[15droman]

BlackBerry berry needs to bring back the track pad. Especially for the OS7 community. It was the biggest mistake blackberry made moving forward. If they bring back the track pad and other buttons with the upgraded OS people will comeback. The track pad was never one of the problems with blackberry it wad the OS being outdated. I hope Chem or somebody over there realizes this and bring it back in the next Qwerty device

Posted via CB10

[m1kr0]

I hear you but with BB10 you have the entire screen as a track pad. I can't see BB going back to the past.

Z10 goodness

[MrGlenn]

The trackpad had enough problems. Callibration issues, wear-and-tear, sensitivity.

All the trackpad functions are now easily duplicated by certain 'keypad+swipe' movements on OS10.2+. And it is nowhere near as inaccurate as trackpad fanboys want you to believe, it just takes some getting used to. (BlackBerry should put in a better tutorial for it.)

I think on the smartphone market as it is, bringing a physical trackpad at the cost of screensize is a bad move. Most of the comments are already about the specs war, so do you really think bringing back a trackpad would be any good for the general public?
Their response will probably just be "oh, this device is probably bad at gestures".

For example I frequently hear the phrases:
"My next device will be an octacore."
"Why?"
"It has like 8 processors, so it will be better!"
"But why is that better?"
"Of course it is, duh!"
That is how consumers work nowadays, they do not think about 'ease-of-use' so much as 'mine is bigger than yours'.
_____
On the other hand, maybe the low-end Jakarta will
have a built-in (either hardware, or software) trackpad, to make the upgrade from BBOS to BB10 easier. That seems to me to be the only device that would really benefit from one.


BlackBerry 10 signed.

[anon6040766]

I don't see it hurting BlackBerry 10 to bring out a phone with a track pad, I just don't think they will. BlackBerry 10's are gesture based devices and thus are built to not need track pads, home buttons, etc. If you added the track pad and buttons to the Q10 the screen would be terribly small. If you made a phone begin enough for a qwerty and a track pad, it would be difficult to use gestures. Lastly, an all touch phone with a track pad, just can't wrap my head around that. But hey, who am I? I'm just one guy. If the demand there than BlackBerry should go for it.

Posted via my ridiculous BlackBerry Z30 on VZW from Philly

[Pilot Prop]

I don't see how the TP would do that. If it were that simple, i'm sure BlackBerry would have done it by now....TP is NOT the savior of BlackBerry

Posted via Q10

[vvdon03hcmut]

i really like the gesturing on OS 10...

[R Field]

The 9720 was built for you

BlackBerry Z30 | 10.2.1.1925 | BBM Channel C0006E212

[Meok]

The OS isn't design for a trackpad. Why bring it back if it has nothing to do.

Posted via CB10

[Tatwi]

I agree that the track pad is the superior pointing device when using Web forms, editing and selecting text, and clicking links. I would have preferred the Z10 to trade the top bezel and wasted space for the useful buttons and track pad my Bold had, but nope, it's just wasted space.

[SK122387]

They don't and they won't though.

The OS7 community has plenty of phones to choose from, and are all on their way out.

The trackpad was nice for me on my OS6 and 7 phones, but on BlackBerry 10, it's really not necessary. Would it be nice to have to cut & copy? Sure. But other than that, I don't miss it.

We're lucky to even have real keyboards with BlackBerry 10. To think they'd revert back to their old ways.. not a good thing. Most everyone can now type on a touchscreen, so copying and pasting or whatever else the trackpad was most used for can be done too, just differently.

I used to have a hard time clicking links on websites on the BB10 browser.. now I either double tap to zoom in or pinch to zoom, and press and hold the screen on the link to open in a new tab or just tap it to open right from that window. It takes a little getting used to, but it's not nearly a bad as people make it seem.

[the_real_mikeyb]

No way! Move on! It's all touch now!


Posted via CB10

[jdcfinisher]

The track pad and buttons are a major part of the keypad ,removing them was a mistake. It's one of the things that stopped me from getting the Q10. As soon as I saw the Q10 I knew BlackBerry had half-assed it. I find it strange that some people consider it a step backwards . No track pad, bad screen choice and so many options and settings missing is what turned me off the Q10. I don't think to many people would have passed on the Q10 because of it having a track pad.lots of people my have passed on it for now having one.

Posted via CB10

[BeautyEh]

After having used both a Q and a Bold now...I have to say I that the overall UI and package on OS7 was great. BB10 is fantastic BUT I agree with commenter here to the extent that maybe their high-end QWERTY devices going forward could incorporate some of the missing OS7 aspects. Even just having apps in a drop down screen was nice. There are aspects of the BB10 UI that strongly remind one of iPhone...I would prefer to see BlackBerry really go hardcore and be different. they need to think in terms of their niche.

Posted via CB10

[Bbnivende]

I wish these trackpad posts were limited to Q10 owners. Is a 3.1 inch screen big enough to be totally useful with a trackpad based on your experience ? Z devices are fine without a trackpad but the Q10 's screen is too small. Repeat too small.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using CB Forums mobile app

[TommyBB]

Ya, that's what we need...to go backwards in time.

And to all the BB7 users...thanks for nothing. There's i users that just buy the next model to say they have the next model. In our case, we have a legitimate and vastly superior OS compared to its predecessor. Why someone would stick with an inferior product is beyond me. BB10 doesn't need a frigging trackpad. We need more people to adopt this seriously awesome OS and spread the word!


Posted on CB10 from my badass VZW Z30!

[Bishkin]

Blackberry does not know what kind of devices they want to make any more. Doing away with the track pad and coming up with a Z10 is simply telling those with OS7 that iPhone and Android are options also available to them ....

[badiyee]

BlackBerry berry needs to bring back the track pad. Especially for the OS7 community. It was the biggest mistake blackberry made moving forward. If they bring back the track pad and other buttons with the upgraded OS people will comeback. The track pad was never one of the problems with blackberry it wad the OS being outdated. I hope Chem or somebody over there realizes this and bring it back in the next Qwerty device

Posted via CB10

I disagree with needing a physical trackpad like the ones found on BBOS6 and OS7 devices.

The idea with a trackpad back then was that people could navigate, and click easier with precision. It certainly did helped when people tried to use it with text selection. It was accurate and very useful.


However, I still think that the screen itself is a gigantic trackpad. The point to solve however, is not adding a physical trackpad. I still think that the engineering team need to fine tune the "selection tool", so that its accurate, and knows exactly what the users want to touch. The precision of the digitizer isn't on par with the likes of Wacom, or Sharp based digitizers, or even the likes of Samsung, but I think once that is solved, the need for a trackpad goes away as well.

If Apple, by rumours reinstalls the trackpad, then probably BlackBerry may scramble out of reaction to re-instate a trackpad, but otherwise I don't think the company is going to be doing any better in terms of hardware sells by a trackpad.

[Bbnivende]

I disagree with needing a physical trackpad like the ones found on BBOS6 and OS7 devices.

The idea with a trackpad back then was that people could navigate, and click easier with precision. It certainly did helped when people tried to use it with text selection. It was accurate and very useful.


However, I still think that the screen itself is a gigantic trackpad. The point to solve however, is not adding a physical trackpad. I still think that the engineering team need to fine tune the "selection tool", so that its accurate, and knows exactly what the users want to touch. The precision of the digitizer isn't on par with the likes of Wacom, or Sharp based digitizers, or even the likes of Samsung, but I think once that is solved, the need for a trackpad goes away as well.

If Apple, by rumours reinstalls the trackpad, then probably BlackBerry may scramble out of reaction to re-instate a trackpad, but otherwise I don't think the company is going to be doing any better in terms of hardware sells by a trackpad.

Is a 3.1 inch gigantic touch screen better than that tiny 2.8 inch trackpad assisted Bold touch screen ?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using CB Forums mobile app

[Davidro1]

...need to fine tune the "selection tool", so that its accurate, and knows exactly what the users want to touch. The precision of the digitizer isn't on par .... once that is solved, the need for a trackpad goes away as well....

I agree. I've never touched a track pad. But, I see people using track pads and they are able to navigate letter by letter and line by line.

[dkonigs]

As a developer, who has spent a lot of time pulling his hair out over all the obscure issues caused by having to deal with moving focus between bits of the UI to handle the trackpad (and touchscreens) on BBOS, all I can say is:

THANK GOODNESS ITS GONE, PLEASE NEVER BRING IT BACK!

That being said, actually trying to bring it back would be majorly disruptive on everyone writing apps for the platform. Doing so would not only add additional states to every interactive UI component, it would also require managing focus movement between them in nitpicky and app specific ways. Oh, and all of this is completely foreign to users and designers familiar with other modern platforms that don't have these concepts.

Posted via CB10

[sigint99]

The trackpad is still the most efficient and accurate way to navigate on a smartphone and more importantly, *to get work done*. The majority of full touchphones and hybrids i've used are just souped-up toys for social networking morons. They actually *hinder* productivity and slow down one's efficiency.

I say offer the trackpad as an option for those that don't subscribe to the BS flimsiness and hype of full touch.

[Bishkin]

A Blackberry without a physical keypad is an Android ....

[Tatwi]

Cry me a river. If a platform is too hard to program for, do something else. Imagine where the pc industry would be today had the first bios writers taken that attitude. "Ah, Uncle Owen, I don't want to write in assembly language!"... For those that don't know, there wouldn't have been Windows or Linux pcs had IBM's bios not been reverse engineered by folks willing to do hard things because the end result was worth the effort.

3.5 years with a BlackBerry track pad and never any trouble with it on two devices. It and the other buttons were very fast for navigating the OS and the Internet , while delivering the most productive work flow in a mobile device - no BS, no searching, just thumb to where you got **** done. If BlackBerry doesn't go back to that, then they have no understanding of their own success.

Sometimes we should do things because they are hard, so I have heard.

[app_Developer]

As a developer, who has spent a lot of time pulling his hair out over all the obscure issues caused by having to deal with moving focus between bits of the UI to handle the trackpad (and touchscreens) on BBOS, all I can say is:

THANK GOODNESS ITS GONE, PLEASE NEVER BRING IT BACK!

That being said, actually trying to bring it back would be majorly disruptive on everyone writing apps for the platform. Doing so would not only add additional states to every interactive UI component, it would also require managing focus movement between them in nitpicky and app specific ways. Oh, and all of this is completely foreign to users and designers familiar with other modern platforms that don't have these concepts.

Would it necessarily cause major complications for developers if BB actually implemented it correctly? If a text field is in focus, then it should be pretty transparent. If a text field isn't in focus, couldn't they just use the trackpad to cycle/move between UI elements the same way Apple does with its Accessibility feature? Or if you've played around with Apple's head gestures, it could work like that, couldn't it?

[app_Developer]

Cry me a river. If a platform is too hard to program for, do something else. Imagine where the pc industry would be today had the first bios writers taken that attitude. "Ah, Uncle Owen, I don't want to write in assembly language!"... For those that don't know, there wouldn't have been Windows or Linux pcs had IBM's bios not been reverse engineered by folks willing to do hard things because the end result was worth the effort.

.

I think that was his point. Most mobile developers already are doing something else, which is develop for Android and iOS, and increasingly WP8. BlackBerry isn't in the position to increase developer effort further, unless they intend this ecosystem to be apps built only by people with some prior emotional investment in BlackBerry.

Having said that, if BB made a BB10 phone with keyboard and trackpad, I would seriously consider buying that! Either the 5S or the Nexus 5 might get kicked out of the pocket or bag to make room for that. Seriously.