I had the Palm Treo for years. It was set up to change time zones when you changed time zones. This stupid machine cannot do what EVERY other phone in America can do - change time zones automatically. It is so stupid that when you manually change time zones it changes all the times of your appointments. Unless this is fixed, I will never own another Blackberry!

You might want to try searching and/or reading the FAQs.

Why doesn't my time update correctly when I change Time Zones? - BlackBerryFAQ


And I wouldn't expect RIM to change this function.

Wirelessly posted

I read the FAQ you just posted up. If you set the device to sync time with BlackBerry or network, won't the time change as you travel into different timezones? I would imagine for network at least the would be able to know what the current local time is since its based on the cell towers nearby.

The minutes synchronize off the towers but the hours don't change unless you change the time zone manually.

Motorcycle Mama,
Do you change the time zone every time you cross into another zone?
If you do then what's the point? If you don't then you have to make adjustments in your head.
Why would you do that?

They should at least have a setting so that the people who want the time zone to change can choose that setting.

Well, if you read the FAQ that I posted, you will see that the rational is that the BlackBerry is a BUSINESS device.

Business users tend to need their appointments to retain the time zone in which they were set. It has more to do with the calendar function than any other function.

I agree.

Wirelessly posted

Oops missed that part in the FAQ. Got me thinking since they can do DST so I figured why not hours as well.

It is absolutely absurd that the Blackberry is unable to set it's local time based upon the local time zone as any other phone or PDA I have ever owned has been able to do. We use BES with GroupWise which is fully capable of assigning the appropriate time zone for every appointment on my calendar. The only missing piece is for the phone to recognize the time zone where I am and I would never have to worry about conflicting schedules and getting notified of alarms set for meetings at the right time.

This is a huge negative for the Blackberry. I hope someone comes up with a fix.

First off, how do you expect the phoen to know which TZ you are in???

Cheap phones change the time BECAUSE they have no concept of TZ. If the network says 1300, then that's what the phone changes to.

The BB, like all computers, actually keeps time in UTC and applies the TZ offset to display.

It's a no-win situaton for RIM. Some people like to change th TZ to get local time, others, like me, prefer to change the time. I like to see future appointments in a different at the actual time of day instead than the destination TOD adjusted for my current TZ. All my appt are kept in ET.

Is it such a chore to change the time on a phone? Have we gotten that f'ing lazy?

Are you kidding? This is not brain surgery. Every cell tower in the world knows its TZ definition as well as its own TZ location. Blackberry is the only PDA I know that does not support this (and I have used plenty). Sure one can continue to update the TZ manually, but when you travel so often, between Time Zones, it would be nice for your PDA to move along with you, instead of being stuck back in its original TZ.
Your answer about it being a "Business Phone" is true, but totally off from a business users perspective. Multi-Time-Zone business travelers just want the device to work, without having to worry about manually changing the TZ on the phone. In fact, most of the user's I deal with would not know how to change the TZ on their phone to save their life (and in some cases, I would rather they did not go fumbling around, looking for it).

Have you read the explanation of how and why BlackBerry devices implement the timezones the way they do? It has to do with preserving calender appointment times which is very important to business users. There are lots of other ways to tell time other than the cell phone device.

I would suggest you educate your users on how to change date and time.

Read the many threads on this subject and you will get an understanding of why RIM chose to just leave it alone.

It's no big deal on a stand alone phone. But changing the TZ setting on a phone that is set to sync with your corpotrate calendar can wreck havoc with it.

Add that to the 2 schools of tought on how to enter appointments in a different TZ, and you can see why RIM chose to let the user take 30 seconds and adjust the time.

I fly across TZ all the time. At some point durig the flight, I adjust my watch and Berry. No biggie.

Sometimes I'm working near - or crossing back and forth over - a time zone boundary. It would drive me crazy if my BB was flipping back and forth depending on which tower it was picking up.

Every technology choice involves some compromise; this one is trivial to most people. If it's that big a deal for you, pick a different compromise.

It's a matter of understand how (and to a lesser extent, why) it works... then you have the pieces necessary to make a decision. That decision may very well include switching to a different device for some.

At any rate, it is what it is... and I fully understand the nightmare caused by the situation that WillWeb describes...

Them's the facts... now make an informed decision for your situation. It's obvious that RIM isn't changing how it does the whole time/time zone thing.

People who aree in support of keeping the BB this way... DONT EVER EVER TRAVEL and sit in your chair and in your office and in your home.

I thought BB is a phone for Professionals and All Professionals travel, they especially travel because they have meetings. And Stupid BB does not change time as per the local time zone instead it will keep the OLD time Zone making the Person miss the meeting and/or go to the meeting hours early....

And People who what to do this math in their mind.... Please throw your BB and get some cheap mobile as you don't deserve this phone as you dont know how to use it properly.

Wirelessly posted (8820)

Huh? Are you a spoiled child?



I travel all the time. I change the time zone on my blackberry and my watch when I know I'm going into a different time zone, doing it typically on the plane before takeoff. And I use the timezone feature in calendar. I think I'm using the blackberry the way it's intended to be used. Others don't want to use it that way and they deal with it without throwing a fit. They man up and deal with it.



Sure dumb phones change the time. They don't change time zone. As CanuckBB has asked an no one has answered, How will the blackberry know the time zone?

It's because of TZ can have dramatic effect when you have a live sync to your calendar. We all deal with it a different way.

You whine about meetings, What do you think would happen in the case described by WillWeb? as the device picks up towers on either side of the TZ boundary, meeting alarms you go off at the wrong time, all day long.

Less than 60 seconds to change either the time or the TZ. Have something more important to do during your flight?