Blackberry 10 - Page 2

so 40% of their apps are half-assed...why not just get them on their native platforms?

they will......in 2 years!

Well I preordered one. I was going to wait for the Q10 but I have a touch phone from years and years ago where vibrate kills the battery and I can barely hold a conversation for more than 5 minutes without it going dead so now's a good a time as any. I still have my work BlackBerry which has the keyboard.

BB really needs to get the quintessential apps on their platform ASAP in order for them to succeed.

All those apps that were ported over from Android are bullshit and don't have any business being there. Before we saw the release, I was super optimistic about how easy it was to port those apps over, but after having seen pictures of them, they're all shit. Complete and utter shit.

BB10 intro'd this feature to switch between business / personal profiles. But given that in Australia, enterprises have all moved away from the traditional bulk buy / mobility solutions and moved more towards BYOD, I can't imagine the big businesses backing this, at least not here in Australia. 

 

Looks like this is BB 'all-in' bet on the hipsters.

Two years? What are you talking about? They are 5 years behind in the market. The smartphone revolution has been in full swing for a while with iPhone and Android, while BB sat on their asses trying to squeeze life out of a dated OS and technology while the industry passed them by.

I don't give this platform much of a chance at all of succeeding. Too late and a dollar short. In a couple years they will end up selling off their valuable assets making the company a shell of what it once was or changing focus away from producing their own handsets in hope of finding a direction towards relevancy.

Okay. My Z10 is sitting somewhere waiting for pick up. I was tortured over the keyboard but let's see how I do with touchscreen (please be better than Apple!).

Also being Canadian influenced my purchase.

apple fanboy haters gonna hate. the phone's sweet my company's planning on picking up the Q10 when it launches for the balance feature mainly. it's very easy to implement and the security features are quite promising. for the UI itself, the swipe gestures make the home button look pretty stupid - I never liked it and double tapping to access apps (which aren't even able to run in the background on iOS, just hiding out) is just so...2007.

I haven't used BB10 yet, obviously, but I think gestures are the way of the future. According to the many reviews I've read, most of the minor software complaints seem to be fixable. Easily? No idea. But they don't sound like they require major OS overhauls.

Also, fuck this whole nonsense on "OH, APPLE HAS 700,000 APPS!" No one gives a fuck. 80% of those apps have never been downloaded. There are like 5,000 flashlight apps. The number of apps available in a store don't matter so long as the critical, most popular, essential apps are available. BB is missing quite a few of those and as long as they can get them in the store ASAP, I think they have a decent shot at success.

I for one am eager to try it out and am very open to getting rid of my iPhone 5 for the Q10. On a related note, if iOS 7 isn't a significant overhaul of the current iOS platform... Apple is sincerely fucked. Gone are the days of racing towards hardware spec domination. Everyone is caught up now and we've reached the point where we just don't really need insane processors.

Software is the name of the game right now and iOS is starting to lag behind. BB's gesture-based OS is definitely a step in the right direction, IMO. I'm eager to see them do well.

I largely agree with this statement, but you are missing the real advantage Apple maintains over the competition. It's not just quantity of apps, but the quality of the apps. Apple has the largest quantity of quality, well designed, apps on the market. Android is a clear second here in phones, but is lagging far behind Apple with tablet apps. The problem with both the Windows Phone and BB10 ecosystem is they are filled with a large percentage of poorly designed apps. Many of which you get the feeling are there simply to boost the overall numbers with little regard to the end experience provided to the consumer.

There are numerous reasons for this and I do expect Android to rabidly gain ground here, but for now it's in Apple's court.


Claiming Apple will be fucked is hyperbole, but I agree that iOS is in need of some major changes. If we don't see some with iOS 7 they risk loosing mind-share among the tech community which has a way of trickling down to the average consumer. Implementing modern gestures would be a great step, but probably not at the top of my list...

While I have not played with BB10 myself, most reviews indicate that the gesture system they implemented is in need of work. This is certainly something the company could work on improving, but the question is do they have time? While reviews have mostly been on the side of positive, few seem to recommend it over the three major competitors already established on the market. This will be reflected in sales.

BB still has a dominance in emerging markets (most popular device in lot of African countires, India, etc.) but of course that's not where you can sell the most expensive newest stuff...

But this is kinda bad news I would imagine

BlackBerry's former chief sells entire stake in company
Jim Balsillie offloaded 26.8m shares during 2012, as company struggles to make inroads into smartphone market

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/feb/15/blackberry-former-chief-jim-basillie-sells-shares

It's a lot of older BlackBerrys. People tend to keep them for a long time, or they're used ones brought in from the States and Canada. Low cost Android smart-phones(mostly Chinese) are very popular in those places as well. Symbian was popular as well, but that's going away quite rapidly.

Apple doesn't do so well here, except for the new money.

My experience is most of the BB nostalgia and love people have is centered around the hardware keyboard. While they are going to be selling a BB10 device with one, it's odd to me that they are putting so much focus on the touchscreen version. It's the company's halo device and launching first. While I understand touchscreens are popular and selling, why not double down on what you do best?

because of their massive success with the last 2 touch screens they put out ......

Any of you have experience with the Storm? My old coworker got one when it came out. My God, that was a P.O.S.