1. grahamf's Avatar
    I'd be considered a foreigner to many of you, so my opinions and perspectives may differ a bit.
    I'm slowly starting to come to the understanding that certain things which to me seems rather clear are incredibly difficult to explain to some others due to dramatically different fundamental methods for obtaining and understanding information, which end up being incompatible with my own. I am concerned that many people have difficulty obtaining and analyzing enough information in order to form decisions on their own, relying on others who may be in the same boat or have a specific goal in mind when producing and releasing their results. More worrying is that those people's decisions collectively have an impact on others which may not exactly be beneficial, but yet propagate to others who then end up basing their decisions on that information being given to them. Ideally it should be possible to mitigate that effect by enough people being able to check or validate that information, but it seems that the extent of the propagation allows it to encourage similar decision-making methods while stifling methods that would otherwise compare and validate. The effects are not limited to Blackberry and the tech industry, but seem to cover all aspects of culture and society, which is pretty distressing.
    07-29-15 12:21 AM
  2. Tre Lawrence's Avatar
    Honestly, with regards to tech decisions, I believe mindshare plays a part, but not as much as raw functionality.

    When an entrenched solution is in place, it usually takes a new solution that is significantly better to unseat it. Not just "as good as" but better.
    21stNow and dannykavs like this.
    07-29-15 12:30 AM
  3. grahamf's Avatar
    Honestly, with regards to tech decisions, I believe mindshare plays a part, but not as much as raw functionality.

    When an entrenched solution is in place, it usually takes a new solution that is significantly better to unseat it. Not just "as good as" but better.
    but what happens when a significantly better solution is somewhat less in highly visible but somewhat superfluous metrics?
    07-29-15 12:38 AM
  4. Tre Lawrence's Avatar
    Fair question.

    Is the metric used really superfluous for most people though?

    The best product doesn't always win, especially if it's late.
    Last edited by Tre Lawrence; 07-29-15 at 06:46 AM.
    07-29-15 12:44 AM
  5. sentimentGX4's Avatar
    I don't think consumer culture and education affects BB10 sales as much as the forum thinks. Indifference/ignorance is more often an indication that a product is not relevant to consumers. Not that there's this great super secret thing they don't know about.

    Most botched tech products few individuals know about would not be attested to be of high quality or hidden gems such as Zune or the Fire Phone. There are a few products with cult followings like BetaMax and even their value over the competition is questionable to non-fans.

    All in all, BB10 didn't have the features to set it apart while it was missing an ecosystem that was missing at least a little bit of something for almost everybody no matter how small.
    07-29-15 12:59 AM
  6. chopachain's Avatar
    UFO's will always be swamp gas till you see one for yourself. You cant change peoples perception.
    07-29-15 01:11 AM
  7. sentimentGX4's Avatar
    but what happens when a significantly better solution is somewhat less in highly visible but somewhat superfluous metrics?
    What superfluous metrics? Apps? Style? Coolness?

    You know it isn't as easy to be "cool" as Crackberry makes it out to be. Aside from a big advertising budget, Apple developed it reputation through years of above the curve hardware design (Macs, iPod, Macbooks, iPhone, etc.) as well as being first to the market.

    Samsung and Microsoft aren't "cool" despite spending tons of advertising dollars and being as "cool" as Apple is difficult to replicate in other industries as well.
    07-29-15 02:31 AM
  8. grahamf's Avatar
    What superfluous metrics? Apps? Style? Coolness?
    Camera megapixels, for one. the ultra high def screens for another (look at the OnePlus Two as an example)
    07-29-15 03:07 AM
  9. sentimentGX4's Avatar
    Camera megapixels, for one. the ultra high def screens for another (look at the OnePlus Two as an example)
    While those metrics themselves are not so meaningful, it would be difficult to argue that BBRY devices have better cameras or displays than most competitors.
    kbz1960 likes this.
    07-29-15 04:08 AM
  10. sahilp17's Avatar
    Just stop, why are you implying the rhetoric that those who don't choose BB10 are either uneducated, uninformed, indifferent, or ignorant? This is really just so petty
    07-29-15 08:13 AM
  11. Troy Tiscareno's Avatar
    Just stop, why are you implying the rhetoric that those who don't choose BB10 are either uneducated, uninformed, indifferent, or ignorant? This is really just so petty
    Exactly. He's using fancier words to call mass consumers "sheep", as if that hasn't been done enough times here. And none of those same people will ever answer the question as to whether those exact same consumers were sheep back in 2006 when they were buying BBs.

    Are BB10 phones competitive in the following areas?

    Apps? No.
    Services? No
    Third-Party Integrated Hardware? (smartwatches, fitness bands, car stereo integration, etc.)? No.
    Cameras? No
    Screens? No
    SoCs? No
    Availability? No.
    Reputation? No.
    Price? No.
    Post-sale Customer Service? No.

    Security? Yes
    Storage? Yes
    Quality OS? Yes


    Notice that I'm giving the OS itself credit for being competitive - it is; there's nothing inherently wrong with BB10 itself. But while the OP wants to convince himself that most consumers are too stupid to make a good decision, looking at the list above, it seems that they're pretty smart about their decisions to me.

    Instead of blaming consumers, put the blame where it belongs: BlackBerry. BB, specifically Mike, is the one who made a very long series of decisions that resulted in their products not being competitive in 10+ important areas of the market. BB was in a better position than any of the top smartphone companies today, but the blew it with their lack of vision and direction. Consumers didn't abandon BB until after BB abandoned the consumer.
    07-29-15 09:49 AM
  12. KNEBB's Avatar
    II think Consumer Culture and Education has a lot of influence and impact, especially when controlling your company narrative.

    Take Smartphones, originally designed as a mobile phone that incorporates PDA functionality. But it was through the Consumer Culture that Photo Quality became more important a many cases than dropped calls. Devices that had the practice of dropping calls were given a pass, because of a superior secondary functionality. So much so, that the primary functionality became a secondary concern.

    So companies stop advertising call and messaging functionality and advertisement began to educate the consumers on picture quality, which companies then began shaping their narrative around. And then Consumer Culture began to adapt that functionality as one of the primary reasons to purchase a Smartphone.

    So in the transverse , ignoring the power of educating the consumer on the advantages of your functional superiority (no matter what it is) will leave your product to be defined and compared to the functional superiority of a competitor, and then they will control your narrative.

    Posted via CB10
    Last edited by KNEBB; 07-29-15 at 11:45 AM.
    TgeekB likes this.
    07-29-15 09:57 AM
  13. GadgetTravel's Avatar
    but what happens when a significantly better solution is somewhat less in highly visible but somewhat superfluous metrics?
    The problem is that you are assuming that certain metrics are superfluous to everyone because they are superfluous to you. That simply is often untrue.

    My main phone, from work, is an iPhone 6. I have a personal line on which I have used a couple different Android phones and a Q10 over recent years. I have used Blackberries since before they were phones (RIM 950 was my first) and kept trying to use the Q10 because I like the PKB but I gave up on it recently and bought a Nexus 6.

    There two related but subtly different issues I found with the Q10. I know some people here view them as superfluous but to me they were total deal breakers for BB and that won't change. I use my phone as a smartphone more than a phone. I manage my tasks, and even people who work for me using software accessed from my phone. The software I use is cross device on iOS and usually available in Android as well. I sometimes travel a lot, although not at the moment, and I use my phone as a travel aid; the software on my phone. Basically BB can't do much if any of this. The inability to do much with travel is in itself a non starter, at least if I only had one phone. Plus many, many specific organizations and businesses have iOS and Android specific apps that are incredibly useful and aren't on BB.

    Related, is the fact that I started doing this with like the iPhone 3. So over the years, while BB was dithering away on developing a response to the iPhone, I was building workflows with iOS. How notes I take (especially when traveling) get to my assistant for action and filing and how she gets information to me for instance. That creates a tremendous inertia in terms of change. What does BB offer that would make me put in the effort to rebuild those workflows. The answer is more of or less nothing in my opinion.

    So with my usage demands basically I came to view my Q10 as a high end dumb phone, with a compact size, good call quality, good battery life and the ability to do email about as well as my iPhone. But that doesn't really help BB much with most potential users.
    07-29-15 10:08 AM
  14. 21stNow's Avatar
    You're making this harder than you have to. People make decisions that make them happy. The criteria that they weigh to make their decisions may be different from yours, and the final decision may be different from yours. Since there have been two people in the world, people have been different and people will continue to be different.

    Rather than find it distressing, I try to appreciate the differences in people around me whether it is a different educational level, daily choices or anything else. As long as those differences don't cause me bodily harm (directly or indirectly), I just try to enjoy life instead of worrying why they made their choices.
    GadgetTravel, TGR1, TgeekB and 4 others like this.
    07-29-15 10:35 AM
  15. asherN's Avatar
    Sorry OP, but you come off as a condescending jerk. Your first couple o run on sentences can be summed up with "I'm super smart and I pity the plebes that are not". And BTW, punctuation and paragraphs are your friends.

    Do people make decisions based on information gathered from their friends? Of course they do. It's called relying on experience. If I'm looking at a $50 coffee maker, I'll ask my friends how well theirs perform. You bet I'll also do that for a $700 dollar phone.
    DrBoomBotz, TGR1, MikeX74 and 2 others like this.
    07-29-15 11:38 AM
  16. sahilp17's Avatar
    Sorry OP, but you come off as a condescending jerk. Your first couple o run on sentences can be summed up with "I'm super smart and I pity the plebes that are not". And BTW, punctuation and paragraphs are your friends.

    Do people make decisions based on information gathered from their friends? Of course they do. It's called relying on experience. If I'm looking at a $50 coffee maker, I'll ask my friends how well theirs perform. You bet I'll also do that for a $700 dollar phone.
    Look at a post above from Troy, that guy summed it up perfectly. OP simply constructed a sophisticated way of saying "Choosing BB10 is a reflection of being informed, non-ignorance, and educated, meanwhile choosing the others is a reflection of being uninformed, incapable of making ones own decisions" you get the point.

    Sometimes I hope blackberry fails just so SOME people here will be upset. But then I realize it's wrong to wish this because not everybody here thinks of themselves as prophet of technology and not everybody is making it a goal to "open the eyes" of others
    07-29-15 11:46 AM
  17. sahilp17's Avatar
    Hey OP, your very right, I think I should stop telling people about how great Os10. You know.. Because we don't want to try and influence their decision. Everybody from now on, don't wave around and preach about blackberry 10, we need to let people discover it all by themselves so they can make their own decisions
    asherN likes this.
    07-29-15 11:50 AM
  18. TheBirdDog's Avatar
    OP, it really just sounds like you ate some fancy mushrooms.

    No, ...but seriously - can you hook a brother up?

    I'm kidding of course [unless you're nearby and you'd be happy to oblige... ] , but you sound like you really are using more fanciful words to describe what is somewhat common sentiment around here. BlackBerry10 is way better than people know and the mass consumer market have no idea. Well, duh!

    If you are just having this realization for the first time, then welcome to the world of the enlightened! :P However, it doesn't really solve anything. Educating consumers is more akin to brain-washing than to higher learning. And BlackBerry have neither the finances nor the shiny gimmicks on their phones to do this.

    I suppose the only hope that we have is that perhaps the Slider has enough moving parts to attract enough 'monkey-sea-doo-ers' that BlackBerry might get a boost in sales. Otherwise, we will be forever doomed to micro-niche status.
    HereticHermit likes this.
    07-29-15 12:08 PM
  19. grahamf's Avatar
    Just stop, why are you implying the rhetoric that those who don't choose BB10 are either uneducated, uninformed, indifferent, or ignorant? This is really just so petty
    Not really. The origins of my post was from people being convinced that Blackberry moving to Android would magically give them big profits, despite the information clearly stating that it would be suicidial (Only android manufacturer making a notable profit is Samsung - presumably to massive marketing campaign and economies of scale, Consumers trained to expect Google Play while a BB Android cannot include it without gutting current products, BB10 technically already being a "Hypervisor container hardened secure Blackberry special Android OS", etc). People choosing other platforms based on personal criteria is pretty debatable, but pushing opinions on others without a decent understanding about how it will play out is potentially quite dangerous (such as Dr. OZ recently claiming that he never claimed to be a Dr, since the word "Dr" in his logo is really small.)
    07-29-15 02:54 PM
  20. Dunt Dunt Dunt's Avatar
    Not really. The origins of my post was from people being convinced that Blackberry moving to Android would magically give them big profits, despite the information clearly stating that it would be suicidial (Only android manufacturer making a notable profit is Samsung - presumably to massive marketing campaign and economies of scale, Consumers trained to expect Google Play while a BB Android cannot include it without gutting current products, BB10 technically already being a "Hypervisor container hardened secure Blackberry special Android OS", etc). People choosing other platforms based on personal criteria is pretty debatable, but pushing opinions on others without a decent understanding about how it will play out is potentially quite dangerous (such as Dr. OZ recently claiming that he never claimed to be a Dr, since the word "Dr" in his logo is really small.)
    Sounds like you are on a slippery slope yourself.....

    I agree that most likely Android will not be a "win" for BlackBerry. Just a step to an all Software based company.

    Personally I don't see how they can not make the switch, as BB10 is not getting the job done. Doesn't matter how secure it is or how powerful it is... what it isn't selling. And I doubt yet another form factor that the market has already abandoned is going to change that. But that said I don't see how Android is going to be secured without BES... and that would remove it from most all consumers and even most fans idea of a "perfect" smartphone. While BES Cloud isn't expensive.. it is an extra cost and requires some technical setup.... with no consumer benefit like cloud storage or backup.

    So to be honest, we are all just arguing about nothing... as that is most likely where things will be a year from now. BB10 will be right where the PlayBook is, and Android will be an Enterprise only OS for BlackBerry. One that really doesn't even require BlackBerry to be involved in the hardware.
    07-29-15 03:30 PM
  21. TGR1's Avatar
    People choosing other platforms based on personal criteria is pretty debatable,
    Wut? What other criteria can I use for something *I* intend to use, for *my* personal needs and wants?
    07-29-15 03:45 PM
  22. sahilp17's Avatar
    People choosing other platforms based on personal criteria is pretty debatable, but pushing opinions on others without a decent understanding about how it will play out is potentially quite dangerous
    There it is again..

    Posted via CB10
    07-29-15 03:56 PM
  23. RH1Pearl's Avatar
    Camera megapixels, for one. the ultra high def screens for another (look at the OnePlus Two as an example)
    Everything is superfluous to a Caveman
    07-29-15 04:54 PM
  24. z10Jobe's Avatar
    Exactly. He's using fancier words to call mass consumers "sheep", as if that hasn't been done enough times here. And none of those same people will ever answer the question as to whether those exact same consumers were sheep back in 2006 when they were buying BBs.

    Are BB10 phones competitive in the following areas?

    Apps? No.
    Services? No
    Third-Party Integrated Hardware? (smartwatches, fitness bands, car stereo integration, etc.)? No.
    Cameras? No
    Screens? No
    SoCs? No
    Availability? No.
    Reputation? No.
    Price? No.
    Post-sale Customer Service? No.

    Security? Yes
    Storage? Yes
    Quality OS? Yes


    Notice that I'm giving the OS itself credit for being competitive - it is; there's nothing inherently wrong with BB10 itself. But while the OP wants to convince himself that most consumers are too stupid to make a good decision, looking at the list above, it seems that they're pretty smart about their decisions to me.

    Instead of blaming consumers, put the blame where it belongs: BlackBerry. BB, specifically Mike, is the one who made a very long series of decisions that resulted in their products not being competitive in 10+ important areas of the market. BB was in a better position than any of the top smartphone companies today, but the blew it with their lack of vision and direction. Consumers didn't abandon BB until after BB abandoned the consumer.
    Overall a very fair post (although I would argue the cost criteria given the low prices I paid for all my BlackBerry phones - just don't buy at launch), however, in a way you, a very knowledgeable smart phone guy, have inadvertently partially proven the OP's point ( the point I think he was trying to make anyways) by missing the most important core criteria of a cell phone - Communication Device - an area BlackBerry excels in.

    Connectivity to yer smart wearables is all fine and dandy as well as having a million apps, but if yer phone continuously needs recharging, drops calls, screens cracks, and the keyboard sucks, at some point you have to ask if market forces dictate sales and retention or is it individual thought. If the market had nothing but individual thinkers, what is the need for uber high marketing budgets, and blatant product placements in movies, etc.

    And if I missed the point that the OP was trying to relay, I apologise.

    Posted via CB10
    acovey likes this.
    07-29-15 05:17 PM
  25. GadgetTravel's Avatar
    Overall a very fair post (although I would argue the cost criteria given the low prices I paid for all my BlackBerry phones - just don't buy at launch), however, in a way you, a very knowledgeable smart phone guy, have inadvertently partially proven the OP's point ( the point I think he was trying to make anyways) by missing the most important core criteria of a cell phone - Communication Device - an area BlackBerry excels in.

    Connectivity to yer smart wearables is all fine and dandy as well as having a million apps, but if yer phone continuously needs recharging, drops calls, screens cracks, and the keyboard sucks, at some point you have to ask if market forces dictate sales and retention or is it individual thought. If the market had nothing but individual thinkers, what is the need for uber high marketing budgets, and blatant product placements in movies, etc.

    And if I missed the point that the OP was trying to relay, I apologise.

    Posted via CB10
    The problem with this is that with the exception of battery life, which isn't that big of a difference none of things represent the competition. I ran over my iPhone 5, in a thin leather sleeve with a mid size car and when I took it out of the case it was still working. The screen was partially dislodged from the case on one side and I pushed it back. It lost some pixels but I used it for a while before upgrading. I had another iPhone i dropped on concrete and damaged it. apple replaced it for free. A key fell off my Q10 and I was told by verizon that BB would not let them replace it because keys falling off were defined as due to abuse. I couldn't even figure out how to contact BB directly. Apple has orders of magnitude better customer service I my experience (and lots of other people's) than BB. Fortunately I bought from Amazon and they replaced it (it was couple weeks old). None of my other phones drops calls or anything else like that more than my Q10 did. And things like swype keyboard on Android and iOS are great. Sorry, none of those differences are real, except a slight difference with some phones in battery life and in fact the competitors probably have a big advantage over BB in most of them.
    21stNow, Bbnivende and ljfong like this.
    07-29-15 06:09 PM
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