[mac-chatter]

Dear BB Experts,

first beeing in the forum, first post and still not an blackberry owner. But the latter ist the issue.

Android or Winphone was the question til right now, but with a tendency for Android, since my young kids recently own Android 4 phones. However I naturally disagree to share my entire private life with the public or companys who make money with it. Now I became aware of Blackberry Z10 OS 10.2.1 which is even in my favorable price regime around �Moto G� and �Nokia 920�. I have some few key questions:

Does Blackberry Z10 w. 10.2.1 make sense at all for a 100% private use?
- How about privacy and data protection in general and in particular regarding
- - during the use of an Andriod app, let's assume famous "torch" app.
- - when connected to a play store or similar
- - having the Android environment running
- - possibility that android apps access data from the Blackberry environment
- Is there any Apple like app-store behavior to force me to purchase a new device,
because reversions of apps for older iOSes are consequently removed?
- Is it correct, that Miracast for Z10 isn�t supported at all?
- How about compatibility to Mac OSX�s iCal and Address Book?
- eternal USB or Bluetooth keypad and ethernet file server connection

Please bash me if I haven�t carefully enough read through all forum posting but please include links to the corresponding threads.

Thanks a lot in advance for your hints!

Regards, Mac-Chatter (with Nokia 5230, poor dad!)

[heading4tomorrow]

The privacy protection is not as good as it used to be on blackberry, especially now with android compatibility. The difference between android device and blackberry is that with native blackberry apps, you still have the option of selecting which permissions you want to allow and which ones you do not, most apps still run even if you disable permissions unless they absolutely require (a file browser app won't run if you disable access to shared files, but it will run fine if you disable phone/microphone/gps, etc permissions) When you try to run an android port or android app (apk) you do not have a choice, it's either all or nothing. Torch app seems to require all sort of permissions, contacts, phone number, serial number, location, etc.. unless they recently changed that. Why does a torch app need access to contacts? It beats me, anyway you don't need torch app since new BB10 includes a flashlight setting.

Android apps will access everything in Blackberry environment unless the data is part of BES or restricted by Work environment. Those, they cannot access.
There was even a bug that was recently discovered and patched http://n4bb.com/blackberry-10-2-1-an...aw-discovered/ (assuming it is patched) where Android apps were able to access even BES data and that was a big deal.

If you are concerned about Privacy, and you don't care about hub or other cool things that are exclusive to blackberry, I would say go with an adroid device, root it, install xposed framework and take full control of which apps can access what. This won't stop google from accessing your information but it's a start. Otherwise with a Blackberry device, if you do not intend to run any android applications, you will be safer because unlike Google, Blackberry relies on software and hardware sales as primary source of income. Does this mean BB plays nice and does not provide as much information to 3rd parties, NSA, etc.. That is unknown. It is still possible BB might be providing as much information as Microsoft recently did ($200 per user info sold to FBI) we haven't seen similar leaks on BB scene. It would surely be the last nail on BB's coffin if there was a reveal of such practice, so my guess is BB is still on the good side.

If you are considering a BB10 device, I would say skip Z10 and go directly to Z30. There is no Miracast on Z10. I am not %100 sure about OTG on Z10.