[anon(10562251)]

They are blaming Google. I blame Google. All the other developers who are also affected by this are blaming Google.

How many times does it have to be explained to you that BlackBerry isn't the only developer affected. What about all of them? Their fault too?

Good God man, what the heck else do you need? You are just arguing just for the sake of arguing.

You obviously see no fault in BlackBerry falling behind and finding convenient excuses for doing so. That's your prerogative. It doesn't mean I'm arguing for the sake of arguing. It's simply a difference of opinion.

And no, I don't find BlackBerry's excuses satisfactory. Nor those of the myriad of other developers affected by these changes, particularly those who used to snoop on people's text messages and call logs without proper authorization, thanks to Google's loopholes. Interesting how BlackBerry, with an alleged interest in privacy on Android, was also exploiting such lax policies. You would think the proper thing for a company of their calibre would have been to develop their own SMS and Dialer apps in Android from the get go. Apparently not.

[Chuck Finley69]

You obviously see no fault in BlackBerry falling behind and finding convenient excuses for doing so. That's your prerogative. It doesn't mean I'm arguing for the sake of arguing. It's simply a difference of opinion.

And no, I don't find BlackBerry's excuses satisfactory. Nor those of the myriad of other developers affected by these changes, particularly those who used to snoop on people's text messages and call logs without proper authorization, thanks to Google's loopholes. Interesting how BlackBerry, with an alleged interest in privacy on Android, was also exploiting such lax policies. You would think the proper thing for a company of their calibre would have been to develop their own SMS and Dialer apps in Android from the get go. Apparently not.

How do you pay for it and all the myriad of carrier requirements for certification? Just look at KEYone and Key2 certifications on VZW and the other carriers. The problems are right there in front of you regarding wasted resources for real updates, let alone something less important and more beyond BB control.

[conite]

particularly those who used to snoop on people's text messages and call logs without proper authorization.

What "snoops" on your SMS messages (or ever did) that you didn't grant the permission to do so? Answer: nothing ever.

[anon(10562251)]

Who cares? It’s higher ROI than any idea you’re proposing. LMAO will still be me. Heck, I’m sure the blind man alongside me too...

For me, caring is not just a reason to speak up, it's the only reason. For people who don't care, on the other hand, I'm not sure what their motivation is.

[Chuck Finley69]

For me, caring is not just a reason to speak up, it's the only reason. For people who don't care, on the other hand, I'm not sure what their motivation is.

So you’re caring BB doesn’t want to waste the resources and lose money and I care about wasting resources and profits as whole. Chen has responsibilities not to waste shareholder money... it’s just business.

[conite]

For me, caring is not just a reason to speak up, it's the only reason. For people who don't care, on the other hand, I'm not sure what their motivation is.

Well, if you care, you have to let BlackBerry make sound financial decisions, and not get stuck burying themselves like they did with the BB10 fiasco.

If spending millions and millions on an SMS client team (and as a consequence having us wait far longer between suite bug fix update cycles) only gains a net few thousand subscriptions, what is the point of that?

And, please refer to my post#48 if you missed it.

[joeldf]

You obviously see no fault in BlackBerry falling behind and finding convenient excuses for doing so. That's your prerogative. It doesn't mean I'm arguing for the sake of arguing. It's simply a difference of opinion.

And no, I don't find BlackBerry's excuses satisfactory. Nor those of the myriad of other developers affected by these changes, particularly those who used to snoop on people's text messages and call logs without proper authorization, thanks to Google's loopholes. Interesting how BlackBerry, with an alleged interest in privacy on Android, was also exploiting such lax policies. You would think the proper thing for a company of their calibre would have been to develop their own SMS and Dialer apps in Android from the get go. Apparently not.

That is where you are absolutely wrong. It's not an excuse. It's not an opinion. It's a fact of doing business in a Google world.

You go and tell Google how they should do things and see how far you get.

[anon(10562251)]

You go in tell Google how they should do things and see how far you get.

That's exactly what BlackBerry already did. Apparently it didn't end well. Go figure.

If they are going to protect what meagre piece of the market they are attempting to carve out for themselves, they need to plan ahead - not play catch up. They are setting themselves up for failure. Less subs will mean less profit. Lower profits will lead to less investment and development. Etc etc.

Anyway, I'm not going to say anything else about it. People are taking this as beating up on BlackBerry but that's not what I'm doing. There are also some positives about the new suite. I would like to see them update the whole thing. Not good (or fair) to only focus on the negatives.

I hope we don't see another drop in service like this, though. If anything I hope what is written here by me and others will inspire BlackBerry to do better, and do more to support their Android developers.

[SkinnerVic]

That's exactly what BlackBerry already did. Apparently it didn't end well. Go figure.

Correct, my assessment is based on results - not effort. We'll call it a fail, but I'll expand more below...

If they are going to protect what meager piece of the market they are attempting to carve out for themselves, they need to plan ahead - not play catch up. They are setting themselves up for failure. Less subs will mean less profit. Lower profits will lead to less investment and development. Etc etc.

Anyway, I'm not going to say anything else about it. People are taking this as beating up on BlackBerry but that's not what I'm doing. There are also some positives about the new suite. I would like to see them update the whole thing. Not good (or fair) to only focus on the negatives.

I hope we don't see another drop in service like this, though. If anything I hope what is written here by me and others will inspire BlackBerry to do better, and do more to support their Android developers.

Don't let the apologist fanbois get you down. Denial isn't just a river in Egypt. They will finally have to come to terms that BB (whatever semantic games some want to play whether TCL, etc is immaterial) had this endgame in mind for awhile and here's how I get there:

"Past" business model:
Made High quality handsets
Excellent OS (QNX), security and UX
Software predicated on encapsulating Call, Sms, Email, and Notifications

"Present" Day business model:
High quality handsets -> Doesn't make hardware - license name to junk mfg
Excellent OS (QNX), security and UX -> Abdicated OS to another vendor, subject to their rules, spying (not secure)
Software predicated on encapsulating Call, Sms, Email, and Notifications -> Well, we're down to just two (and just one if you consider some apps not giving notifications, etc)...

When you look at it like this was a long-term planned divestment from a corporate ROI standpoint, it all makes sense. This is not chance - go look at BB's homepage, it's now all about secure offerings (corp software, mgmt, licensing, QNX, etc). It's where they wanted to go all along and their doing OK with that strategy. I'm not holding it against them at all. Just lamenting losing something I loved in the process.

Like I said earlier, the writing was on the wall with the Priv. I'm just happy I could use it and the Hub for long as I did. I've used so many weird devices (Palm Pre, iPaq, Win Mobile, etc) over the years and been burned by them folding - BB10 was the best, head and shoulders above even with it's issues, with the longest run I've enjoyed. Probably why accepting the reality stings a bit more, and is why I completely understand the vitrol you're on the receiving end of.

In short, there's no "inspiring BB to do better" here. I call it "abdicated obsolescence" and it's not a bug (of whatever excuse-du-jour) - it's THE PLAN. There's no other logical conclusion here. At any time they could have stopped this s^&tshow by charting a course that didn't execute any of the outcomes I cite above (obviously at the peril of ROI, etc. - I'm well aware of all the reasoning thrown around here, I've been in the Comp/Sofware industry near 30 years).

I've been down this road before with technology vendors moving on (phones, SAN, etc.) We're in the death throes of this process, and I'm sure there will be some (very few) fanbois that will still be around conflating movement of the corpse (like a security update or bug patch) as BB is "turning it around." They need to embrace the Kübler-Ross model. I'm somewhere between 4-5 right now.

Hence I came here on this very thread, looking to keep the dream going a little longer with Hub for iOS. But alas, I search elsewhere now.

[conite]

Correct, my assessment is based on results - not effort. We'll call it a fail, but I'll expand more below...



Don't let the apologist fanbois get you down. Denial isn't just a river in Egypt. They will finally have to come to terms that BB (whatever semantic games some want to play whether TCL, etc is immaterial) had this endgame in mind for awhile and here's how I get there:

"Past" business model:
Made High quality handsets
Excellent OS (QNX), security and UX
Software predicated on encapsulating Call, Sms, Email, and Notifications

"Present" Day business model:
High quality handsets -> Doesn't make hardware - license name to junk mfg
Excellent OS (QNX), security and UX -> Abdicated OS to another vendor, subject to their rules, spying (not secure)
Software predicated on encapsulating Call, Sms, Email, and Notifications -> Well, we're down to just two (and just one if you consider some apps not giving notifications, etc)...

When you look at it like this was a long-term planned divestment from a corporate ROI standpoint, it all makes sense. This is not chance - go look at BB's homepage, it's now all about secure offerings (corp software, mgmt, licensing, QNX, etc). It's where they wanted to go all along and their doing OK with that strategy. I'm not holding it against them at all. Just lamenting losing something I loved in the process.

Like I said earlier, the writing was on the wall with the Priv. I'm just happy I could use it and the Hub for long as I did. I've used so many weird devices (Palm Pre, iPaq, Win Mobile, etc) over the years and been burned by them folding - BB10 was the best, head and shoulders above even with it's issues, with the longest run I've enjoyed. Probably why accepting the reality stings a bit more, and is why I completely understand the vitrol you're on the receiving end of.

In short, there's no "inspiring BB to do better" here. I call it "abdicated obsolescence" and it's not a bug (of whatever excuse-du-jour) - it's THE PLAN. There's no other logical conclusion here. At any time they could have stopped this s^&tshow by charting a course that didn't execute any of the outcomes I cite above (obviously at the peril of ROI, etc. - I'm well aware of all the reasoning thrown around here, I've been in the Comp/Sofware industry near 30 years).

I've been down this road before with technology vendors moving on (phones, SAN, etc.) We're in the death throes of this process, and I'm sure there will be some (very few) fanbois that will still be around conflating movement of the corpse (like a security update or bug patch) as BB is "turning it around." They need to embrace the Kübler-Ross model. I'm somewhere between 4-5 right now.

Hence I came here on this very thread, looking to keep the dream going a little longer with Hub for iOS. But alas, I search elsewhere now.

I'm not even sure what point you are trying to make. If it's just a history lesson, then here is mine:

We know that after the unmitigated disaster of BB10 almost bankrupted the company and forced them to put it up for sale in Sep of 2013, they had to change course when they could find no interested buyers.

Immediately they shifted to enterprise software (now called securing endpoints), and simply wound down BB10 while burning through a couple of years worth of supplier commitments.

They gave hardware one last hail mary with a low-cost, low-risk attempt at securing Android. We know the results, but at least they created a licenceable product and a future income stream.

The alternative to BlackBerry Android is NOT BB10 - it is NOTHING.

BBMo is making as good or better a hardware product than BlackBerry ever had commissioned on its own. Foxconn, Wistron, TCL - it's all the same.

We had squeaky, hot, clicky Privs, we had double-typing, lost network, screen lift Passports, we had double-typing Q10s, we had rebooting Z10s, etc, etc, etc.

The app suite is a profit-centre on its own. They invest in its development at a level that is commensurate with its generated revenue. If it doesn't work for you, then use something else. No biggie.

To me, a BlackBerry-branded device means a great pkb and a solid build. Mission accomplished.

[Vistaus]

Inbox is generic. Inbox by Gmail is not generic. Google would have a TOOOOOOOON of people to sue if they wanted to chase 'Inbox'. Besides, Inbox by Gmail is dead.

Doesn't matter that Inbox by Gmail is dead, they still hold the naming rights. But you're right that it's too generic.

[RK_BB]

To me, a BlackBerry-branded device means a great pkb

I couldn't agree more...

[Vistaus]

I couldn't agree more...

Yeah, just wish there was a BB-branded PKB phone I could call "great" these days (IMHO, Passport was the last great one). Still hating the PKB on my KEY2...

[RK_BB]

Yeah, just wish there was a BB-branded PKB phone I could call "great" these days (IMHO, Passport was the last great one). Still hating the PKB on my KEY2...

Can't stand it. Such a hit and miss experience!

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Way off topic again....

HUB+ is less useful today on Android than it was a few months ago, but it still is much better than iOS would have allow... which is why we don't have even a limited email client on iOS.

Building on someone else "property" always has it limitations. And while Google needed a open platform once, they don't need it as open today... Reality is BlackBerry is very limited today in what they can do, and will probable be even more limited in the future. But there is no going back to their own OS that they control.

[estarno]

The way Hub works is so outdated now, it wouldn't really be useful or possible to implement on iOS. Notification Center pretty much does the main task of what Hub does.

What I WOULD like to see them bring to iOS is a BlackBerry email composer app. Hub had the best email composition - rich text formatting, push support, easy attachments viewing, etc. I like how it separates emails with the thin blue line as well instead of how the native Mail and Gmail apps handle it by indenting. Hub always followed Outlook's suit, but Outlook for iOS is trash (most email apps are). BlackBerry should create an email app and have the focus be on security and rich features.