that is shared amongst their BBM Music friends. The size of the music library continues to grow as new friends join the community and each user can select music from a catalog with millions of songs from leading music companies – Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI.

“More than 45 million customers already love the social communication benefits delivered through BBM and we are thrilled to be extending the experience into a uniquely social and interactive music service,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “We have partnered with leading music companies to provide a ‘full track’ music sharing and discovery experience that will provide users with quality music on demand and allow them to connect with friends on a whole new level.”

Key features of BBM Music include:

• Music made social – BBM Music is a cloud-based, social music service that allows you to share and discover music with your friends, creating a continually evolving music library:

• Build a personal music profile with 50 of your favorite songs. You can refresh your profile by swapping out up to 25 songs each month.
• Invite your BBM friends to subscribe to BBM Music and to join your BBM Music Community.
• With each friend that is added to BBM Music, you grow your music collection since the songs from the profile of each BBM Music friend are available to you at any time.
• Up to 50 tracks from your personal profile are shared with your BBM Music Community, and each member of your community shares up to 50 songs from their profile with you.
• Enjoy a truly social community-based music experience – the more friends who join your community, the more songs you can listen to.
• Easily discover music that your BBM Music friends are listening to, and comment on your friends’ songs and playlists.
• You can create multiple playlists from music in your profile as well as all of your friends’ profiles, and with one click you can shuffle the entire collection of music from your BBM Music Community. You can even see which friend contributed each song while it plays.
• Within your BBM Music app, you also see a visual timeline that shows the recent updates of all users within your community. It gives you a chronological view of community updates, including who added new friends, which songs were added or removed, which playlists were created and what comments were made by your BBM Music friends.
• Listen to Full Tracks – BBM Music subscribers can listen to full tracks from their friends’ profiles – not just previews.
• Offline Listening – Music can be saved to smartphones for offline listening, allowing users to access songs even when they don’t have wireless coverage.
• Topping the Charts – Keep track of how many friends are listening to your tracks.

Omnifone, a premier cloud music service provider, is providing RIM with a back-end solution for the BBM Music service that provides content management, music hosting and reporting functions based on Omnifone’s award winning technology. As part of RIM’s proprietary service, Omnifone’s back-end solution helps facilitate the delivery of a full music catalog to BBM Music users and comprehensive compensation reporting for copyright holders.

“A major component of online music continues to be about community, and the ability to discover new artists and music through word of mouth,” stated Rob Wells, President of Global Digital Business for Universal Music Group. “BBM Music dynamically and elegantly integrates the excitement of this social music discovery process with a high quality music service, enabling tens of millions of BlackBerry users to experience new music and to share those experiences with their friends virtually anywhere and at anytime.”

“We are pleased to be partnering with Research In Motion on their BBM Music service. RIM and its large base of BlackBerry Messenger users represent an exciting platform for expanding the reach of commercial digital music around the world,” stated Thomas Hesse, President, Global Digital Business, U.S. Sales and Corporate Strategy, Sony Music Entertainment. “The combination of a premium music solution and instant messaging will enable viral music discovery and emphasize the social power of digital music. It also offers an effective way of serving younger consumers by integrating music into the fabric of an important hub of their digital activity.”

“A dynamic social music experience is a powerful way for our artists to connect with fans and also for fans to discover music by interacting with each other,” said Michael Nash, Executive Vice President, Digital Strategy & Business Development, Warner Music Group. “Addressing more than 45 million BlackBerry Messenger users with a service tailor-made for its mobile community, BBM Music has the opportunity to reach a broad and engaged audience.”

“We are very excited to work with Research In Motion to bring our artists’ music to BBM’s huge and very loyal user base,” said Mark Piibe, Executive Vice President of Global Business Development at EMI Music. “BBM Music’s unique social discovery experience offers fans a great new way to discover music, share their favorite tracks with their friends and build a stronger connection with the artists they love.”

“The widespread adoption of mobile devices provides the perfect foundation for consuming and sharing music. Brands that want to deliver a unique interactive experience must create services that are mobile, social, and contextual,” said Maribel Lopez Principal at Lopez Research and Constellation Research Group.

A closed beta trial of the BBM Music service is starting today in Canada, the United States and the UK. The BBM Music service is expected to be commercially available to customers later this year for a monthly subscription of $4.99 USD* in Australia, Canada, Columbia, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, the United Kingdom and the United States.

For more information about BBM Music, and to sign up to be notified of its availability in your country, please visit www.blackberry.com/bbmmusic.

* Pricing may vary by country and will be announced upon availability in each country. Data charges may apply if music is downloaded over wireless networks in conjunction with limited data plans. Check with your network operator for the terms of your data plan.

Mr Blakey added: “We asked her to take a photograph of her surroundings on her phone and send it to us.

“We were really struggling to find her as she couldnt give a clear description of her location.”

“But as soon as we got the picture through, we were able to pinpoint exactly where she was and it didnt take us long to rescue her.”

The lady was lucky she was in an area with signal. Other options, of course, would have been to locate herself using Google Maps. Or the BlackBerry’s built in maps function. Or via a wide array of location monitoring services like SmrtGuard.

Indeed, SmrtGuard has a ‘follow me’ function that will track your location every X minutes. Highly useful if you’re going into a dodgy area or hiking.

Still, if you don’t have signal, GPS coordinates can be extracted from your phone’s GPS function — accessing them is usually the problem for your average normob (“normal mobile user”).

On a geeky note, some devices automatically include location coordinates in photos. That could be useful for emergency services. But for mountain rescue — who know the area — a photo probably works just as well.

If you’re going hiking, it might be worthwhile doing a ‘hike’ or ‘hiking’ search in your app store of choice and picking up a few useful apps before you depart.

Oh, and charge your phone!