AT&T’s BlackBerry Bridge software still a bridge to nowhere

By on May 9, 2011 at 12:11 PM
mobile May 9, 2011

If you’re an AT&T BlackBerry user and you bought a PlayBook, you know that BlackBerry Bridge — the piece of software that wirelessly connects your BlackBerry to your PlayBook and facilitates PIM functions — is not available for AT&T BlackBerry devices. Sure, there are unofficial workarounds, but for RIM’s largest customer to not support this critical feature for RIM’s biggest product launch in ages seems strange (RIM views carriers as customers, sorry guys). Despite its earlier statement, many thought AT&T had ulterior motives in not supporting BlackBerry Bridge, but we have confirmed that the real reason is that RIM didn’t deliver BlackBerry Bridge to AT&T until just days before it launched in RIM’s BlackBerry App World. RIM didn’t hand over a final OS build for the BlackBerry PlayBook until days before launched either, and we saw that first hand with the last minute OS updates to our review unit. In spite of the short testing time — and interestingly enough — all other U.S. carriers have approved BlackBerry Bridge.

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  • Fat Mams

    AT&T is a disgusting company. They do not care about consumers. Their service is horrible, their data caps ridiculous and their strategy is just about making money though mergers (T-Mobile).

    I am done with AT&T.

    • Zukidrvr

      AT&T is not RIM’s largest customer, Sprint is. Get your facts straight, BGR. Sprint sells more BlackBerry devices than any other carrier in the world. A huge portion go directly to government and corporations and never pass through retail stores.

      • Get Your Facts Straight

        FYI RIM doesn’t publish this info. Unless you’re an insider you are guessing Sprint is its largest custoemr as well!

      • Blog Retards For Life

        Wrong. AT&T is indeed their largest.

    • http://twitter.com/n8d n8d

      They care…they’re just waiting to see how they can charge for it.

    • Blog Retards For Life

      Yeah! Seriously!

      As a matter of fact, screw Ford for taking the time to crash test their cars!

      And while we’re at it, screw every one for not letting me get my hands on products that haven’t been tested yet! God damnit, I demand to be able to cry about things that don’t work when I get them!

      Retard.

  • http://www.QEDMethods.com Philip

    I was given a PlayBook, while it’s definitely snappy and has great video, I don’t see apps that make it good for business, at least as good as my iPad. The “Office” apps that came with it should have DropBox support built in, but they don’t. The battery on the device was being drained quickly, then I found where someone said you needed to accept the video chat terms for it to stop draining. I did that and now the battery is behaving as expected (the battery was draining while the device was in standby mode, it would go flat in less than a day, while the iPad was in standby mode for days and only let go of 12% of it’s battery). Sorry to compare it to the iPad, but that’s the world we’re in.

    • Anonymous

      Pay it forward! Donate it or sell it to someone (in your company or outside of it if you can) who really wants it, don’t let it gather dust.

      :D

      • http://www.QEDMethods.com Philip

        I’ll keep it as a development device, which is how it was intended to be used.

      • Anonymous

        You saucy minx!

        Dev til your little heart’s content!

    • Anonymous

      Most companies would not want dropbox on a device, as it easily allows you to save potentially classified data to the dropbox server for use on other PC’s / Devices you have lined to dropbox, or even open those documents to all users. Dropbox, like “go to my PC” and others are security practitioners nightmares.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=746237253 Porfirio Reyes III

      And why exactly “should” it have Dropbox support? I think that it would be nice, but saying that it should have something that’s not vital is not a good argument against it.

      • Ajervinjr

        That’s an iPad mentality. Most iPad document apps support Dropbox so many users are used to relying on it. It’s not an iPad! It will not rely on apps to be relevant and it will not function like what you are used to. It’s a BlackBerry product.

      • http://www.QEDMethods.com Philip

        I’ve been using an iPad since it’s release as a business tool. I’ve found that without cloud based document storage that these devices are useless as anything other than a gaming, multimedia, or messaging platform. For PlayBook to be serious it needs this functionality (as well as native messaging). At a minimum it needs DropBox support, at a maximum it needs something more integrated with the BES, but also easy enough to use on your different desktops. The beauty of this sort of setup is that I now have my documents everywhere I go, the nightmare is the IT one, where I decide to make these documents public (this nightmare still exists even without dropbox).

        To say “oh he’s just another ‘fanboy’” is a bit narrow minded, you need to be critical of all technology. iPhone and Android could be the best thing that happened to RIM, and a strong RIM that competes with iPhone and Android is the best thing that can happen to users.

      • Ajervinjr

        Actually, it’s not narrow minded. To expect the PB to function like an iPad is however. Sure, Dropbox support would be nice, but it’s not a necessity. Have you ever asked yourself why an iPad has to integrate a Dropboc sync? Have you ever used file management on you iPad? I haven’t because it isn’t there. I don’t have the ability to browse and upload files either. But, this is possible on a PlayBook. You can go to Dropbox and upload your little heart away. So Dropbox support is not a necessity. That’s all we’re saying. I’m an iPad user and my experience with iUsers is they bring their Apple miindset to other products and trash them for not functioning like said Apple product. However, the reason it doesn’t is because there is no need for it to. For example, most complain that there aren’t a bunch of apps but why does Apple have a bunch of apps? Because the browser is limited. Unlimit the browser and you can do pretty well with most things.

      • Ajervinjr

        Actually, it’s not narrow minded. To expect the PB to function like an iPad is however. Sure, Dropbox support would be nice, but it’s not a necessity. Have you ever asked yourself why an iPad has to integrate a Dropboc sync? Have you ever used file management on you iPad? I haven’t because it isn’t there. I don’t have the ability to browse and upload files either. But, this is possible on a PlayBook. You can go to Dropbox and upload your little heart away. So Dropbox support is not a necessity. That’s all we’re saying. I’m an iPad user and my experience with iUsers is they bring their Apple miindset to other products and trash them for not functioning like said Apple product. However, the reason it doesn’t is because there is no need for it to. For example, most complain that there aren’t a bunch of apps but why does Apple have a bunch of apps? Because the browser is limited. Unlimit the browser and you can do pretty well with most things.

      • Ajervinjr

        Actually, it’s not narrow minded. To expect the PB to function like an iPad is however. Sure, Dropbox support would be nice, but it’s not a necessity. Have you ever asked yourself why an iPad has to integrate a Dropboc sync? Have you ever used file management on you iPad? I haven’t because it isn’t there. I don’t have the ability to browse and upload files either. But, this is possible on a PlayBook. You can go to Dropbox and upload your little heart away. So Dropbox support is not a necessity. That’s all we’re saying. I’m an iPad user and my experience with iUsers is they bring their Apple miindset to other products and trash them for not functioning like said Apple product. However, the reason it doesn’t is because there is no need for it to. For example, most complain that there aren’t a bunch of apps but why does Apple have a bunch of apps? Because the browser is limited. Unlimit the browser and you can do pretty well with most things.

    • http://twitter.com/grkinghawaii George King

      Comparing to iPad is not the world we live in, unless you want it to be. The Playbook is not an iPad wanna be – it is its own product and should be viewed as such.

  • http://www.thezman.us/ Zach “The Z Man”

    Clearly, BGR doesn’t have any relevant news to report on, so they’re rehashing old news. Nice.

  • Todimusprime

    since there is a working simple work around for At&t blackberries what is the point of this post? I actually thought there would be more after the jump.

    • http://twitter.com/UrbanEnigma Yves

      The point of this post is to shed more negative light on RIM

      • Todimusprime

        It’ s funny if you just read today’ s BGR posts this looks like a straight apple fan boy blog with the android and RIM bashing.

    • Anonymous

      The point is, regardless of whose fault it is, there shouldn’t need to be a workaround for customers who buy this. It’s a marketed feature of the device that should be available. It’s like buying a Kindle and then learning that I have to do some unofficial workaround to be able to read books on it.

  • Anonymous

    So lemme see if I got this right … at first AT&T was thought to
    (by their own words even) have not wanted people to access Bridge
    because they didn’t want people to be able to bypass tethering fees, but
    now that’s not the case. Instead AT&T is blocking it because they
    got a build too close to launch, but no closer than any other providers?

    Either way, it’s still on their heads and shows that they are completely
    and utterly incapable of managing the network that they already have.

    If they REALLY want T-Mobile, they need to just run it as a pay as you
    go, you get what you get MVNO. Leave it the way it is, and just do
    no-contract packages for people who want to BYOD (bring your own
    device). Unlimited whatever the heck you want to [lawfully] do and just
    pay a flat $99/month. Tether all you want, 6gigs allotment, clearly
    state that it is NOT unlimited, and leave us the hell ALONE!!!!

  • Anonymous

    All the Canadian carriers had no trouble with BlackBerry Bridge as well. AT&T’s claim that it was a short notice seems rather flimsy. They likely view the Bridge Browsing feature as an unpaid tether option and that’s why they are blocking it. The US carrier attitude that tethering must be an additional paid feature is really a sad attempt to squeeze customers for more money.

  • http://twitter.com/billm85 Bill McNamee

    @334717abf36bc133d56e5e9e577e3d39:disqus how is it bashing? Looks more like a fail on RIM’s part to me. Sorry to break the news to you

    • Todimusprime

      it is bashing because this is old news. this has been known since April 19 the day PB was released. How many people do you know with At&t who have settled for PB with no bridge? How about some new info.

    • Anonymous

      Sorry, but it’s more ATT than RIM to blame. Updates to software are expected This is a not the 3g version of the device, therefore they should just let it pass as others have already done. Or is ATT allowed to approve and reject anything in app world now? The frequent updates by RIM is something that should be applauded as a positive not negative.

      This is clearly about them wanting to squeeze as much cash as they can out of the consumer.

  • Max

    LMAO. Everything RIMjob puts out is a bridge to nowhere. A stupid device late to the party. Where are the latest sales figures??

  • B Oliver15

    Anyway they can slam RIM… BGR will.

  • Francis

    I don’t think I’ve ever hear a good thing about AT&T

  • Anonymous

    All 2 customers that own a blackberry and playbook are mad

    • Abildad

       Love it!

  • Todd

    So every other carrier had no problem with making the Bridge active on their respective systems except AT&T? This is not RIM’s problem, it’s AT&T. They’re just trying to deflect blow-back.

  • Jonathan S. Geller

    This tablet is almost as bad as the xoom and galaxy tab. Apple is of course the leader and nobody will ever catch it.

  • Jamma3

    Nothing new here folks…BGR is having a slow day…there is already a workaround for this that works. Now let’s have some real news.

  • Anonymous

    I wish AT&T would just say it is the tethering fees. Whether you agree with additional tethering fees or think they are bogus add-ons to data you have already paid for, Blackberry has tried to circumvent the system with this. Why can’t my iPhone, without jailbreaking be used with my iPad. My Thunderbolt cannot by used on my Zoom without paying for the Hotspot.

    This is all on RIM trying to pass it off as a “Bridge” because they were too lazy (slow) to build PIM functions into the tablet. I have left AT&T for other reasons, but they get a pass on this one in my opinion.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JNKVTT7PJMXPYP2GVCIERBQQCU Andrew

      I agree. I don’t like the tethering policies but they are what they are and have been in place for a while now. So RIM trying to bypass the policy already in place is their fault.

      • Devon2000

        Ok mush10 and Andrew u both r f$#cking idiots, how about doing your research before saying something stupid, bb bridge is not tethering, its a mirror of the your blackberry, if it was tethering then all the apps on the playbook would work through the bridge, but thats not the case, when you use the bridge browser your are actually using the browser on your bb, its just being mirrored on your playbook, it does have the ability to actually tether, but for that you have to go through your carrier and add that functionality. AT&T are just being assholes, and customers like you are the ones they love the most for backing them up on there justification on fattening their pockets

      • Anonymous

        Why are you so angry? It’s just a message board.

  • Anonymous

    What’s a blackberry?

  • mark.mcpherson

    There has to be more to this. Not only has every other carrier managed to pass the Bridge, the workaround was available even before the Playbook launch. And that workaround was not some tricky, geeky complex solution. You simply had to download the Bridge app from a source other than ATT, then the Bridge works on ATT in the same way as it does the other carriers. So regardless of how soon to launch ATT got the Bridge, it has been a number of weeks with many ATT customers already running the software without the sky falling.

    ATT seems to be in a virtual Clampdown on Playbook matters, and its a fair bet that it has to do with pricing and anticipated competition against your own market — presumably ATT will ultimately try to sell branded Playbooks with 3G/4G as well as wifi, so there must be some dissonance. Still, I wish they would get on board already. Help out and support the early adopters. Once the 3G/4G models come out, we’ll buy those too and give someone else the launch model. More users using more ATT at the end of the day,

    • br14

      AT&T appears to be stuck in a BlackBerry paradox. No other manufacturer is as carrier friendly and yet it appears AT&T is punishing RIM for having the audacity to provide a means to enable free tethering.

      Perhaps they’ve also canceled orders and are in part responsible for the sudden profit warning from RIM. With only a few weeks between RIM’s quarter results and the warning, someone somewhere must have canceled orders.

      As has been said, its simple enough to download Bridge for AT&T phones.

  • Anonymous

    I still don’t understand how any carrier has a right to approve an application running on any device unless they are the one selling the app and this one is free. Sure tethering is an exception that manufacturers work with carriers on to keep them happy but this is not tethering. Are we supposed to feel lucky because AT&T “approves” BBM? How insulting.

    I do not see the Bridge as “approved” by any carrier, just blocked by AT&T and them only. The Atrix dock tether data add on is a good example of how AT&T thinks and it stinks, they don’t even try to hide the fact they are taking the piss and screwing people for every penny.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JNKVTT7PJMXPYP2GVCIERBQQCU Andrew

      I agree but I think carriers have to approve or at least review apps at their discretion that will have an impact on their network. Just like when the playbook first was released, AT&T said they didn’t have enough time to review it before the playbook came out. Now whether that’s true or not, who knows, but I do think all carriers review native device apps especially when they affect the network. Not saying I agree, just saying.

      • Rookie

        Not trying to be disrespectful to anyone but I am confused. Would AT&T review all Android and Apple apps before allowing them on their network also?

  • Mnhockeycoach99

    shocker!!!. AT&T is quick to take your money by charging extra fees or raising prices… but they certainly aren’t quick to upgrade their network, fix issues, or do anything else to make customers happy.

  • Anonymous

    People who really want to bridge will side-load it and be done with it. Not really a concern.

  • Abildad

    Just go to crackberry’s site and send the bridge link to your berry and voila. Playbook is pretty cool and quite honestly, i’m not really sure if bridge is all that important to me because I can access my email through webmail. That being said, what is important is the ability to tether which is unrelated to bridge. Currently, it’s the only tablet device that I know of that natively supports tethering from your non-hotspot device. it works great with my 9700 via bluetooth which is even faster than wifi (i think).

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