I feel like they are focusing too much on the fact that they finally have these features that have been available for years on other platforms, and not enough on their unique feature.
I'm hoping above is an isolated case? Otherwise creating any content that can easily be made fun of is really bad for the launch as it will create noise and distract from the good.
There were many other cases. One of the money quotes: "Typing on a glass screen with one thumb. Magic." Hah. BB10 may be a very nice OS, but the company attitude is absolutely miserable. They're still pretending that they're innovating at the very cutting edges of the market while introducing features almost 6 or 7 years old. It's silly.
I don't agree with you on the magical one thumb experience. I don't feel that my Android and iOS devices allow me to navigate that smoothly throughout my content, social networks and applications in general. The keyboard and the one thumb mode was also very impressive.
Oh really? Hm. Well, maybe I'm bashing their marketing too early. But I've been typing with one thumb on iOS and Android for like 4 years and have been pretty well satisfied. It could be improved I'm sure, and maybe BB has improved it. But whatever they've done, calling it 'Magic' makes me laugh.
It's something that was (IMO) ruined by this trend for giant phones. I can't even reach the notification bar of my Android phone without heavy straining now.
Having developed for BB before, I cannot tell how bad their toolchain and libraries and HW/SW protocol layers are. I highly doubt that they can fix all these in one big fat major release. Considering the fact that RIM is bleeding, this may be their one and only chance though. Good luck RIM, it is always good to have more options in the market...
>I highly doubt that they can fix all these in one big fat major release.
Why? They threw everything away and started from scratch, so the only way to not fix them is if they deliberately recreate the same problems. They didn't btw, bb10 development is way easier than ios and android (never touched windows phone so I can't comment there).
It's a silly position, but I can see why they did it. Blackberry used to be cool. Now it most definitely is not.
There's an argument to be made that they should give up on the consumer market and just go "all professional", of course, but I'm not sure that works long term.
> There's an argument to be made that they should give up on the consumer market and just go "all professional", of course, but I'm not sure that works long term.
That's exactly what they tried to do, and is why they're in the situation they are in today. Instead of focusing on making the devices great for consumers, they focused on selling devices to businesses.
But then something completely foreseeable happened: employees wanted iPhones. Soon after that, those employees started complaining about carrying around two devices. Thus the "bring your own device" IT trend started, and has been killing RIM for the last 4 years.
No, either BlackBerry cedes all control of the market they were once the only player in, or they sell to consumers.
MegaUpload's "CEO" was Swizz Beatz (who happens to be Alicia Keys' husband).
In that light, I'm not sure this executive appointment sends the positive message that RIM, er... BlackBerry... thinks it does. Resorting to stunts that the Mega guys were doing years ago is hardly cool or creative.
After watching the presentation, I understand that Alicia's job is to help people in the entertainment industry take advantage of the BlackBerry platform. I guess she can play that role.
She probably should find herself a more descriptive job title though.
A new UI is only a bad thing if your customers like the old UI. People were actively leaving the BB platform just so they can learn a (not shitty) UI - so this is on the whole a good thing.
In order to be successful, RIM/Blackberry needs to do more than just put out a phone that is equal to the competition (iPhone/Android). They've already had 2-3 years of people leaving them in droves, and those people are now, for the most part, happy with their new choices.
Saying: "Look, BB10 can do everything your phone can do" is going to be met with a "So what?" by most of those users. There needs to be something in a new phone to cause people to change.
So like I said, outside of a keyboard, which isn't even available yet, I don't see anything in the new phone that does this.
At the very best, all Blackberry can hope for is that this phone stems the tide of current BB users opting for other smartphones. That's not going to save the company though.
>In order to be successful, RIM/Blackberry needs to do more than just put out a phone that is equal to the competition
Not really. As far as most people are concerned, all phones are equal. So, do none of them exist? All phones being basically equal works to blackberry's advantage. People choose whatever phone they like aesthetically, as they are all essentially the same (same screens, same CPUs, same memory, same apps, etc, etc).
>Saying: "Look, BB10 can do everything your phone can do" is going to be met with a "So what?"
Ok, but that isn't what was said. You said "its basically the same as my iphone4". That of course entirely depends on the context you want to view "basically the same" in. To a lot of people, all smartphones are "basically the same", so as I said, in that context your statement is correct. If you are making a detailed comparison of features, then both new blackberry models are obviously significantly better than your iphone4.
>So like I said, outside of a keyboard, which isn't even available yet, I don't see anything in the new phone that does this.
A user interface that doesn't actively punish me for trying to use it?
My reason to be unexcited is that it is now just "another phone". The BIS (blackberry internet service) might've sucked in some ways but it meant tight security, and more importantly, roaming.
If they want to keep the big paying customers there, they're going to have to start talking about their previous "good points" and we shall see if they're still standing. Or it's more of a "Alicia Keys" public thing.
In the question round-up, someone asked how the switch to a "direct connection" will fare (in comparison with the current system under BB7, I understand).
No clear answer there. It's not like it's important for them, right?
IIRC from my time with the PlayBook, everything has to be signed, but there's minimal hoops to getting your own signing key (no fee). Unclear if you could load arbitrary apps that you haven't personally signed, never tried.
Old BlackBerry, everything had to be signed by RIM's servers, even for dev builds. Which is incredibly entertaining when their servers go down while you're trying to get a release out (those days are far, far behind me now)
I believe that it is possible to load apps via USB from a computer just enabling the "debug" features in the PB's settings. It's been a long time since I last used my PlayBook, though.
70k Apps on the New Platform. I am very impressed by this. They mentioned all the popular apps that have come onboard.. but I didn't see a mention of Instagram. That resonates with the young crowd. Instagram should have been in the Keynote pitch!
Never the less, this could have gone horribly wrong, but I think BB did good today.
edit: I hope the iPhone does something similar to Peak. Which I thought was a lot more intuitive than double-tapping the home-button, switching apps, then switching back.
They made a plataform that you could turn any blog or rss into an app. And worse, they were paying 100$ for any app you published, in the known Port-a-Thon. So certainly it has a lot of crap.
I tried to develop an epub reader app for BB10 using their HTML5 webworks toolkit. I know it is probably not the best platform for this given the XML work required for the format, but I couldn't get past the "open a file on the device" step. A quick look through their developer forums showed a lot of people with the same issue.
Oh, and I'm also not experienced with developing apps for any BB platform so I admit that I'm definitely part of the problem.
That being said, I'm rooting for them. The space needs a third player. They really need to figure out simple things like this though.
You should look into using their Cascades toolkit. It's based on Qt/QML so anything you learn there will be useful for desktop Linux, Windows, Mac, Ubuntu Phone, Sailfish, Plasma Active and also for Android and iOS soon. It's a worthwhile investment in my mind.
I just hope they stop requiring dev builds to go through a signing process on their servers. This alone would do wonders for their third party support.
>The Z10, which starts at $199 with a wireless contract, will be available on Jan. 31 in the U.K., on Feb. 5 in Canada, and in March in the U.S. The Q10 will follow in coming weeks, the company said.
U.K. then Canada, interesting. I wonder why their home country isn't first?
BlackBerry is very popular in the UK and it is a larger market. Canada is only a few days away. I imagine it has a lot more to do with the carrier acceptance process then anything RIM (now BlackBerry) has done.
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[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 129 ms ] threadNot sure how practical it will and if it can be used when using the flash.
[0] https://developer.blackberry.com/develop/platform_choice/bb1...
Why? They threw everything away and started from scratch, so the only way to not fix them is if they deliberately recreate the same problems. They didn't btw, bb10 development is way easier than ios and android (never touched windows phone so I can't comment there).
"We needed someone who is creative, and into technology."
"Alicia Keys is BlackBerry's new Creative Director."
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO
There's an argument to be made that they should give up on the consumer market and just go "all professional", of course, but I'm not sure that works long term.
That's exactly what they tried to do, and is why they're in the situation they are in today. Instead of focusing on making the devices great for consumers, they focused on selling devices to businesses.
But then something completely foreseeable happened: employees wanted iPhones. Soon after that, those employees started complaining about carrying around two devices. Thus the "bring your own device" IT trend started, and has been killing RIM for the last 4 years.
No, either BlackBerry cedes all control of the market they were once the only player in, or they sell to consumers.
This girl is on fire This girl is on fire She's walking on fire This girl is on fire
In that light, I'm not sure this executive appointment sends the positive message that RIM, er... BlackBerry... thinks it does. Resorting to stunts that the Mega guys were doing years ago is hardly cool or creative.
She probably should find herself a more descriptive job title though.
That means they're employees / customers would have to learn a new ui regardless.
While there is already a large possibility that they are already using an Android or iPhone at home.
1) Physical keyboard in the Q10
2) No Android, no Google
3) Hardware and software made by the same company
4) No Samsung/HTC/etc crapware customizations
5) Hopefully more top-down design and app store curation ala iOS
6) My Bold 9900 feels expensive; most Android phones I've played with feel cheap and plasticky
7) LTE, which the otherwise interesting Nexus 4 doesn't have
8) The BB10 UI looks less like an art school project than WP8
Saying: "Look, BB10 can do everything your phone can do" is going to be met with a "So what?" by most of those users. There needs to be something in a new phone to cause people to change.
So like I said, outside of a keyboard, which isn't even available yet, I don't see anything in the new phone that does this.
At the very best, all Blackberry can hope for is that this phone stems the tide of current BB users opting for other smartphones. That's not going to save the company though.
Not really. As far as most people are concerned, all phones are equal. So, do none of them exist? All phones being basically equal works to blackberry's advantage. People choose whatever phone they like aesthetically, as they are all essentially the same (same screens, same CPUs, same memory, same apps, etc, etc).
>Saying: "Look, BB10 can do everything your phone can do" is going to be met with a "So what?"
Ok, but that isn't what was said. You said "its basically the same as my iphone4". That of course entirely depends on the context you want to view "basically the same" in. To a lot of people, all smartphones are "basically the same", so as I said, in that context your statement is correct. If you are making a detailed comparison of features, then both new blackberry models are obviously significantly better than your iphone4.
>So like I said, outside of a keyboard, which isn't even available yet, I don't see anything in the new phone that does this.
A user interface that doesn't actively punish me for trying to use it?
If they want to keep the big paying customers there, they're going to have to start talking about their previous "good points" and we shall see if they're still standing. Or it's more of a "Alicia Keys" public thing.
No clear answer there. It's not like it's important for them, right?
Link from us homepage: http://global.blackberry.com/blackberry-10.html?iid=us:bb:de...
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http://screencast.com/t/jMhPotAn
http://stream.wsj.com/story/research-in-motions-blackberry-1...
How was this in previous versions?
Old BlackBerry, everything had to be signed by RIM's servers, even for dev builds. Which is incredibly entertaining when their servers go down while you're trying to get a release out (those days are far, far behind me now)
Never the less, this could have gone horribly wrong, but I think BB did good today.
edit: I hope the iPhone does something similar to Peak. Which I thought was a lot more intuitive than double-tapping the home-button, switching apps, then switching back.
Oh, and I'm also not experienced with developing apps for any BB platform so I admit that I'm definitely part of the problem.
That being said, I'm rooting for them. The space needs a third player. They really need to figure out simple things like this though.
Microsoft?
https://developer.blackberry.com/cascades/ https://qt-project.org/
U.K. then Canada, interesting. I wonder why their home country isn't first?