1. S1lv1o's Avatar
    So I reread an article about web apps and came out thinking: a stable and secure OS could be an advantage if all we needed was a browser instead of a lot of different apps. And devices like the Passport or Classic with a keyboard that's actually useful could be the icing on the cake.

    For devs the advantage is having to develop on a single platform instead of iOS, android, Windaz, OS X etc etc. A further advantage is not depending on a single platform. What would make this work is finding an advantage for consumers who use phones, computers etc, and companies trying to find a competitive advantage: the supply side isn't enough.

    For what remains of Blackberry it's probably a question of going deep in specific industries, offering clear advantages in terms of usability and security; might be wishful thinking, as this is the opposite of becoming a generalist phone brand that uses Android; but someone else could do it - and buy BB as a ready made platform, the opposite of what Microsoft did with Nokia.

    Any thoughts?
    05-25-16 12:34 PM
  2. PantherBlitz's Avatar
    Who knows what the mobile landscape will look like in five years. Maybe there will be a drift toward web apps. However, the fate of BB10 has already been decided.
    JeepBB likes this.
    05-25-16 12:48 PM
  3. PHughes's Avatar
    What could save BB10? Dumping Android development and actually developing for their own OS. Oh, and maybe a little marketing so people know that it exists. Just last night I had someone tell me I needed to get a newer phone. My Passport was newer than their Android phone, has more RAM, etc. It just doesn't have a company behind it that will actually market and develop. Now that they are working on Android phones, a developer won't touch it.
    vpblaze likes this.
    05-25-16 12:54 PM
  4. Ment's Avatar
    HTML needs alot of work to support features in apps like biometric payment authentication for instance so web apps won't be dominant and new features come into HTML at a dinosaur slow pace another reason its shunned by devs that want the best. Probably IOS will join Google in the Instant App world also further reducing the need to rely on HTML standards to do things on smartphones.
    05-25-16 12:55 PM
  5. Soulstream's Avatar
    I will believe HTML5 is the magic bullet when BB themselves will develop BBM in HTML5 and will work on all platform.
    05-25-16 01:30 PM
  6. app_Developer's Avatar
    HTML needs alot of work to support features in apps like biometric payment authentication for instance so web apps won't be dominant and new features come into HTML at a dinosaur slow pace another reason its shunned by devs that want the best. Probably IOS will join Google in the Instant App world also further reducing the need to rely on HTML standards to do things on smartphones.
    That's a structural lag, isn't it? New capabilities/sensors/integrations get added to a phone, then supported by the OS. Then only after they become common are these added to the browsers.

    Add to that the security advantages of native apps vs. webapps. And the speed/energy efficiencies of native code vs javascript. Plus the fact that developers like having access to latest features without waiting for them to be incorporated into some standard.

    HTML does offer write once, run everywhere (which in practice is more write once, debug everywhere!), but it comes at the cost of being the lowest common denominator platform. Writing once isn't such a huge advantage anyway in a world where we only need to make 2 apps to reach 99% of the smartphone world.
    JeepBB likes this.
    05-25-16 01:33 PM
  7. Ment's Avatar
    That's a structural lag, isn't it? New capabilities/sensors/integrations get added to a phone, then supported by the OS. Then only after they become common are these added to the browsers.

    Add to that the security advantages of native apps vs. webapps. And the speed/energy efficiencies of native code vs javascript. Plus the fact that developers like having access to latest features without waiting for them to be incorporated into some standard.

    HTML does offer write once, run everywhere (which in practice is more write once, debug everywhere!), but it comes at the cost of being the lowest common denominator platform. Writing once isn't such a huge advantage anyway in a world where we only need to make 2 apps to reach 99% of the smartphone world.
    Yes anytime a set of features is meant to be a universal standard it will always be behind the laboratories in this case apps that extend the user experience with new things. New hardware, then new API and then new apps.
    05-25-16 01:38 PM
  8. Troy Tiscareno's Avatar
    "What could save BB10: web apps?"

    This idea comes up every 2 weeks or so, and like the first 300 or 400 times, the answer to this question is: no.

    Native apps over many advantages over web apps, and that is likely to be the case for the foreseeable future, and as long as that's the case, web apps aren't going to have mass adoption.

    Plus, in order to "save" BB10, they'd have had to have mass adoption several years ago. It's far too late for anything to save BB10 today.
    Ronindan and JeepBB like this.
    05-25-16 07:02 PM
  9. dan7800's Avatar
    +1 troy


    Posted via CB10
    05-25-16 11:26 PM
  10. Richard Buckley's Avatar
    Also if you were at DevCon for the launch of BB10 (or BBX as they called in then) one of the big pushes that started then and was promoted by BlackBerry was the idea of web applications in HTML5. Remember Tiny Hippos? There were some developers that prototyped applications in HTML5 and decided that on BB10 they were fast enough that they didn't need to port them to native. So this idea was tried right at the start and had very little positive affect on the outcome.

    LeapSTR100-2/10.3.2.2876
    The_Passporter likes this.
    05-26-16 03:55 AM
  11. keliew's Avatar
    If the webapp can't utilise it's core, i.e. the Hub, then it's useless. The Hub is really the center piece for BB's communication tool.

    BlackBerry really needs a good base of developers who would just churn out the right apps for the right market/consumers.

    BlackBerry Passport via CB10
    05-27-16 11:57 AM
  12. The_Passporter's Avatar
    Just started a thread on this topic but The more the merrier.

    http://forums.crackberry.com/showthread.php?t=1074940


    Also from the microsoft side there is this good read:

    https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/hh771462.aspx

    Posted via CB10
    05-27-16 12:09 PM
  13. vpblaze's Avatar
    What could save BB10? Dumping Android development and actually developing for their own OS. Oh, and maybe a little marketing so people know that it exists. Just last night I had someone tell me I needed to get a newer phone. My Passport was newer than their Android phone, has more RAM, etc. It just doesn't have a company behind it that will actually market and develop. Now that they are working on Android phones, a developer won't touch it.
    This right here sums up BlackBerry in a single paragraph!
    The majority of the complaints I hear from people about iOS and Android could be solved with BB10. If people only understood what they are missing out on, BlackBerry would be in a better situation.
    People are ignorant and oblivious. They need to be informed and told. BlackBerry failed and even still fails to do that. There are so many miss opportunities.

    Doesn't get Classier then posting from a Classic!
    PHughes likes this.
    05-27-16 03:12 PM
  14. Soulstream's Avatar
    This right here sums up BlackBerry in a single paragraph!
    The majority of the complaints I hear from people about iOS and Android could be solved with BB10. If people only understood what they are missing out on, BlackBerry would be in a better situation.
    People are ignorant and oblivious. They need to be informed and told. BlackBerry failed and even still fails to do that. There are so many miss opportunities.

    Doesn't get Classier then posting from a Classic!
    The problem is that when people complain about iOS (expensive, walled garden), they usually go to Android. When people complain about Android (fragmentation, inconsistent user experience) they usually go to iOS. There is a very small subset of people who actually dislike both that much. And even then BB is not their first option, Windows 10 phones are.
    PHughes and JeepBB like this.
    05-27-16 04:13 PM
  15. Richard Buckley's Avatar
    Web applications are the way to go if the following conditions are true:

    - the majority of the data storage and / or processing is going to happen on the server (eg Google apps)
    - there is a high bandwidth, low latency and low cost network connection between where the application is running and the back end. Even LTE doesn't meet these criteria in most cases. It can have high short term bandwidth under ideal conditions, but doesn't really support sustained long periods. Latency and cost are still issues in most areas.
    - the application platform has the resources (computing speed, electrical power and memory) to support the application. Again Google apps is a good example. You can use it from a phone. I have when the need arises. But it is not an all day every day experience I want to have.

    I write web applications for work, and under the right circumstances it is the right way to deploy a service. But the state of the art is still very far from write once run everywhere. Someone wrote, maybe on this thread, that it is write once debug everywhere. You can use tools like phone gap, but those eat into the criteria I set above. There is also still a big gap between supporting a platform with a classic mouse and keyboard interface and an all touch device.

    And I haven't even touched on the security and privacy ramifications. Even if you get the tab isolation right you are still exposed to the plug in API in most cases.


    LeapSTR100-2/10.3.2.2876
    app_Developer likes this.
    05-28-16 10:43 AM
  16. brookie229's Avatar
    Although this primer on mobile application development options is a year old (April 2015) it may be of use for those of us who do not understand the differences or advantages and disadvantages of the options available to developers. It is a primer written by Salesforce developers and is simplified for people like me! . https://developer.salesforce.com/pag...opment_Options
    05-28-16 10:54 AM
  17. keliew's Avatar
    The QNX is embedded in a plethora of devices. If BB10 was strong enough as a mobile device, it could be the centre piece for other QNX-based devices or software. The possibilities would be endless for real-time and secured access.

    Wasn't the point of a successful mobile device all about apps/connectivity?

    I have no idea what went wrong between BlackBerry and QNX. Surely something went wrong somewhere...



    BlackBerry Passport via CB10
    05-28-16 04:10 PM
  18. Richard Buckley's Avatar
    The QNX is embedded in a plethora of devices. If BB10 was strong enough as a mobile device, it could be the centre piece for other QNX-based devices or software. The possibilities would be endless for real-time and secured access.

    Wasn't the point of a successful mobile device all about apps/connectivity?

    I have no idea what went wrong between BlackBerry and QNX. Surely something went wrong somewhere...



    BlackBerry Passport via CB10
    What makes you think anything "went wrong"? QNX is just as successful now as they were before BlackBerry bought them, if not more. BB10 while not a commercial success is a technical success due in large part to being based on QNX.

    I think you misunderstand the business QNX is in they don't try ti make their OS popular the way Microsoft, Apple and Google do. Many of their customers don't even want the knowledge of which OS powers their products to be public information. What QNX provides is the tools to build a real-time system that might run on tiny embedded devices, to large clusters. One that has the mix of real-time, stability and security that a customer might want. BB10 is just one example. There are many others, all different from one another.

    LeapSTR100-2/10.3.2.2876
    JeepBB likes this.
    05-28-16 05:23 PM
  19. conite's Avatar
    This right here sums up BlackBerry in a single paragraph!
    The majority of the complaints I hear from people about iOS and Android could be solved with BB10. If people only understood what they are missing out on, BlackBerry would be in a better situation.
    People are ignorant and oblivious. They need to be informed and told. BlackBerry failed and even still fails to do that. There are so many miss opportunities.

    Doesn't get Classier then posting from a Classic!
    Microsoft has put to rest the "lack of marketing/advertising" argument.

    They spent orders of magnitude more than BlackBerry could have ever dreamed of spending, and still nothing - 0.7% compared to 0.2%.

    This competition was over by 2011.
    05-28-16 05:28 PM
  20. keliew's Avatar
    What makes you think anything "went wrong"? QNX is just as successful now as they were before BlackBerry bought them, if not more. BB10 while not a commercial success is a technical success due in large part to being based on QNX.

    I think you misunderstand the business QNX is in they don't try ti make their OS popular the way Microsoft, Apple and Google do. Many of their customers don't even want the knowledge of which OS powers their products to be public information. What QNX provides is the tools to build a real-time system that might run on tiny embedded devices, to large clusters. One that has the mix of real-time, stability and security that a customer might want. BB10 is just one example. There are many others, all different from one another.

    LeapSTR100-2/10.3.2.2876
    I didn't mean the QNX. I meant BB10.

    Being in a niche market is fine as long as the market understands and knows it's there.

    If BlackBerry wants to be the Ferrari or a Lamborghini, great! But unfortunately, it hasn't quite reach that stature. It's great that it sponsors F1 and Mercedes (past), so...what happened...?

    BlackBerry Passport via CB10
    05-29-16 05:19 AM
  21. Richard Buckley's Avatar
    I didn't mean the QNX. I meant BB10.

    Being in a niche market is fine as long as the market understands and knows it's there.

    If BlackBerry wants to be the Ferrari or a Lamborghini, great! But unfortunately, it hasn't quite reach that stature. It's great that it sponsors F1 and Mercedes (past), so...what happened...?

    BlackBerry Passport via CB10
    Read Conite's post above yours.

    The niche market is those who won't trust their data to Google or Apple. That market knows all about BlackBerry

    LeapSTR100-2/10.3.2.2876
    05-29-16 06:59 AM
  22. keliew's Avatar
    Let's not kid ourselves.

    BlackBerry Passport via CB10
    05-29-16 05:08 PM
  23. gravesend60's Avatar
    Marketing !!

    Blackberry Passport
    05-30-16 02:17 PM
  24. conite's Avatar
    Marketing !!

    Blackberry Passport
    See post#19.
    05-30-16 02:21 PM
  25. IanThomas's Avatar
    Marketing: in 2011 I joined an organisation that gave me a 9900. I thought that it and OS7 were so good that I bought myself a Porsche 9881. If I thought that the 9900 was good I was blown away by the P9881. I tracked down some oem batteries and another two docks (one came with the phone). I lived on that phone and had the docks set up everywhere. I didn't use my laptop out of the office. The phone and my privately-bought PlayBook covered everything else.

    My IT department though told me that they were looking at OS10 but did not think they would be switching. They did introduce a pilot scheme for higher management to use privately-bought iPhones for office use.

    At the end of 2011 or beginning of 2012 BlackBerry in Hong Kong took over the entire metro rail station in the business district. Every wall was covered by vinyl coverings extolling the virtues of the Z10. However, it was difficult to understand what was so good about OS10. I still went on with the P9881 and OS7. I also still needed the occasional battery pull to sort out the phone.

    I left my organisation. One day I was having problems with a S4BB app. As they live in Hong Kong I went to see them. They helped me out but raved about OS10 and for Z30.

    Eventually I got a Z30 and understood what S4BB had been on about. I have been so impressed with my Z30 that I got two new spares.

    The point of this over-long diatribe is that none of the extensive marketing in Hong Kong made me switch to the latest and greatest (newly-obsolete) BlackBerry phone. I was and am a long-time fan of phone and OS. However it took word of mouth to tell me why I should adopt. For that to happen enough people have to proselytise or the phone has to be the trend of the moment. BlackBerry was the must-have device at one time but then other platforms offered all that BlackBerry could ... and more. BlackBerry simply got left behind.

    Marketing wasn't the problem. Device adaptation was. One theory in the endless VHS/Betamax debate is that it was much easier to get porn on the former.

    I don't subscribe to FB, Twitter, Instagram or any other social media (apart from WA, which I used to talk to co-workers when we were away from the office). I enjoy the benefits that the phone and platform give me. I fully recognise however that I may not be a typical user. I definitely know that the restrictions with which I have no problem mean that Z30/OS10 were never going to be mass-market products. That was true at the peak of OS10 popularity and even more so now.

    Sent from my Z30
    05-31-16 01:30 AM
26 12

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