1. fop518's Avatar
    After playing with the priv... android is fine. You can see how much money went into developing it. As much as BlackBerry put into bb10 and way more...

    Think about those resources being used over the past 4 years to make an amazing suite of android tools instead of basically reinventing the basics.
    The bb10 team would have made amazing apps on android while leveraging all of the os level development done by Google.

    Oh well, hindsight is 20/20 and I know a few key ppl pointed this out back then... but really seems a no brainer now.

    Also the priv is a great phone. Maybe the best BlackBerry I've had and I've had em all since 2003.

    Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android
    05-02-16 06:49 PM
  2. fop518's Avatar
    Don't get me wrong I've loved bb10 and the passport too. But using the priv and android feels the same as going from bbos to bb10... a little awkward and less refined, but just more powerful by far. Clearly a lot of that is hardware based, but android is better than I expected based on this place being my only real source of info

    Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android
    05-02-16 06:53 PM
  3. app_Developer's Avatar
    I really doubt they spent as much on their Android development as they did on BB10. As you said, with BB10 they had to do the whole stack. That's much, much more difficult and much more expensive.

    But, that's neither here nor there. I agree with your point that if they are to continue in phones, this is a much more sensible approach than having their own bespoke OS.
    Elephant_Canyon likes this.
    05-02-16 07:06 PM
  4. TgeekB's Avatar
    Good points.
    05-02-16 07:21 PM
  5. Troy Tiscareno's Avatar
    I agree completely - and I was saying so back in 2008-2009 (not here - I didn't know this place existed then).

    Here's an interesting and somewhat related article about companies that made the wrong bet and lost big. BB/RIM isn't discussed, but they could have been. It just goes to show that BB is hardly the only company who made a series of bad decisions and got punished for it by the market.

    In the Mobile Phone Industry, Success Doesn't Skip a Generation - Bloomberg
    05-02-16 07:34 PM
  6. Jack Chin's Avatar
    Great article. The Sprint tale--beginning with their grossly overvalued purchase of Nextel, then chased by their idiotic adoption of WiMax--should have been cautionary for BlackBerry.

    Nextel was built on what amounts to fleet sales of network bandwidth, which consolidated the old company-run 'radio in a truck' systems. Much like with BIS, when regular cell service bandwidth caught and surpassed it, they tended to lose accounts to the other cell phone companies, who had Apple and Android phones people actually liked to use. And those other services weren't encumbered serving a legacy, dying network to meet sales goals.

    And to top it off, despite being on the small end of major cell companies (a follower), they tried to play leader with WiMax technology adoption. When other majors shifted toward LTE 4G instead, Sprint was screwed because they had a smaller pool of compatible devices at a higher CoGS. And where people did have service, it tended to suck because their higher frequency allocations don't perform well through obstructions.

    It's easy to see in hindsight, granted.

    I agree completely - and I was saying so back in 2008-2009 (not here - I didn't know this place existed then).

    Here's an interesting and somewhat related article about companies that made the wrong bet and lost big. BB/RIM isn't discussed, but they could have been. It just goes to show that BB is hardly the only company who made a series of bad decisions and got punished for it by the market.

    In the Mobile Phone Industry, Success Doesn't Skip a Generation - Bloomberg


    Posted via CB10
    JeepBB likes this.
    05-02-16 08:18 PM
  7. fop518's Avatar
    No, it's clear from a developer perspectives they probably had 100s (or maybe 1k+) developers making bb10 happen at its peak... i'm sure android development is in the 15-20 range at this point. But just think about what all those developers could have done making a real android BlackBerry. Would be a different world. But again, hindsight...

    Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android
    05-02-16 10:34 PM
  8. sorinv's Avatar
    No, it's clear from a developer perspectives they probably had 100s (or maybe 1k+) developers making bb10 happen at its peak... i'm sure android development is in the 15-20 range at this point. But just think about what all those developers could have done making a real android BlackBerry. Would be a different world. But again, hindsight...

    Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android
    Imagine if Apple had gone android from the beginning. They'd have 97.5% of the market now and much higher profits. They would have had no development costs.
    This thread makes no sense.
    05-02-16 10:48 PM
  9. thurask's Avatar
    No, it's clear from a developer perspectives they probably had 100s (or maybe 1k+) developers making bb10 happen at its peak... i'm sure android development is in the 15-20 range at this point. But just think about what all those developers could have done making a real android BlackBerry. Would be a different world. But again, hindsight...

    Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android
    Convincing Mike and Jim to run Android would probably require fundamental changes to the universe, so you never know.
    JeepBB likes this.
    05-02-16 10:53 PM
  10. Prem WatsApp's Avatar
    Convincing Mike and Jim to run Android would probably require fundamental changes to the universe, so you never know.
    Maybe we could tweak a few variables here and there... :-D

    �   There's a Crack in the Berry right now...   �
    05-03-16 12:56 AM
  11. thurask's Avatar
    Maybe we could tweak a few variables here and there... :-D

    •   There's a Crack in the Berry right now...   •
    #define pi 4
    05-03-16 01:06 AM
  12. bakron1's Avatar
    Hindsight is always 20/20 and if we all had that magical crystal ball we would be rich.

    I also liked OS10, but just think if Blackberry would have pooled their resources into Android development instead of OS10. We might not be talking about the end of the hardware division.
    pstrusi likes this.
    05-03-16 04:40 AM
  13. cbosdell's Avatar
    BlackBerry has nothing to gain with Android except cut development costs. They're just another Android OEM in a crowd of dozens of others that are on a race to the bottom. From what I've seen no one besides Samsung has been able to stay profitable from their handset divisions.
    togarika and MikeX74 like this.
    05-03-16 05:18 AM
  14. pstrusi's Avatar
    BlackBerry has nothing to gain with Android except cut development costs. They're just another Android OEM in a crowd of dozens of others that are on a race to the bottom. From what I've seen no one besides Samsung has been able to stay profitable from their handset divisions.
    I prefer the BB10 over all, but I do recognize that Android took the world and nowadays is the quickest way to go into the battle, grab some market with access to all essential apps not available in BB world unfortunately, and I'm not an app user, just want the minimum required to be able to do the most common and useful tasks.
    05-03-16 06:05 AM
  15. fop518's Avatar
    BlackBerry has nothing to gain with Android except cut development costs. They're just another Android OEM in a crowd of dozens of others that are on a race to the bottom. From what I've seen no one besides Samsung has been able to stay profitable from their handset divisions.
    Well now they are just a small android oem in a crowded sea... But if they had pushed very hard 4 years ago with their whole development power... i'm sure BlackBerry would be the secure android they kind of are pretending to be now! But again it's an unfair criticism to say what should have been done after the fact. It's just a really obvious point now.

    What really made me think about it is the comment someone (Chen maybe?) Made about not having to develop device drivers for something... so many resources required to write device drivers for every little chip in a phone when the manufacturer probably gives out free android code. It's really exactly like launching OS/2 when win95 was coming and about to dominate.

    Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android
    05-03-16 07:29 AM
  16. fop518's Avatar
    Hindsight is always 20/20 and if we all had that magical crystal ball we would be rich.

    I also liked OS10, but just think if Blackberry would have pooled their resources into Android development instead of OS10. We might not be talking about the end of the hardware division.
    Yes. We literally saying the exact same thing. It seems obvious now though... no one serious ever put weight behind a secure android or a corporate android. BlackBerry had that wait back then still.

    Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android
    bakron1 likes this.
    05-03-16 07:31 AM
  17. Dunt Dunt Dunt's Avatar
    There were a number of arguments on CrackBerry even before BlackBerry bought QNX. It was clear to some that BlackBerry needed a new OS. And a number wanted them to go the Amazon route and create another forked platform out of Android. Going the Android route would have gotten them to market years earlier. But fundamentally BlackBerry has never been a "competitive" company, Chen sure hasn't changed that. From the first day those Android phones started hitting the market it was clear that BlackBerry was not using cutting edge hardware. And it soon became clear that BlackBerry still wanted to charge a premium for their 18 month old hardware.

    It wasn't just the OS that needed to be changed. BlackBerry was the IBM of the mobile world and for a brief moment in time they had a product that the consumer market wanted. But the company had no idea how to keep that consumer customer and before long they found themselves losing enterprise customers to the consumer devcies that had usurped them.

    So I doubt a move to Android would have saved BlackBerry's hardware business anymore five years ago than it will today.
    JeepBB, sorinv and cbosdell like this.
    05-03-16 07:55 AM
  18. jhimmel's Avatar
    As long as we are thinking about what could happen if we went back and changed history - I would prefer that BB started BB10 2 years earlier. I think it could have been a success, and could have drawn a 3rd party ecosystem at that time. I think BB10 is the best OS, but came (and matured) too late and could not be sustained in the consumer market without 3rd party support.
    I want my cake and eat it too. I want a thriving BB10. If we go back far enough and change history, I believe there was a time when it was possible to pull off. BB10 would have had to be brought to a fairly matured state, behind closed doors, while BB name was still gold. The transition from legacy to BB10 could have been smoother and quicker, and while the brand still held weight - which is what they needed.
    You know, as long as we are talking about what COULD have been... :-)
    cbosdell, sorinv and JeepBB like this.
    05-03-16 08:02 AM
  19. sorinv's Avatar
    #define pi 4
    Pi, like all physical constants, could have a different value in another universe, but i'd like to think that Mike would not run android, not even in the multiverse.
    05-03-16 10:25 PM

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