Just a Geek

A while ago, I decided that I’m going to purchase another phone at some stage and I’m debating getting an Android phone, The BlackBerry Z10 or an iPhone.

Now giving that all three these devices are quite expensive and I HATE cellular contacts (still paying Vodacom for my MacBook) and I rather save up and buy it cash.

I’m a BlackBerry fan and love their security or their devices, but since the Z10 is also using data and no longer BIS. This means buying data bundles and using wireless (wifi) when possible to save you some megabytes but this also means you’ll run out of juice (battery life) while connected on wifi and not close to any charger. This is my current problem on my BlackBerry and it needs to be on charge constantly. For some reason, CellC’s BIS just doesn’t want to work right these days and if I’m not connected to wifi, I receive no BBM/WhatsApp messages or mail at times, even with the signal at home on Edge and not 3G, nothing. It’s defeating the purpose of having BIS.

Now, I’ve heard from friends and co-workers that owns Z10 phones and they say it lasts about a full day with wifi on all the time. I’m good with that. My current BlackBerry device (Curve 9380 full touch) these days only lasts a couple of hours (If I’m lucky).

I’ve actually found the problem on what was draining the life out of my phone. WhatsApp. The damn pesky messenger app that I don’t like that much. WhatsApp is a battery draining whore in my opinion. I’ve come to love BBM and it’s simplicity (and free-ness) and it’s security. I’m actually really surprised that BlackBerry will be (at long last) releasing BBM on iOS and Android.

I went to a Cash Crusaders store (since I saw a shitload of phones/tablets/etc.. in the window) to see what phone (doubtful), tablet or so on I can purchase that runs Android (ICS not Gingerbread!) to play around (and have WhatsApp loaded on there since my BlackBerry’s battery is shot) with apps (native Android apps and not side-loaded, as is the case with my BlackBerry PlayBook) and hack around with (at) the device.

But the tablets they had, were old and cheap china based models. The good ones where in the R2000+ range (and this is a secondhand store). So I looked at the notebooks (Nope, don’t want that) and almost left. But in front on the counter, I saw their iPod’s and after playing with the only 16GB white one they had and testing everything. I purchased it for a R1000 bucks. Really a lot cheaper than buying one brand new and it’s for me to play with/root and just have fun with iOS for now. I was surprised to find out that it’s the iPod touch A4 with retina display and you can see the crispness against my BlackBerry. The device has minor little scratches and in good shape given it’s been owned previously.

No given that a while ago, I decided that I’m going to be moving away from BlackBerry next year and (I really hate Android too btw..) obtain a Nexus device. The reason for this in Ubuntu, although I hate the Unity interface on the desktop and prefer stock Gnome or the forks there-of. I really like the idea of a full desktop (and it’s native Linux) operating system that’s the same on all the devices (think Apple’s iOS actually..) and makes for a better unified experience but I really like the idea of it’s ability to have all my hacking security tools right with me instead of on portable wifi access point (ap).

I don’t mind having multiple devices and for a hacker security guy, it’s good to know and have experience in multiple operating systems and so on, but this where BlackBerry really started to irritate and limit me. It’s all good that they’ve got a wonderful operating system (QNX is still very good in my books) but I’ve come to realise that having root on a device (or just to sudo and have full access to the operating system).

Now having root on Android and iOS, to me – because it’s a hack, really compromises your device’s security. The evidence speaks for itself. With Ubuntu on mobile devices, there will be no need to root the device to have super user privileges and be vulnerable to malware and so forth. This is the problem with companies locking down their devices. They don’t give the people who purchase them options and it leads to hacks.

While I wait to pickup a Nexus device secondhand or a phone/tablet at some stage that supports Ubuntu (people are working on it) to play around with. I have my little ipod to play with and I’m quite happy with it and even have WhatsApp running on it. I had to jailbreak it to make this work and unfortunately, I updated to iOS 6.1.3 and this can only be used tethered (needs to be plug into a computer system, go into DFU mode, reboot it into root mode).

So, I’ve deleted almost all my apps (WhatsApp went first) on my BlackBerry phone, contacted CellC – removed the recurring BIS service that’s costing me R57 per month and that’s useless. I did re-activate BIS (for emergency purposes and BBM friends) but the cheaper option (R37 per month) – The BlackBerry Social and email plan. This includes one email account on it for when I have no wifi connection for my iPod is all I need.

My main reason for doing all this in to see how long my BlackBerry phone’s battery lasts (without wifi on) and with WhatsApp and other social apps (Google Plus, Twitter, FaceBook) on the iPod and even though it’s second hand (was last synced used with the person who sold it in February 2013). I’ll also test it when I have my BlackBerry with wifi on (but as an wifi hotspot) and see how long it lasts then and how much data is used from my 1GB data bundle). Just incase we have blackouts load shedding this winder and to receive WhatsApp messages. At least my MacBook’s battery lasts quite long and I’ve got the portable battery charger to charge my devices if I need to.