I'm an Android fanboy, and I own a Samsung Captivate running CyangenMod 9 (Android Ice Cream Sandwich). I would seriously consider switching to a Blackberry running that same software configuration, because I prefer the Blackberry hardware and form factor to my Samsung.
The differentiation in my situation would be the form factor and robustness of the physical device.
I am a biased Waterloo, Canada resident, but not a RIM fanboy at all. A switch to Android would allow me to run software that I love on a nice form factor, and it doesn't hurt to support the local guy either.
The bigger question is can they push the ego to the side and make the difficult changes necessary?
I can't see switching ecosystems because of a hardware feature of one of the units. So BBs have great keyboards; I'll take your word at face value and assume that they do. But if any of Android's manufacturers came out with a good keyboard - which is certainly likely if there proves to be a market for it - then what?
I know on some level that you could make the same argument about any feature. I think it's especially true on something as relatively common as an input device, though. Which would be easier: BB seamlessly running Android's 700,000 apps, or Samsung adding a high-quality keyboard to a phone?
I switched from Blackberry to Android (Samsung Galaxy Glide) last week and I'm mostly happy, except for some features that I had taken for granted as a BB user (good physical keyboard, notification LED, and stellar battery life). If RIM were to release a Blackberry that could run Android apps and had better Google Apps integration, I would switch back in a heartbeat.
The BB10 devices should run Android apps, but I doubt there will be better Google Apps integration. My guess is that they will feature better MS apps (in part because of the Bing app on PlayBooks) before they do Google ones.
I have two phones, an Android Nexus S and a work issued Blackberry Bold 9800. I was once on the road and forgot my Nexus and heard a cool tune on the radio. I quickly grabbed the BB and ran Shazam to try to get the song name, after about 20 permission pop up confirmations the song was over , I got pissed and simply swore off Blackberry since.
Even as late as 6 months ago I would have bought a 9900. But the promised wifi calling OS upgrade never arrived. And in order to get the seamless OTA syncing I would have had to buy hosted BES (an extra $10/month) and would have had to pay T-Mobile extra on top of normal data costs.
This week I was at a conference of a bunch of bankers in Dubai. As is normal, everyone sits down and puts their phone(s) on the table. I looked around. Out of eight of us, there was one BB, and that person had an iPhone as well.
Two years ago this would have been an all-BB crowd.
I now find it simple and cheap to roam with an unlocked iPhone and local SIMs.
BB, to live, must eliminate the cost surcharge. Stop charging the carriers extra. Stop forcing us to buy BES for the same performance we get for free on iCloud or Android's integration with GMail/etc.
Then concentrate all efforts on delivering -- on time and without "software upgrades to do 'that' coming real soon now."
I doubt that will be enough, though. Anyone want an old Curve 3G with Arabic keys for $20?
I am a loyal blackberry user and personally feel it is a nice phone. However I am unhappy over the fact that the company doesn't seem to give a F888 to it's users. For example the cheapest Android phone in the market that act as a Wifi Hub but my blackberry curve 3G cant. Also, most of their OS update come separately for each carrier. That is outright nonsense. While Email is their strength they have done very little upgrades to their email interface.
One feature that I want to see is, the dates in my emails should be highlighted and I should be able to directly put reminders in the calendar application by selecting the date. iOS does it but BB wont.
I wonder how many SKUs RIM must be maintaining and this must be damn complex for them. Besides they should understand that their brand does not have any value anymore and hence stop seling crappy phones at such a high price.
I've never understood what problem Blackberry is trying to solve. They say the advantage is email. But isn't Gmail on Android much better than Exchange on Blackberry? (Not to mention cheaper!) Blackberry has never done statistical analysis to tell me which unread messages are most important, for example, but this is a core feature of Gmail.
The keyboard on BB devices is really better than anything else running Android, barring maybe a couple of Android devices with extremely under powered hardware.
My BB had a trackball which worked spectacularly well. The replacement Android has a trackpad that is virtually useless for any fidelity and I gave up even trying to use it. Then again multi-touch is a usable alternative most of the time.
I also miss the Android ball. It made Android feel geekier and less like trying to rip off Apple. But alas, the world decided that Phones Must Be Buttonless and now we are awash in a sea of shiny minitablets.
But today we have Swype, which is massively faster than a BlackBerry keyboard for typing emails and texts. I honestly can't imagine ever switching to a BlackBerry, unless I really needed battery life.
I haven't used Swype regularly. is Swype massively actually massively faster when it comes to two handed typing?
I can easily see the performance difference for one handed typing, but I'm having trouble seeing power users reliably typing emails realizing much faster results with Swype.
I have a G2, which has a pretty decent physical keyboard as well as Swype. I can see how you might get pretty quick with Swype, but if you're a good typist, I think the keyboard wins out every time. If you are used to it, you get a sort of psuedo-touch typing ability going with it that I don't think you can yet duplicate on a soft keyboard.
The last few winners of the world record for fastest text messaging used Swype[1]. The fastest thumb-text record holder was 45 seconds[2], the fastest Swype record holder was 25 seconds.
Anecdotally, I used a phone with a keyboard and two-handed typing for 3 years, and my speed went from about 18 WPM to about 40 WPM after a month on Swype.
I could use the old 8300 keyboards (even though the keys felt small), but my wife's 9780 is almost impossible for me to use with any precision or speed. It's much faster for me to use my N1 stock Android keyboard with one thumb than fumble with those minuscule, oddly beveled (9780, not 8300) keys. But she loves it!
I think there are plenty of landscape Android sliders out there, and even though many are getting long in the tooth, the CPU/GPUs would still easily surpass all but the latest-gen BBs.
Im not saying Im a loyal customer, but I am stuck with BB because I loath 100% touchscreen, and BB offers the best keyboard experience by far.
I was deep down hoping for WebOS to work out, since the preliminary devices offered keyboards and a much better OS. Unfortunately we all know the story there.
Aka, the performance, UI responsiveness, and battery life of iOS/iPhone, but with a FOSS OS, not necessarily Android (Embedded Linux, Minix, etc.).
And as a developer, a better development language than Java. C, Go, or just leverage Apple's Objective-C developer network with Clang's implementation.
All these things are pain points on my Nexus S. If someone could do better, I'd jump on it in a heartbeat, even if the app market is sparser.
> ... a better development language than Java. C, Go, or just leverage Apple's Objective-C developer network ...
Where does this myth come from that you can only write Android programs in Java? There is a Native Dev Kit (Google [Android NDK]) that provides a gcc cross compiler so you can write your app in any language gcc can compile. It is quite possible to write an app without a single line of Java.
Heck there is even a company that lets you take your existing Objective C iOS app and compile it on Android (they have also implemented a lot of the iOS APIs). See http://www.apportable.com
It is true that Android does have a lot of Java libraries, and especially for regular user interface type stuff you really would want to use that (eg ActionBar, the resources system, fragments). But if you want a framebuffer and OpenGL then ignore that.
The original blackberry was great. With today's technology it would fit on a wristwatch and the battery would last for a year.
Blackberry got caught up in an arms race that offered no benefit to its customers. Why waste 50% of CPU cycles to make the UI look more like Windows 3.1 ?
Blackberry also charged for the SDK and offered no quality control, so eventually mobile JRE apps (not designed at all to be usable on BB hardware) became the majority of apps.
I have used several over the years but about 3 years ago it became clear that IOS was worth a 50% price increase per month.
A fullscreen with a split-to-open keyboard. A high density screen. A store with a better ranking and categorization system that allowed me to more easily find the software I wanted.
I switched about 8 months ago because my employer bought me a BlackBerry (edit to add: Torch 9810). I was quite surprised with how good it is, though my needs for it are pretty lightweight: Email, occasionally Twitter, and casual browsing. It does all of those extremely well.
I think RIM should have a look at these results and realize that perhaps it should consider putting it's OS (at least partially) in the hands of Google.
They're spending more time working on BB10 in making their own OS awesome, when, at least from this sample, looks like people don't care. It would be easier to hop on the Android bandwagon, and get some new customers that way.
They'll never capture top spot again, but perhaps they can salvage a halfway decent share of the huge smartphone market.
BB could get my business if they doubled down on security, privacy and encryption. I'd love to see them end up with a product that was sort of like what Whisper Systems was trying to do with Android. In particular I'd love enterprise messaging that didn't need any 3rd parties to hold keys, and an ability to use some kind of removable smart card with a cryptographic processor that when removed rendered the phone data inaccessible. These kind of features are becoming more and more needed everyday as mobile attacks (both physical and remote) become more common as well as more and more situations become off limits to mobiles. I have a number of clients that have no good solutions for high risk employees, especially when they're travelling. It's a natural fit for BB and a market they're still the most plugged into - and one no other smartphone vendor is particularly interested in (save motorola, sort of)
Look for secure microSD cards: they are smartcards with a microSD form factor and a couple of GB of normal flash storage. You can store private keys in there and negotiate certificates with a PKI server, resulting in a full-fledged S/MIME-compatible mail in your pocket. Take the card off: without your keys the BlackBerry cannot decrypt anything. Steal the phone unlocked: you have three attempts to guess the smartcard PIN. As far as I know, BlackBerry devices are the only mobile platform supporting such local hardware keystores natively.
It has taken years for Apple to implement on iOS half of the crypto available in BlackBerry devices, and they are still knee-deep in badly implemented security. Android and Windows Mobile are not even trying.
I don't have any citations handy, but BlackBerry far surpasses other vendors with regard to security. This is why they're so entrenched in the enterprise and government sectors. I'm quite sure I read recently that some models support smart card authenticators.
You're right that the BB has a smartcard reader, though the reliance on bluetooth makes it... problematic for use in the field. What I was trying to describe was something similar to what we currently use in laptops. Remove the card (express card in most cases, though they can be built onto the ssd themselves) and the computer is no longer able to read or write to the drive, as it never actually holds the FDE keys.
If they stripped down their OS so it wasn't so clunky and unstable. If they had a web browser that wasn't sub-IE5 quality. (As a developer) if development wasn't Windows-only/massively fragmented/difficult to set up.
Apple's got "cool", Android's got "cheap/open". Nobody owns "reliable". BB did for a while but seem to be trying to play catch-up with Apple and failing. They don't stand for anything any more.
BB are well positioned to be the Thinkpad/Toughbook/Model-M Keyboard of mobile devices - minimalist, under-designed and ultra-reliable.
Ask anyone who had a Nokia 3310 phone about it and they'll rave about how indestructible and reliable it was. Ask a business nerd about their Thinkpad and they'll tell you that they don't care it's not as cool as a frou-frou Macbook, it's a machine for getting serious work done. A few years ago you'd get a similar response from a BB user, now they just look mildly embarrassed and say "work pays for it, I don't get a choice. I hear we're going to be able to bring our own iPhones in soon though."
If I'm going to invest my time and money into a hardware platform I'd rather go with the company that is on the leading edge. Blackberry's offer no advantage over Android or iPhone for me, they're old-fashioned. It appears that RIM still hasn't caught up to the iPhone v1 released in 2007.
At this point I think RIM would require a paradigm shifting new technology or something radically new to get me to buy a Blackberry. And Apple is already pushing forward with voice-activated controls with Siri. Why isn't there that type of innovation happening at RIM?
I made the switch from iPhone to BB.. iPhone was my first smart phone. Yet BB is better in so many ways that works for me. One most important feature that I need is over-the-air battery life where iPhone sucks. I still use iPhone for gaming though.
I recently switched from a BlackBerry to iPhone. Aside from my device being broken, I primarily switched due to the app ecosystem developed around Apple. As an (aspiring) UX professional, I felt I was missing out on a lot. I think the app eco system is a key point for most (and for a lot of consumers I think the difference between Android and Apple is negligible). Going from a BB to iPhone has me missing some of the "power user" features a BlackBerry affords. Maybe I should have gone Android
Some things about BlackBerry. The keyboard is superior to any other keyboard out there. The BlackBerry is perfectly adequate for lightweight users and IMO a much better messaging device (not strictly because of BBM, but because of battery life as well). RIM is in a weird place due to their enterprise service offerings, software and hardware. wrt Messaging, I think RIM missed out on an interesting acquisition opportunity. Instead of embracing and potentially folding in Kik to its BBM offerings, RIM decided to fight them. Folding in a service like Kik could have been great, I think.
57 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 96.2 ms ] threadThe differentiation in my situation would be the form factor and robustness of the physical device.
I am a biased Waterloo, Canada resident, but not a RIM fanboy at all. A switch to Android would allow me to run software that I love on a nice form factor, and it doesn't hurt to support the local guy either.
The bigger question is can they push the ego to the side and make the difficult changes necessary?
I know on some level that you could make the same argument about any feature. I think it's especially true on something as relatively common as an input device, though. Which would be easier: BB seamlessly running Android's 700,000 apps, or Samsung adding a high-quality keyboard to a phone?
This week I was at a conference of a bunch of bankers in Dubai. As is normal, everyone sits down and puts their phone(s) on the table. I looked around. Out of eight of us, there was one BB, and that person had an iPhone as well.
Two years ago this would have been an all-BB crowd.
I now find it simple and cheap to roam with an unlocked iPhone and local SIMs.
BB, to live, must eliminate the cost surcharge. Stop charging the carriers extra. Stop forcing us to buy BES for the same performance we get for free on iCloud or Android's integration with GMail/etc.
Then concentrate all efforts on delivering -- on time and without "software upgrades to do 'that' coming real soon now."
I doubt that will be enough, though. Anyone want an old Curve 3G with Arabic keys for $20?
One feature that I want to see is, the dates in my emails should be highlighted and I should be able to directly put reminders in the calendar application by selecting the date. iOS does it but BB wont.
I wonder how many SKUs RIM must be maintaining and this must be damn complex for them. Besides they should understand that their brand does not have any value anymore and hence stop seling crappy phones at such a high price.
I can easily see the performance difference for one handed typing, but I'm having trouble seeing power users reliably typing emails realizing much faster results with Swype.
Anecdotally, I used a phone with a keyboard and two-handed typing for 3 years, and my speed went from about 18 WPM to about 40 WPM after a month on Swype.
[1]: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/8000/faste...
[2]: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5319376/ns/technology_and_scienc...
I think there are plenty of landscape Android sliders out there, and even though many are getting long in the tooth, the CPU/GPUs would still easily surpass all but the latest-gen BBs.
I was deep down hoping for WebOS to work out, since the preliminary devices offered keyboards and a much better OS. Unfortunately we all know the story there.
Aka, the performance, UI responsiveness, and battery life of iOS/iPhone, but with a FOSS OS, not necessarily Android (Embedded Linux, Minix, etc.).
And as a developer, a better development language than Java. C, Go, or just leverage Apple's Objective-C developer network with Clang's implementation.
All these things are pain points on my Nexus S. If someone could do better, I'd jump on it in a heartbeat, even if the app market is sparser.
Where does this myth come from that you can only write Android programs in Java? There is a Native Dev Kit (Google [Android NDK]) that provides a gcc cross compiler so you can write your app in any language gcc can compile. It is quite possible to write an app without a single line of Java.
Heck there is even a company that lets you take your existing Objective C iOS app and compile it on Android (they have also implemented a lot of the iOS APIs). See http://www.apportable.com
It is true that Android does have a lot of Java libraries, and especially for regular user interface type stuff you really would want to use that (eg ActionBar, the resources system, fragments). But if you want a framebuffer and OpenGL then ignore that.
My blackberry never required a reboot to pick up signal - droids, yup.
Blackberry got caught up in an arms race that offered no benefit to its customers. Why waste 50% of CPU cycles to make the UI look more like Windows 3.1 ?
Blackberry also charged for the SDK and offered no quality control, so eventually mobile JRE apps (not designed at all to be usable on BB hardware) became the majority of apps.
I have used several over the years but about 3 years ago it became clear that IOS was worth a 50% price increase per month.
I think RIM should have a look at these results and realize that perhaps it should consider putting it's OS (at least partially) in the hands of Google.
They're spending more time working on BB10 in making their own OS awesome, when, at least from this sample, looks like people don't care. It would be easier to hop on the Android bandwagon, and get some new customers that way.
They'll never capture top spot again, but perhaps they can salvage a halfway decent share of the huge smartphone market.
It has taken years for Apple to implement on iOS half of the crypto available in BlackBerry devices, and they are still knee-deep in badly implemented security. Android and Windows Mobile are not even trying.
Edit: Google-fu found this: http://us.blackberry.com/ataglance/security/products/smartca... http://us.blackberry.com/ataglance/security/government.jsp http://us.blackberry.com/ataglance/security/products/smime.j... http://us.blackberry.com/ataglance/security/certifications.j... http://us.blackberry.com/ataglance/security/features.jsp
And I would need faith that there is going to be a RIM in 5 years, which is not at all a given.
Apple's got "cool", Android's got "cheap/open". Nobody owns "reliable". BB did for a while but seem to be trying to play catch-up with Apple and failing. They don't stand for anything any more.
BB are well positioned to be the Thinkpad/Toughbook/Model-M Keyboard of mobile devices - minimalist, under-designed and ultra-reliable.
Ask anyone who had a Nokia 3310 phone about it and they'll rave about how indestructible and reliable it was. Ask a business nerd about their Thinkpad and they'll tell you that they don't care it's not as cool as a frou-frou Macbook, it's a machine for getting serious work done. A few years ago you'd get a similar response from a BB user, now they just look mildly embarrassed and say "work pays for it, I don't get a choice. I hear we're going to be able to bring our own iPhones in soon though."
At this point I think RIM would require a paradigm shifting new technology or something radically new to get me to buy a Blackberry. And Apple is already pushing forward with voice-activated controls with Siri. Why isn't there that type of innovation happening at RIM?
Some things about BlackBerry. The keyboard is superior to any other keyboard out there. The BlackBerry is perfectly adequate for lightweight users and IMO a much better messaging device (not strictly because of BBM, but because of battery life as well). RIM is in a weird place due to their enterprise service offerings, software and hardware. wrt Messaging, I think RIM missed out on an interesting acquisition opportunity. Instead of embracing and potentially folding in Kik to its BBM offerings, RIM decided to fight them. Folding in a service like Kik could have been great, I think.