This chapter will discuss about both the companies, apple and blackberry and their latest phones

in the market. It will describe the technical specification and the usability of both the phone as well as the usability issue related to these phones. 2.1 Background of Apple and research about iPhone IPhone is the product of a company name Apple and this is known as the best smartphone in the market. 2.1.1 A short history of Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is the company which is widely known as an innovative company of 21st century. Apple is dedicated to transport the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings. Apple was established in 1976 by two college dropouts, Steve wozniak (26 years) and Steve jobs (21 years). They started building computer that was Apple I computer and were able to run without keyboard and power supply. After that they invented Apple II computer and in 1979 they introduced Apple II&plus, with so much more memory then previous version. The turning point for company was its Macintosh computer that was introduced in 1984 and in first 100 days company sold 70,000 Macintosh computers. In 1991, Apple introduced the powerbook line of portable computers. With the time apple was introducing better product in market. The important days in the history of apple iphone are as follow: 1976: With $1,300, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak found Apple Computer, Inc. 1980: Apple converts to public ownership. 1982: Apple becomes the first personal computer company to reach $1 billion in annual sales. 1985: John Sculley assumes the helm after a management shakeup that causes the departure of Jobs and several other Apple executives. 1991: PowerBook line of notebook computers is released. 1994: Power Macintosh line is released. 1996: Acquisition of NeXT brings Steve Jobs back to Apple as a special advisor. 1997: Steve Jobs is named interim chief executive officer. 1998: The all-in-one iMac is released. 2000: Jobs, now firmly in command as CEO, oversees a leaner, more tightly focused Apple. (source: http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Apple-Computer-Inc-CompanyHistory.html )

2.1.2 Introduction of iPhone:

Apple is popular to introduce trendy and cutting age consumer products in market which gave it a huge number of followers. iPhone is the first mobile phone of apple which gave the

smartphone market a boom because it is the most innovative phone of all time. The popularity it got in first few years, no other brand was able to get in many years. Before launching the iphone it got so popular coz it was the mix technology of ipod and mobile phone with a handy internet access and all with a multi touch screen technology which was a new innovation and was the first time when a company gave this feature in a mobile phone, which gave iphone a good promotion before launching the actual product. (http://www.infiniteadvice.com/apple-iphone). It was the first time that people were able to use internet as easily as they send a text message. The main features of apple iphone were: Storage: It came in 2 models which were 4 BG model, 8 GB model and 16 GB model was added later on. Operating System: iOS 1.0. Key Features: Multi Touch screen, Cellular Internet, Wi-Fi access and 2 mega pixel camera. Battery Life: 8 hours of talk time, 6 hours of internet browsing, and 24 hours of audio.

Iphone 3G After iphone, apple introduced the new version of iphone and that was Iphone 3G. Iphone 3G was introduced in 11th July, 2008 with enhanced features and better processor support. The main feature of this phone was that it supports the 3G cellular network which is fast and better mobile network for internet browsing and downloading. It came in two models which are 8GB and 16 GB models with a new operating system iOS 2.0. It came in two colours black and white with GPS technology. The battery life of this phone was 10 hours of 2G talk time, 5 hours of 3G talk time, 6 hours of internet browsing, and 24 hours of audio.

Iphone 3GS

The next generation phone of apple was iphone 3GS which was an upper model and surly the best phone of all iphone. Apple introduced this phone on 19th June 2009 with all time fast processor and it came in two models which were 16 GB and 32 GB but later on 8GB model also came. It consist iOS 3.0 operating system with more RAM. The new features on this phone was voice control and video camera and the battery life was extended which was 10 hours of 2G talk time, 5 hours of 3G talk time, 9 hours of internet browsing and 30 hours of audio. Iphone 4 The new Year and the new iphone. This is the latest version of iphone which apple introduced this year on 24th of June. The iphone 4 is thinner than previous versions, longer and coated with aluminosilicate glass covering both the front and the back of the phone which make this phone a kind of unbreakable and un-scratch-able and give it a hard coating. It comes in two model 16GB and 32GB and two colours black and white and the latest operating system iOS 4.0. The key feature of this phone is faster processor, multi tasking, slimmer design, and a high resolution screen. This phone is also an extension as per battery life which is 14 hours of 2G talk time, 7 hours of 3G talk time, and 10 hours of internet

browsing and 40 hours of audio. But this phone is facing some problem in mobile signals which will be explored in next section. http://www.brighthub.com/mobile/iphone/articles/82615.aspx?p=2

2.1.3 Functionality and Usability of Iphone 4 The new version of iphone is iphone 4 so this part of the study will explain the functionality of the latest version to understand that how the current generation smartphone works. Iphone 4 is the thinnest phone in the market and the specification of this phone is as follow:

This phone is coming in two models that are 16 GB and 32 GB which gives a large space to store the data like lots of applications and media files and important document, which makes is use as a computer. The battery life of this phone is, talk time is up to 7 hours on 3G and up to 14 hours on 2G, Standby time is up to 300 hours, Internet use is up to 6 hours on 3G and up to 10 hours on Wi-Fi, Video playback is up to 10 hours, Audio playback is up to 40 hours. This all battery specification are provided by apple, it entirely depend on user that how he use the phone, if so many application are running on the phone then it will decrease the battery time of the phone.

2.1.3.1. Hardware in iphone 4 The iphone 4 is the best looking smartphone with the good hardware installed by Apple. The both side of the phone, front and the back side are made from a smooth strengthened glass held together by a stainless steel band and this band is used for external antenna and this antenna is made for better signal quality. The biggest change Apple made in this phone from previous version is that its front facing camera which is a VGA camera and is used for video calling and taking pictures and at the back apple introduced the 5 megapixel camera first time in its smartphone and this time with

a LED flash light to make it more clear at dark time. This time apple also introduced optical zoom in its phone which were missing in the previous versions. While using the iphone 4, the first thing which will be notable when booting up the phone is the speed. Apple introduced new processor in iphone 4 which is the same A4 processor which is currently in ipad. The speed of this processor is so fast and the application loading time is so less which makes it best phone to use in busy time and people love it because they can do the things faster on their phone.

Apple didnt specify about the RAM used in iphone 4 but according to Engadget blog, it is 512 MB. If this is true that means then its a big advantage over the iphone 3gs and it makes the phone unbelievable faster. The display of this phone is Retina display. This means if you want to try to find a single pixel on the phone screen then you will not be able to do that. The text and the pictures are really clear and sharp and it looks like best device to play games on it. This is one of the major selling points of this phone.

2.1.3.2. Software in iphone 4 Apple says that we dont need to provide a user manual to our customer because when you will pick the iphone then you will automatically know that how to use the iphone. This is because the user friendly software of Apple. In iphone 4 Apple introduced the new operating system that is iSO 4. iSO was designed for the use of finger which is most natural pointing device. So whatever you are doing like tap, drag, pinch, twist, flick, swipe, you can do it easily with your finger which makes it a very good touch screen phone to use. The new features included in iphone 4 makes it innovative and powerful to use with a pleasure of touch screen. Here are some main features that are introduced in iphone 4 software: Facetime in iOS 4 - This software is used for the video calling with the help of both cameras in iphone 4. Its just the simple and amazing way to call someone and to show him that whats going on near you. This can be used for the video calling from iphone to iphone. Game centre- iOS 4 introduced the new feature in iphone 4 which is the game centre which is an out-of-the-box social gaming network for iphone 4 and iphone touch. You can invite your friends to join the game or you can choose anybody to play even if you dont know them and thats what a game lover want on iphone.

Multitasking- This is one of the main features included in iOS 4. Now you can run more than one application on iphone and switch between them easily. Like this anybody can do more than 1 task at the same time without stopping previous tasks. This function is only available in iOS 4. The additional features which are included in iOS 4 are lots of. This is the platform of the worlds largest collection of mobile applications with over 200,000 apps. This is highly efficient from the moment you turn on your phone and all application run in a safe environment and one application cant use the data of any another application. iOS4 helps to protect the sensitive data because it uses the encrypted network communication. It also helps in protecting the data in the phone. You can setup a password for your phone to stop the unauthorised access and you can set the password attempt so that data can be deleted after particular unsuccessful attempt to open the phone. iOS4 is designed to operate the phone in 30 languages and it is easy to switch between them and the voice control system (just speak to operate the phone) understand 24 languages which makes is useful in many ways. 2.1.4 Applications on Iphone Apple says, We have more than 200,000 ways to make iphone better and this is because they have the worlds largest mobile application collection and those applications can be downloaded just with a tap. The main categories of the applications are as follow: Apps for cook iphone have many applications for cooks to give them the recipes of different dishes. Apps for great outdoor this category also contain many different applications to provide the detail of many tourist places, the way to go there, the weather report and many more. Apps for keeping current this category contains the application of worlds news, sports, business, current issue, hot politics, fashion, music and many other. Apps for work this category contains the applications for business like linkedln, salesforse mobile, bento, 1password to protect the data, fedex, cisco WebEx meeting centre, iTime sheet. Apps for music this application is developed for music lovers which give many application from where you can download music and listen to radio and even you can edit and create songs. Apps for students this is a very helpful category for all type of students. Whether you want to learn science, research human body, want to know ant geography, want to learn new language and many more study related thing you can find easily under this category. Apps for mom and dad this is a very interesting category which helps parents to keep their children busy and to handle them. This category have many application for kids so that they can play games and not even playing they can also earn many new things and get education which is needed for a growing child. Apps for working out in this category there are applications which keeps track of your workout, daily routine, your diet plan, how much workout you did every day, many different exercises which you can do and the detail that which part of the body they effect. Apps for going out there are different application which contains the information of your town that where to go, the movie information in different places and timings, the

upcoming events in the town and the ticket information, the best restaurant and nightclubs in the town and many more. Application for managing money these applications are helpful in keeping track of your money that where you are spending and how much you are spending. There are application like PayPal, bank of America mobile banking, American express, yahoo finance and many more which helps you to keep track of your money easily. Apps for fun and games you will find many games and fun application under this category to keep yourself bust in free time. the games in iphone are simply superb and they give a great platform to play the game. Thousands of games are available and makes iphone a gaming device. Apps for travelling this category have the application which contains the information of different places in world and how to go there, information of the flights, currency, languages, help centre in different countries and many more. Apps for remote control it turns the iphone into a remote to keep control on many things like your TV, lights of home, car and many other.

So if we look on the usability of iphone, we will find some main point which makes it a good smartphone to use:

2.1.5 Usability Issue in iphone:

The main issue that iphone 4 is facing now is the problem of call drop and this is because it use to lose the signal while you are talking on the phone and this was the problem basically every iphone 4 user is facing. Apple gave the statement about this problem is that you are holding the phone wrong because the outer steel band works as an antenna for iphone 4 and if you will hold phone from its outer antenna then it will lose the signal. Apple suggested to use iphone covers to resolve this problem. It is hard to type in iphone because of its touch keypad where we need to just use one finger at time and while typing its a common mistake to type a wrong word because you need to take care all the time that you are pressing a right key. Its not something like a keyboard where you can feel keys with your finger and can make sure that yes you are typing. If you are typing something wrong on iphone then to correct it you need to tap on that word on the exact location or you need to delete the whole word and need to write it again. This makes it annoying sometime. One of the main problems with iphone is, its Bluetooth. It is not possible to send files from an iphone to any other phone via Bluetooth. You can just send the files from iphone to iphone. It makes this feature limited to iphone. The same problem is in its new software Facetime which is coming on iphone 4, in this feature you cannot video chat with non iphone user and you should have Wi-Fi to use this feature. The web browser of iphone doesnt really give full experience of web browsing because it does not support Flash player and Java. Like other smartphones, iphone also have one main problem that its battery life is so poor and if you are addicted to this phone and you use this phone so much then its better to carry one extra battery with you and this is something a user really want to see the improvement in his iphone.

These are some main issue which needs the attention of iphone engineers so that apple can provide a better smartphone experience to iphone users.

Background of BlackBerry and Its Smartphones

BlackBerry is a very common name of the market of smartphones and it is known as one of the best smartphone company. BlackBerry only makes smartphones so its focus is always on smartphones and it is the biggest competitor of Apples iPhone. History of BlackBerry BlackBerry was developed in 1996 by a Canadian company RESEARCH IN MOTION (RIM). RIM was founded in 1984. The first BlackBerry was a two way pager which was able to send and receive email and text messages but it was not able to use as a mobile phone. The BlackBerry smartphone was originally released in 2002 and this series was BlackBerry 857/957, which was able to make phone call as a mobile telephone and it supports push email, sending and receiving text messages, internet browsing, as a fax and other wireless services and many other PDA services like phone book, calendar and so on. This was a great example of a convergent device. The BlackBerry got hit in early years because of its ability of emails. Mainly in all models of BlackBerry (except Strom) have a QUERTY keyboard so that it makes easy to type just with thumbs and in the middle it contains a scroll ball or a touch pad in new models which helps in system navigation and it works as a mouse. From the beginning, BlackBerry is known as a Business phone because it uses the best technology and it comes with many great features which helps a business person in many ways. This phone is best of both entertainment and business requirement. The next series of BlackBerry was 5000 and 6000. In late 2003 as the demand of CDMA phones was increasing, BlackBerry released it new model BlackBerry 6750 which was a CDMA enabled phone. RIM continued to release CDMA versions in the coming 7200 and 7250 series models ans the additional feature which were added in these models were the Bluetooth capability in the phone. As the size of the phones was going smaller, people started feeling BlackBerry a bulky phone because of its QWERTY keyboard. In 2006 BlackBerry introduced its new series phone PEARL with the ability of sure type keyboard. In this, there were two letter in one key to make the typing speed fast. This helped to reduce the size of the phone. Pearl originally released for GSM network but in 2007 it was also released for CDMA networks. After that the new series was BlackBerry 8000 series which increased the competition of smartphones. The 8700, 8800, 8830, and 8820 models were released under this series and the only thing which was missing was camera in the phone. These all phones were basically developed for professional to use in places like courtroom. But when the Curve series released the camera and Wi-Fi was included in device. BlackBerry release the Bold series in 2008 and the latest Bold series device is BlackBerry Bold 9700. BlackBerry also released its new phone Torch 9800 in USA but it is not released

in rest of the world. It is expected that Torch 9800 will be released in Europe in mid of October.

Introduction of BlackBerry Smartphones

Since 2002, BlackBerry has introduced so many models of smartphones and all models were an improvement over last models. BlackBerry is popular to give a best product to market with latest technology which matches the 21st century technology. The latest model of BlackBerry smartphone is BlackBerry Bold 9700 and the upcoming model of BlackBerry is Torch 9800 which has been released in USA but rest of the world is waiting for its release. It is expected that in Canada it will be released in the last week of September and in Europe it is expected that consumer will be able to use this new phone in the first week of October. So lets have a quick look on the latest model of Blackberry which is BOLD 9700. BlackBerry Bold 9700 The latest model of BlackBerry is blackberry bold 9700. Which was released in October 2009 in UK but the different service providers released the bold on different dates. Here are some functionality and specification of Bold 9700.

This phone comes in two colours black and white. The flash memory is 256 MB and 2 GB memory card which can be extended up to 32 GB. The phone comes with 3.2 megapixel camera with image stabilization and autofocus and with flash and with a track pad in the middle of the phone to operate it. This phone has all the features like multimedia player, wireless email, organiser, Internet browser, phone, sms/mms, micro SD card reader. Talk time of this phone is 6 hours on both GSM and UTMS, standby time is up to 21 days on GSM and up to 17 days in UTMS and the music playback time is up to 38 hours. The display of this phone is 480x360 colour display which supports over 65000 colours. It includes Blackberry maps and GPS navigation. It comes with full QWERTY keyboard like other blackberry phones.

BlackBerry Torch 9800

BlackBerry Torch is the new invention of BlackBerry. It is the first BlackBerrys phone of its kind which has both features of touch screen and QWERTY keyboard and its a slider phone. So if you want to operate the phone with touching the screen like iphone then you can simply do that or if you are addicted to BlackBerrys keyboard then you can also use it like other BlackBerry phone.

Functionality and Usability of BlackBerry Torch 9800

This phone is straight the challenge to apples iphone 4 and it gives a hard competition to iphone 4 or we can say BlackBerry is introducing this phone to give a hard competition to iphone 4. Lets have a look on the hardware and software specification of this phone and their usability. Hardware in Torch 9800 The Torch is a classic product of the blackberry because it has both the 3.2 inches touch screen which comes with sure press feature and a full keyboard which seems like the mixture of blackberry bold and blackberry storm. This feature makes it excellent for both users, first who like touch screen and the second who likes a QUERTY keypad. It supports the feature of multi touch so that you can also zoom in and zoom out with the two fingers on

the screen. It has the led light on the top like bold for notification of new call or message and for any other notification, Torch comes with 5MP camera with flash, which gives the features of image stabilization, auto face detection and with new and different photo modes, which is again an advantage on previous models but the video recording is in VGA format in this phone which also give a good clarity of videos. This is again will be loved by those user who wants to click some nice pictures from their phone so when they go somewhere they dont need to carry an extra camera with them. This phone has the optical track pad as previous version of BlackBerry which is on the front of the phone and very easy to use and with just touching a thumb on the track pad you can easily control the whole screen of the phone with a cursor and click where ever you want by clicking the track pad, so unlike iphone you dont need to move your finger on the screen of the phone. This phone is integrated with 512 MB flash memory/ 512 MB SDRAM, and 4 GB eMMC (inbuilt device memory) + 4 GB media card included, so the total memory is 8 GB but this memory is expandable up to 32 GB which seems like more than enough for a mobile phone. So you can expand memory as per your need and unlike iphone you dont need to buy a phone with lots of memory by paying extra. The battery life of this phone is good. The standby time on GSM is up to 18 days and up to 14 days on UTMS. GSM talk time is 5.5 hrs and UTMS talk time is 5.8 hrs, music playback is up to 30 hrs and video playback is up to 6 hrs. Software in Torch 9800 Torch 9800 is integrated with brand new operating system which is BlackBerry OS 6 and according to BlackBerry this is the fast operating system which gives a freedom to explore the phone in a new and fast way. The size of this software is 122MB.Blackberry came with two views in this phone; a window that shows the application at the bottom and it can be slides up and can be hided. Not only it can be bring this window up onto the home screen and scroll vertically on it, but it can also be swipe side to side for creating the different groups of applications, like "favourites" or "media", which helps in quickly access of your favourite applications without entering in main menu screen which saves time and effort of the user. It also consist a persistent notification on the main screen a small row of icons which is on the top of the page. It makes easy to know about the feeds of social networking, email, SMS, call, and calendar alerts all in one place. Torch has a new web browser is the biggest addition in OS 6 which is faster than previous version and it gives the features of pinching and zooming and with this browser you can also open more than one web page and can swap between them which was not available in the previous version of BlackBerry. No doubt this is one of the best web browsers in the market and it is really very useful for those users who basically use their phone for internet. This web browser also supports java and HTML so it becomes easy to open any website which supports any of this language. Torch comes with engaging multimedia features with the space of 8GB of memory which gives a large room to media files and gives a brand new experience of media but if you need more space then you can also expand memory according to your usages.

With the help of new social feed feature, it is easy to access all your social networking account from one place and operating them without swapping between different pages instead of this it has a drop down menu from where u can directly select that which networking site u want to open quickly and this will be loved so much by those people who like to use more than one social networking sites on their phone to keep in touch with their friends and relatives. The one big achievement of blackberry is its messenger which is basically available in all phones of blackberry and which makes this phone different from another phones. Blackberry messenger is a free messenger in the phone which has a unique pin number of the phone and you can add somebody who has blackberry via that unique pin number. Its easy to send instant messages and sharing files over the phone via this messenger any time.

Application on BlackBerry
All the application of blackberry is stored in its application world under different categories like iphone. This is known as Blackberry Application world. Blackberry application world is available in those phones in which the operating system is 4.2 and higher and application world is available in selected countries. The best thing of this application world is that a user can also load his application in application world under certain user agreement and to buy a paid application a user must need a PayPal account else he cant buy application from application world. Here are the main categories of application: Business this category contains 4 sub categories: business tools, data collection, sales & service, time tracking. This contains all the tools needed for business. Education in this category, education related applications help to learn new languages and some application are also created by different universities for their students and those people who want to get information about those universities and many other education related apps. Entertainment this category contains the applications needed for entertainment. It comes in 4 categories: food & drink, gadgets, restaurant guides and tickets for events. Finance it also comes in 4 categories: accounting, expense tracking, personal banking, stocks & investment. Games this category have 1549 games application for its users and they comes in different categories like action, arcade, board games, cards, combat, movie & TV themes, puzzles, space, sports, strategy. Health & Wellness this category have applications for fitness, health and diet, healthcare services, and medical guides. IM and Social networking this category contains the application for different social networking sites like face book, twitter and many more and it also contains instant messenger application like windows live messenger, yahoo messenger, g-talk etc. Maps and Navigation this category has the application to search local business and also has the maps and some application which you can use as tom-tom. Music & Audio this category is for music lover where you can use many applications to listen your favourite music and you can make your own music as well. It also has radio application where you can listen the radio station from all over the world.

News this category contains news related application from different news companies. Photo & Video photography and video editing applications comes in this category and you can get application from where you can directly share your photos on social networking sites.

Some more categories are available in Blackberry application world like Productivity for the organisation to know their business. Reference & eBooks is to locate the books from all over the world. Shopping contains the application from different companies like eBay, Zara, Tesco etc for their customers. Sports & Recreation for the news of different sports and to know the live score that what is going on recently in sports. Themes is the biggest category which have 1720 themes for blackberry users. Travel category contains the application to guide you during travelling. Utilities category area contains applications like calculator, clocks, voice detection, phone services etc. Weather category has weather applications to know the current weather and upcoming weather in all over the world.

Usability issue in Blackberry

Blackberry is a tremendous smartphone but its also not the perfect smartphone. There are some issue users are facing in their blackberry. The main problem in blackberry is that its screen frozen. Sometime it happens and you cannot access the phone then you need to take out the battery out of the phone to reboot it again and it takes another 5 minutes to reboot the device. Other problem blackberry users are facing to access their emails from their phones but it can be because of network problem. Users are also not so much comfortable with the keypad of blackberry because the keys are so small and they dont have enough gaps in between the keys which makes it hard to type the correct character. In the early review of blackberry torch, people find that the touch screen is not so good as in the iphone which doesnt satisfy those user who love to use touch screen compare to a keypad and the other thing is there is no option on the screen of the phone to pick a call so you need to press the receive call button to pick the call and it was something that blackberry engineers forget to add in a touch screen phone. Users are also not satisfied with blackberry application world because when we compare blackberry application with apple apps then we will find a big difference that iphone applications are much useful then blackberry. This is the main area where blackberry needs to think if they want to beat iphone. Like other smartphones, blackberry also facing the problem of poor battery life and users really want a good battery for their smartphones and expect that blackberry will come with the solution.