Trumblog

In reviewing the applications on my BlackBerry I’ve tried to be careful about always reviewing the most recent version of the application that I can run on my 8310.  I want to write about the latest and greatest features and, more importantly, I don’t want to look like an idiot and criticize something that has already been revised.  This lead me to realize the benefit of the check for upgrade feature in a BlackBerry application and notice that not all applications have one.

For example of the applications on my BlackBerry, Flickr, Facebook, UberTwitter, Evernote and WordPress are the only ones that have an option to check for an update or upgrade within the application.  That leaves an awful lot of applications out there that may not be providing the best experience possible and no way to easily tell.

Just a year or so back this would be less of an issue. We were all used to applications and running an old version of Office or Photoshop wasn’t unusual.  We knew that there was a cost to upgrading and that when the benefits were worth it we would pay.  Until then however we were happy enough using the older version that we’d been using.

Now though, as our applications migrate to the cloud we are being trained to be less forgiving.   Facebook makes an update and it’s migrated to our profile in a week or so.  Google seems to add features weekly if not daily.  We expect the latest and greatest features.  We expect to have them as soon as they are available and will take advantage of the next new thing that comes our way.  For example I am always on the look out for an application that will support updates to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, sometimes individually and sometimes simultaneously.  If one comes along I’ll switch, but UberTwitter, my current Twitter client of choice, can actively blunt this with an update to their application.  However, if I don’t know about the update then I may end up switching anyway.  Luckily UberTwitter gives me a way to check for updates first.

There are different strategies that some applications use.  Google for example has the Google Mobile application that, in theory, alerts me to updates to the Google Suite of applications for the BlackBerry, but what about Google Voice, which is not included in that set of apps.  The BlackBerry App World application also has alerts about updates, but it’s a big app if update alerts is all you’re using it for so if I were an app developer I would not rely on users keeping it.  That however is a though best left to a future review.

Finally, some applications (such as WordPress, Evernote, Qik and maybe others that I don’t remember) auto update, which is nice, but the most highly evolved apps, and the option I really prefer, is the suspenders and a belt option used by WordPress’ and Evernote.  These apps both auto updates and I can check to see if I have the latest version when I’ve forgotten about the auto update.  It is this evolutionary adaptation that I suspect will keep these apps from extinction on my BlackBerry and I that I suggest other developers institute or run that risk for their own apps.

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