1. conite's Avatar

    Having platform-neutral apps across the board hardly frees up resources for the OEM to get innovative in design. The bulk of app developers are 3rd-party.
    Yes but the barrier to entry for a new hardware company that wants to introduce a new device with a new OS is next to insurmountable because of the proprietary ecosystems that are in place.

    Z30STA100-5/10.3.1.2072
    undone and CyberMan2013 like this.
    01-28-15 05:27 PM
  2. Troy Tiscareno's Avatar
    I think he means more like, netflix and amazon prime have device checks

    Bb10 is fully html5 compatible, if not the most compatible; however, it is not on the approved list.

    This is not neutrality, what if Youtube didn't work on LINUX mint but only on ubuntu?
    Netflix's license with the content owners prohibits Netflix from making their service available on mobile web browsers - ANY mobile web browser. It won't work via web on iOS, Android, WinMobile, BB, Sailfish, Tizen, etc. Nothing Netflix can do - you can complain to the content owners.

    Netflix has also closed their public API. No external developers, on any platform, have access to Netflix's APIs anymore.
    techvisor likes this.
    01-28-15 05:28 PM
  3. app_Developer's Avatar
    Exactly my thoughts - I like how all these armchair CEO's that think they know everything, but the reality is Chen's janitor's probably make more money than the armchair CEO's posting here. In other words if these armchair CEO's think they're so smart why aren't they running a company and no, I'm not talking about a Mom and Pop operation or a pool cleaning business. LOL
    So let's say your country has a President. Are you allowed to express an opinion on his/her performance only if you are yourself qualified to be President?

    Let's say you watch a football team and the coach and manager of your favorite team are not able to get great players or win games with them? Are you not allowed to say "that is coach isn't very good" unless you yourself have coached a professional team?

    You don't have to be a Fortune 500 CEO to be able to observe that Chen is good at some things and not very good at other things. Knowing what to say and when is not among his strong skills apparently.

    What positive effect did this letter that Chen wrote have on BlackBerry? What could he possibly think he would achieve by writing this?
    01-28-15 05:32 PM
  4. Troy Tiscareno's Avatar
    It seems even the Google app store has device checks now, blocking BlackBerry devices. I was on the Play Store, logged in via my Mac and when I tried to get an app, it said it was not available for my device, BlackBerry Passport.


    Attachment 330353
    Device compatibility checking has existed in the Play Store since at least Android v2.0 - 2 years at least before BB10's existence. BB has exactly the same functionality in BB World (as does Apple), and many apps for the Z10 aren't enabled for the Q10 or Q5 due to screen layout issues, and you won't be able to find those apps on a Q device.

    In each case, it is up to the developer of the app to ensure compatibility on any given device and enable their app for that device-class. No developer is required to support all devices, and there are a number of very good reasons why they don't, but having to provide support for users outside their target market is probably the biggest one. Many apps don't support anything older than Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) too, and for good reasons. Many don't support tablets, or other non-phone devices, or devices with screens that aren't 16:9 or 16:10 ratio, regardless of Android version.

    When you choose to buy a niche device, whatever it is, you should expect limited 3rd-party support, because that's a normal part of a niche device.
    techvisor and alternator77 like this.
    01-28-15 05:36 PM
  5. TGR1's Avatar
    You don't have to be a Fortune 500 CEO to be able to observe that Chen is good at some things and not very good at other things. Knowing what to say and when is not among his strong skills apparently.
    It's a trait shared by too many of his predecessors and colleagues IMO. Way too many loose guns. BBRY desperately needs someone to keep an iron hand on PR, that what gets out sends a very clear, confident message about BBRY and its goals.
    01-28-15 05:41 PM
  6. TheAuthority's Avatar
    Capitalism as it exists today is a farce. If it weren't, then all the big "capitalists" like banks wouldn't be getting bailouts. That's why government regulation is necessary.
    01-28-15 05:42 PM
  7. buwee's Avatar
    So let's say your country has a President. Are you allowed to express an opinion on his/her performance only if you are yourself qualified to be President?

    Let's say you watch a football team and the coach and manager of your favorite team are not able to get great players or win games with them? Are you not allowed to say "that is coach isn't very good" unless you yourself have coached a professional team?

    You don't have to be a Fortune 500 CEO to be able to observe that Chen is good at some things and not very good at other things. Knowing what to say and when is not among his strong skills apparently.

    What positive effect did this letter that Chen wrote have on BlackBerry? What could he possibly think he would achieve by writing this?
    Yawn! - There is no sense in wasting my time with a rebuttal with people like you....but to your point - I did not claim that I'm smart enough to be the CEO of Blackberry, therefore I'll keep my mouth shut and not make a fool out of myself by thinking I know better - I'll leave that up to the REAL CEO, he will have to deal with the eventual outcome no matter which way it goes but thanks anyway.
    01-28-15 05:46 PM
  8. robsteve's Avatar
    Device compatibility checking has existed in the Play Store since at least Android v2.0 - 2 years at least before BB10's existence. BB has exactly the same functionality in BB World (as does Apple), and many apps for the Z10 aren't enabled for the Q10 or Q5 due to screen layout issues, and you won't be able to find those apps on a Q device.
    .
    I guess the other point I didn't make very well was how does Google know I have a Passport when I am logged in via a Mac and I only have Snap on my Passport?
    01-28-15 06:35 PM
  9. app_Developer's Avatar
    I guess the other point I didn't make very well was how does Google know I have a Passport when I am logged in via a Mac and I only have Snap on my Passport?
    Google Play keeps track of the devices that you have registered with your account.
    01-28-15 06:38 PM
  10. anon(9188202)'s Avatar
    Any of you have a primo Passport for sale for under $250 so you can get out from under Chen's maniacal control? He is making your life miserable and I might be able to help you feel a little better...
    ladeberry and MikeX74 like this.
    01-28-15 06:59 PM
  11. thracian's Avatar
    That's true, but if all apps were platform-neutral, the dominance of iOS and Android would be gone overnight.
    Let's just apply that logic everywhere then. Do away with competition and free market, have all business regulated by a Politburo.
    serbanescu likes this.
    01-28-15 07:12 PM
  12. RubberChicken76's Avatar
    So let's say your country has a President. Are you allowed to express an opinion on his/her performance only if you are yourself qualified to be President?
    Agree, though, as with any situation - that or this, sometimes people comment in an uninformed fashion.

    Are you not allowed to say "that is coach isn't very good" unless you yourself have coached a professional team?
    If CrackBerry posts were like this, I think we'd have a lot fewer flame wars. Where it gets problematic is the armchair CEO syndrome that runs rampant. "Why is that ***** not doing ____, ____, _____ ... he doesn't see it. If he did this, he'd SAVE BlackBerry". Often, it's a very myopic, outsider-looking-in view.

    You don't have to be a Fortune 500 CEO to be able to observe that Chen is good at some things and not very good at other things.
    I'm pretty sure that applies to everyone on this thread. Everyone in BlackBerry. All former CEOs and VPs at the company. Steve Jobs. Anyone human haha.
    01-28-15 07:31 PM
  13. RubberChicken76's Avatar
    It's a trait shared by too many of his predecessors and colleagues IMO. Way too many loose guns. BBRY desperately needs someone to keep an iron hand on PR, that what gets out sends a very clear, confident message about BBRY and its goals.
    I actually agree with that. Must be a nightmare for their head of PR at times.

    I personally like Chen's off-the-cuff, "lack of spin", honest answer to things.

    This thing though, I'm scratching my head as to the intent. Most other things he's done have made logical sense to me, but this one seemed not well thought out.
    01-28-15 07:33 PM
  14. AlaJack's Avatar
    I demand Rolex movement in my Seiko. It's only fair.

    Posted via CB10
    MikeX74 and MarsupilamiX like this.
    01-28-15 07:43 PM
  15. conite's Avatar
    Let's just apply that logic everywhere then. Do away with competition and free market, have all business regulated by a Politburo.
    Did you read my whole post? I also went on to say that those companies worked hard for where they got to, and I'm not a fan of monopoly busting in general.

    But there are times when it is best for the free market to do so. That's why we have antitrust and competition law in the western democracies. The exact opposite actually from your Politburo.

    I never said what I thought should happen, only that if it did, it would be interesting to see what new innovations the increased competition would generate.

    Z30STA100-5/10.3.1.2072
    01-28-15 07:46 PM
  16. RyanGermann's Avatar
    This is a tempest in a teapot: if the point is that "checking if the device accessing a service is NOT a particular device, and blocking that device for 'business reasons' should be prohibited" then I agree: there are even utilities that allow you to configure your device to appear to a Web service as another device. If Apple can use their influence to keep Netflix and Instagram off of BB10, that's something that should be illegal.

    I'd say that this was poorly articulated but to whomever it was that Chen is not suitable to be a CEO because of this, all I can say is that plenty of CEOs make public gaffes far worse than this, so get over yourself.
    01-28-15 07:48 PM
  17. RexdaleNap's Avatar
    That's true, but if all apps were platform-neutral, the dominance of iOS and Android would be gone overnight.

    I actually think we would see some cool devices and some neat innovations if competition came down to strictly form factor and OS design.

    Not that I'm necessarily in favour of busting monopolies in general. These companies worked hard to get where they are.

    Z30STA100-5/10.3.1.2072
    Capitalism as it exists today is a farce. If it weren't, then all the big "capitalists" like banks wouldn't be getting bailouts. That's why government regulation is necessary.
    Let's just apply that logic everywhere then. Do away with competition and free market, have all business regulated by a Politburo.
    Lol the biggest piece of brainwashing over the past century has been about capitalism itself.

    The american system is called free enterprise and actually involves, regular government intervention.

    Look at what happened to standard oil, and a bunch of other monopolies. Broken up, why you say?

    You have a right to your basic needs, business is a privilege. A monopoly sucks the lifeblood of a country.

    Checks and balances existed evn on thr gov, how?

    Gov is a monopoly on force, hence 2nd amendment.

    Of course since the 1913 fed reserve monopoly, free enterprise has been dead. Even more so since 1971, so when you say politburo; know what you are talking about.

    Letting corporations rip off customers, leads to them controlling government eventually. As in facism

    Privatized profits, socialized losses.

    Exactly what you have today,

    I mean I'm a ksytria, I prefer a king and our own system which is closed to all foreigners.

    Doesn't excuse ignorance though.
    Flatman and trsbbs like this.
    01-28-15 08:10 PM
  18. Tre Lawrence's Avatar



    In regards to Netflix, BlackBerry offered to make or provide the resources for Netflix to make the app and Netflix refused. The same company that is using 70% of the bandwidth at certain times of the day. I don't think the users of Netflix pay proportional to the amount of the Internet bandwidth they are consuming. Don't forget that your $8.99 for Netflix goes to Netflix, not the ISP.
    Please, please let's drop the "BBRY offered developers to Netflix" anecdote. It underscores how out of touch BBRY was with regards to the realities of app development back then.

    FTR, even BBRY itself refuses to comment on that silliness any longer. Smart.
    01-28-15 09:19 PM
  19. Tre Lawrence's Avatar
    That's true, but if all apps were platform-neutral, the dominance of iOS and Android would be gone overnight.

    I actually think we would see some cool devices and some neat innovations if competition came down to strictly form factor and OS design.

    Not that I'm necessarily in favour of busting monopolies in general. These companies worked hard to get where they are.

    Z30STA100-5/10.3.1.2072
    Fair point. I mostly agree. Take away the ecosystems, and it's a different ball game.
    01-28-15 09:21 PM
  20. Tre Lawrence's Avatar
    I actually agree with that. Must be a nightmare for their head of PR at times.

    I personally like Chen's off-the-cuff, "lack of spin", honest answer to things.

    This thing though, I'm scratching my head as to the intent. Most other things he's done have made logical sense to me, but this one seemed not well thought out.
    I'm willing to give him a pass on this. I don't think a perceived mistake makes him unsuitable altogether.

    This armchair CEO would consider his tenure easily net positive.

    But nah, the app neutrality thingie is insane.
    01-28-15 09:29 PM
  21. byex's Avatar
    Correct me if I'm wrong but Chen wasn't lobbying for government intervention to have apps also available for Blackberry. Wasn't it more about standardising the app platform across all mobile OS's? When a developer makes an app for ios it will work across the all other OS's because underlying development platform is the same.

    If that's the case I see no problem in that. I don't know why anyone would have a problem with that. As long as it doesn't inconvenience the developers financially.

    Posted via CB10
    01-28-15 10:21 PM
  22. RyanGermann's Avatar
    sorry, off topic rant:

    In regards to Netflix, BlackBerry offered to make or provide the resources for Netflix to make the app and Netflix refused. The same company that is using 70% of the bandwidth at certain times of the day. I don't think the users of Netflix pay proportional to the amount of the Internet bandwidth they are consuming. Don't forget that your $8.99 for Netflix goes to Netflix, not the ISP.
    Do not suggest that Netflix is getting anything for free or that your $8.99 per month Netflix subscription doesn't pay for Bandwidth: Netflix pays their iSPs for the traffic they send and you pay your ISP for the traffic you receive: if anything, it's payed for TWICE, both the sender and recipient pay for the single packet sent and received. When you put a stamp on an envelope and mail a letter, does the recipient ALSO pay for the post office to receive the mail? No? Well, what goes on on the internet is Netflix pays to send it to you and you pay to receive it. Is that double the money spent, or the fair price split evenly? I think closer to the former than the latter.

    You know those horror stories about consumers who only have 25 gig per month throughput and get charged hundreds or even thousands of dollars of overage fees due to using Netflix all month? THAT is the traffic being paid for, so stop accusing the streaming services of getting some kind of free ride: it's a doubletalk smokescreen mumbo-jumbo shell game of epic proportions trying to make this paying for both ends of a transmission seem like 'not enough'. Netflix has industrial-strength internet bandwidth and throughput pricing and the carriers that they send their data through make a profit in every single electron, guaranteed.

    How about consumers pay 'the internet' for what we request / receive, and the sender doesn't pay? That makes more sense: Netflix puts their servers on the 'net and they listen, using none of the internet's traffic: then you send out a 'stream this show' request, Netflix pays for that bandwidth and factor it into your monthly fee. Then they start streaming packet after packet to you, because you requested the show contained in those packets: they don't pay their ISP for sending it, YOU pay for asking for it. You click the 'stop' button, the packet transmission stops, and you stop being billed.

    Sorry, but the suggestion that streaming services somehow are 'abusing' the internet is hogwash, a melodrama being played out by some of the largest most profitable companies in the world in an effort to justify increasing their profits and not investing in improving service, so consumers will accept crappy service and 'blame' themselves or streaming services when the carriers are solely to blame. Apparently the carriers want people to stop using the internet but still pay for the service.

    Posted via CB10
    01-29-15 12:12 AM
  23. thymaster's Avatar
    Relax people Chen is entitled to his opinion. If he didn't speak out about net neutrality, I would have done it myself. In fact, I have voiced my opinion about the net neutrality on several forums in the past. Thank god, a big figure like Chen is speaking up and loud about the topic.

    Thank you Mr. Chen for speaking up and defending for a equal rights.
    3MIKE likes this.
    01-29-15 02:34 AM
  24. BuffaloMadMan's Avatar
    I'm actually surprised how many people are for this insane idea. I mean I know BB users are desperate for apps but no reason to believe this non sense.

    If you really believe this why not, instead of bickering with people, put a well thought idea out there for us people that see this is a crazy idea to show us exactly how this plan would work. Please tell us how any gov't across the world would enforce this. Everyone wants to just complain about no apps but just like every business decision even for Netflix it doesn't make sense to invest in a platform that won't make the return worth it. In Netflix case I don't think its cost of building app but the supporting that's the kicker and I'm sure with most devs. In the end it's their name and reputation on the line.

    Last thought I believe if Chen was CEO when BB was developing BB10 he would of went android especially with these recent comments that's if he didn't kill off phones all together.

    Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android
    crackberry_geek likes this.
    01-29-15 04:25 AM
  25. SunshineStateFlyer's Avatar
    Maybe some of you are taking this a little bit too serious. I think the basic intention was to bring BlackBerry apps back to developer talks as it has become a forgotten market.

    Questionable is, whether the developers will be flattered about someone trying to force them to do something by government regulation. The idea is basically ridiculous.

    Anyways, even CEOs talk nonsense from time to time, that's no big deal.

    Posted via CB10
    01-29-15 05:44 AM
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