[walix]

My wife flies back and forth between two time zones every week. Every phone I've ever had will detect my time zone and change it. So I convinced her to get a Pearl recently so she can track emails and such, but, for the life of me, I cannot get it to detect time zone changes. She already missed one meeting today because she is used to even her old crappy Razr being able to do it. I set the time to, "Network" but it doesn't seem to do anything. Does anyone know how to get this feature to work?

[JSanders]

BlackBerrys will not automatically detect your Time Zone. She needs to set that manually and enter the meeting times in her BB according, as per this FAQ:

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

Once she starts setting her calendar items/times/timezones accordingly, she will probably even like the BB much better.

[walix]

Originally Posted by JSanders

BlackBerrys will not automatically detect your Time Zone. She needs to set that manually and enter the meeting times in her BB according, as per this FAQ:

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

Once she starts setting her calendar items/times/timezones accordingly, she will probably even like the BB much better.

I am stunned...that is just ridiculous. I would think a piece of equipment this modern would be able to at least have the option to turn this feature on or off. Thanks anyway.

[John Clark]

It's not ridiculous, considering how many servers the Blackberry connects to. If your timezone changed all the time all your email times would change, calendar entries, etc. It's done this way on purpose so that calendar and emails stay organized properly.

[JSanders]

Call it "more advanced" than the razor. If you read the link posted, and use those hints for the calendar, all will good again.

[bighornram]

Originally Posted by JSanders

Call it "more advanced" than the razor. If you read the link posted, and use those hints for the calendar, all will good again.

This still makes absolutely NO sense! The faq says that you have to manually change the timezone when you travel and all appointments in the calendar will adjust for the change. Why can't the phone make this simple change? What is the difference, if you have the phone change this setting or me manually?

I'm also shocked that with the numbers of posts about this subject, RIM hasn't added this option. Maybe someone could write an addition to check and adjust the time.

[Sith_Apprentice]

welcome to the forums. And the faq posts details WHY this is in place. For those that dont like it, thats generally why its recommended to do research on a product. If you want an auto time zone change, get a different phone. Its really that simple.

[philg823]

I understand why they made the blackberry so that it doesn't auto update the phones internal time. But a user of the phone sometimes doesn't know what timezone they are in... or if they are driving, when they switched over a time zone at all. I think that it would be useful for someone to create an app that will leave the phones internal time alone but if it detects that the local time that is different from the internal time it would display that on the screen along with the internal time in such a fashion that the user knew it was different, say in red or something and put "LOCAL TIME" over it in big letters. That way the user would know that the internal time on their phone hadn't changed, but would also have some idea as to what time zone they were in.

If anyone has any skill at writing apps for BB's i would love to know if this is possible.
THANKS

[CO_BBTechie]

Good grief, I gotta be honest... I'm quite happy with how the BB manages times. If you don't know what time zone you're in at a given time, I suspect you've got bigger issues.

[camaro322hp]

Wirelessly posted

Calendar entries have a time zone associated with them, so there is no reason they wouldn't be correct if the BB changed over to the current time zone automatically.

[bostonnerd]

Originally Posted by walix

My wife flies back and forth between two time zones every week. Every phone I've ever had will detect my time zone and change it. So I convinced her to get a Pearl recently so she can track emails and such, but, for the life of me, I cannot get it to detect time zone changes. She already missed one meeting today because she is used to even her old crappy Razr being able to do it. I set the time to, "Network" but it doesn't seem to do anything. Does anyone know how to get this feature to work?

Get her a copy of Worldmate Live ( www.worldmatelive.com). It's a great application for people who travel on business with quite a few nice things, one of which is that it will ask if you want to change time zones when you reach your scheduled destination.

[t_hoffman]

I stopped by the forum for the exact reason as others - to figure out how set the "auto time zone". The reason given by Blackberry as to why this is not provided - is based on idiocy. Each timezone is an offset from GMT. If I live in New York and set an appointment for San Diego I ALWAYS MEAN SAN DIEGO TIME! The phone would always be in sync if I went out of my way to specify the TZ when setting the appointment. Having the correct time displayed for the locale I'm now in, should be the easiest setting (or allow override). I'd prefer to go out of my way to set appointments for differing TZ as opposed to having to manually set the TZ every time I step off the plane. The Blackberry design team just fell short of my expectations.

[JSanders]

hoffman, the tips posted in the link above will help you, since you don't mind setting the appointments for the correct timezone, now it only involved 2-3 extra button pushes while your sitting on the tarmac after the plane has landed and you power the BB back up, just change the TZ.

[t_hoffman]

JSanders, I appreciate the link and I did review the steps. Again, it's a programming issue at the design side. Firing up the device, having it sync to the local time zone and applying GMT offset to all other time references is not beyond the capabilities of the available hardware - merely the installed code. I've lost track of the number of phones,PDAs,etc. I've owned over the years. I had just set a false level of expectation for this particular device. I'll get over it.

Overall, the phone satifies the majority of my requirements.

[rallanr]

Count me in as one of those who thinks this BB "feature" is a terrible decision. Yes I've read the FAQ about this and it doesn't help since it assumes that you are setting the appointment on your BB. What if I'm setting appointments on my computer? What this means is that I ALWAYS have to set the timezone even when the appointment is in my own timezone, which is redundant and adds up to a lot more than a few extra key pushes. I discovered this problem when I updated my BB time upon arrival in San Francisco a while back (I live in EDT) and ALL my appointments shifted by 3 hours.

I suspect this may be a hold over from the BES environment where corporate users had to do more managing of cross timezone events. However as a BIS user I'd much rather have the choice of having BB auto-update it's time and deal with my occasional timezone issues myself. In the example given in the FAQ, my feeling is that since I'll be in Chicago for that 3pm meeting, I don't need to know that it's in a different timezone from my home zone since I'll be in the Chicago timezone myself.

If some people like the BB way then I say give us the option of either doing it the current way or of having the BB auto-update it's time and leave the rest of the time management to the user. I urge everyone who has this issue to contact RIM and advocate for this option.

As for researching it before getting a BB; since every other modern celphone does timezone updating automatically, I'm sure all of us who have this complaint assumed that the BB did this as well. It's like checking to be sure that your new car has seats in it - of course it does - why wouldn't it? All other cars do.

[Eyetattoo]

Sign me up for the auto update.....It should be at least a option.

[camaro322hp]

Originally Posted by rallanr

I urge everyone who has this issue to contact RIM and advocate for this option.

I agree with you. However, be prepared to have your suggestion met with silence. I wrote a short email to RIM describing why I believe this functionality should be present. I don't believe I am alone in this, and still we have yet to see this functionality in any OS updates. But I do encourage more folks to contact RIM if you believe this functionality should be present.

I stand behind my belief that auto time zone adjusting will not cause any problems, since calendar appointments have a time zone associated with them, and the BB knows my "home" time zone, and also knows my current time zone from the network time.

[Uncle Flip]

Originally Posted by camaro322hp

I wrote a short email to RIM describing why I believe this functionality should be present.

The sad thing is that on my 8110, it *appears* to be present, yet isn't. On the Date/Time settings. the source for date/time can be set to network- yet the time will not actually update from the network if that's selected. If it can't do this, they shouldn't give the non-functional option. I don't mind manually updating....just don't give me a false impression that I don't have to do it.

Be well
-UF

[bigbda1]

I've had a Pearl 8100 for 21 months, and really like it. I too travel across the U.S. on business often. The lack of a simple feature like "auto time zones" is a real inconvenience. Almost every other radio known to mankind changes timezones automatically. I guess the developers in Waterloo who never leave their cubicle don't see a need. I hope the Bold I am considering changes automatically.

[NJBlackBerry]

I hope you aren't too disappointed. The new BBs do not have any sort of automated time zone changing either.

I really don't find it an inconvenience; I change my watch and my BB on the runway. And I travel a lot.