[Superdupont 2_0]

2 years is an eon in the smartphone business. How much BB10 support is going to be dropped in 2016? How many apps will stop working? How many BB10 users will move to another platform?

How many iPhone users will switch to BB10, because they are tired of all the bugs in iOS8, iOS9, iCloud or other limitations (no sd card) etc etc?
How many Android users will be tired of the OS fragmentation and buggy popular apps in Google Play?

I have appr. 50 apps from BBW on my Z10, because they are working great, some (like Paper Camera) never had an update since 2013, but still working excellent, while others were released end of 2015 with a "built for BlackBerry".

It's totally okay to complain about the Facebook app or to switch to the Priv, but for some users these specific apps are either completely irrelevant or the overall OS and apps experience outweighs the shortcomings of some apps.
The latter is actually true for all platforms, but BB10 was never tried by the masses.

Who would be left to buy a BB10 phone with a 4-year-old Android Runtime and very few functional native apps in 2017?

Who knows that "very few" native apps will be functional in 2017?
Who knows whether we need the
Android runtime in 2017?
Porting apps isn't so hard.
Even with the few million BB10 users (?) one can make money as a developer, because there is less competition in BBW.

Why would BB pay millions of dollars for QNX drivers for new hardware to sell 50k phones?

While I don't know why it couldn't be 1-5 million units for a high-end VKB , the question is fair.
A new BB10 phone in 2017 would only make sense to me, if they have plans to maintain their own independent OS development.

There seems to be a consensus that BB10 out-the-box is probably the best product on the market.
If you have developed a fully capable OS over four years and your main problem is "only" 3rd party apps, then you should not abandon the OS, which itself is excellent.
The "too late" argument is not absolute.
They can await and analyze the new developments in this market and then one day can try again with BB11, though I hope they wouldn't have to start everything from scratch for BB11.

With their patents, accumulated know-how and QNX it is rather a question of right timing.

There's just no business case to be found, unless you think that BB could sell those phones at $2500 each, in an environment where phones with near-flagship (for 2017) phones will be available for $300?

But the same can be said for all Android OEMs, while I don't know where the $2,500 figure is coming from.
(I think they must deliver a high-end VKB to get better sales figures vs fixed costs)
We all know BBRY will make money with the services that are used on the phones, not so much the phones themselves.

BTW, I think Samsung has transferred all the little net profits from the handsets business to Apple as a result of their patent fights.



Posted via CB10

[GadgetTravel]

How many iPhone users will switch to BB10, because they are tired of all the bugs in iOS8, iOS9, iCloud or other limitations (no sd card) etc etc?
How many Android users will be tired of the OS fragmentation and buggy popular apps in Google Play?

I have appr. 50 apps from BBW on my Z10, because they are working great, some (like Paper Camera) never had an update since 2013, but still working excellent, while others were released end of 2015 with a "built for BlackBerry".

It's totally okay to complain about the Facebook app or to switch to the Priv, but for some users these specific apps are either completely irrelevant or the overall OS and apps experience outweighs the shortcomings of some apps.
The latter is actually true for all platforms, but BB10 was never tried by the masses.






Who knows that "very few" native apps will be functional in 2017?
Who knows whether we need the
Android runtime in 2017?
Porting apps isn't so hard.
Even with the few million BB10 users (?) one can make money as a developer, because there is less competition in BBW.




While I don't know why it couldn't be 1-5 million units for a high-end VKB , the question is fair.
A new BB10 phone in 2017 would only make sense to me, if they have plans to maintain their own independent OS development.

There seems to be a consensus that BB10 out-the-box is probably the best product on the market.
If you have developed a fully capable OS over four years and your main problem is "only" 3rd party apps, then you should not abandon the OS, which itself is excellent.
The "too late" argument is not absolute.
They can await and analyze the new developments in this market and then one day can try again with BB11, though I hope they wouldn't have to start everything from scratch for BB11.

With their patents, accumulated know-how and QNX it is rather a question of right timing.





But the same can be said for all Android OEMs, while I don't know where the $2,500 figure is coming from.
(I think they must deliver a high-end VKB to get better sales figures vs fixed costs)
We all know BBRY will make money with the services that are used on the phones, not so much the phones themselves.

BTW, I think Samsung has transferred all the little net profits from the handsets business to Apple as a result of their patent fights.



Posted via CB10

How many will switch from Apple or Android to blackberry? Maybe 5 or 6? Those operating systems are improving and BB10 is losing market share.

Posted via CB10

[Superdupont 2_0]

How many will switch from Apple or Android to blackberry? Maybe 5 or 6? Those operating systems are improving and BB10 is losing market share.

Posted via CB10

That will also depend on the success of the Priv.

I think we have just two different opinions about the word "improvement"?

Can I easily access the data on sd card of my iPhone with USB mass storage mode now? Is iMessage cross-platform? Oh, wait...no.
Or is this the improvement :
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7372732?tstart=0

Android has the full BB10 experience and security now?

Now, don't get me wrong, I have no problem with iOS or Android, I actually like the things on iOS when they are working, but these OSes are evolving in directions which are not interesting for me.
I need and want the things that BB10 can do (and which I don't get from the others) and I have all apps I need from BBW fully functional.
There are some shortcomings, but the same is true for iOS and Android.





Posted via CB10

[GadgetTravel]

That will also depend on the success of the Priv.

I think we have just two different opinions about the word "improvement"?

Can I easily access the data on sd card of my iPhone with USB mass storage mode now? Is iMessage cross-platform? Oh, wait...no.
Or is this the improvement :
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7372732?tstart=0

Android has the full BB10 experience and security now?

Now, don't get me wrong, I have no problem with iOS or Android, I actually like the things on iOS when they are working, but these OSes are evolving in directions which are not interesting for me.
I need and want the things that BB10 can do (and which I don't get from the others) and I have all apps I need from BBW fully functional.
There are some shortcomings, but the same is true for iOS and Android.





Posted via CB10

I understand. But I think most people view the way iOS does messaging and storage as better than BB10. I haven't run Slack for instance on BlackBerry (there may be a way to do that though). I view BBM as non-competative. I used it years ago as well as pin messaging but not any more.

Likewise my docs are on icloud or Google storage that I access from my desktop, tablet or phone. I don't have to worry about which card it's on.

An iPhone is a crappy BlackBerry. But that isn't what it is designed to be.

Posted via CB10

[pkcable]

I cleaned up what should have gone to PM 5 messages ago. Sorry folks!

[deadcowboy]

they should have put an 801 in the Classic. hell, any new BB10 phones rocking 801's in 2016 would be good enough. the Passport is still the quickest phone i've used on any platform. (this is if they don't want to pay for new drivers to be written for more modern processors)

Posted via CB10

[Troy Tiscareno]

So you mean that when you buy a Passport right now, you're getting a model manufactured in 2014 or so? If they are still manufacturing new Passports, Leaps and Classics today, then they are a dual OS phone manufacturer.

The last production run of any BB10 phone was the Passport Silver Edition, which was originally a variant ordered by a carrier, much as AT&T ordered a custom variant, and was subsequently canceled. BB went ahead and completed the production run and sold it as the "Silver Edition". These phones were manufactured in June and July of 2015, and are the same internals as the original Passport but in a different case. Prior to that was the Leap, designed and built by Foxconn and with manufacturing in January of 2015. None of these phones are "in production" - there are no production lines building new ones - rather BB had a run of them made and holds the unsold phones in inventory.

If you buy a standard PP today, you are indeed getting one that was manufactured in 2014. Don't be fooled by the date on the box either - that's not the manufacturing date, but rather the packaging date. Because of the low sell-through rate and subsequent long inventory life of these phones, they aren't packaged during manufacturing, but shipped to BB in bulk packaging, and are only put into retail packaging when BB receives an order. That way, if the box artwork or inserts or whatever need to be changed, they won't have to throw away old packaging and repackage phones. This is an incredibly common practice when manufacturing goods that have a relatively long inventory life, and gives the casual buyer the appearance that the item was only recently manufactured, when often it wasn't.

The only BB phone in production at all is the Priv, which had an initial production run of around 150-200k devices, and has since had a second production run ordered, which may already be complete by now. BB doesn't have the demand to have continuous production of their phones; you'd have to be selling about 5M phones a quarter continuously for that.

No, no, there are definitely no BB10 phones in production now, and there were none in production in the second half of 2015.

[Superdupont 2_0]

I understand. But I think most people view the way iOS does messaging and storage as better than BB10. I haven't run Slack for instance on BlackBerry (there may be a way to do that though). I view BBM as non-competative. I used it years ago as well as pin messaging but not any more.

Likewise my docs are on icloud or Google storage that I access from my desktop, tablet or phone. I don't have to worry about which card it's on.

An iPhone is a crappy BlackBerry. But that isn't what it is designed to be.

Posted via CB10

Well, as a matter of fact most people never came in contact with BB10.

No doubt, whenever I feel tempted to switch completely to Apple it is mainly because of the free and feature rich iCloud package.

However I am using cloud services on BB10 which do mostly the same.
But some files, like selected music for instance, or very important documents, I prefer to have (also) stored locally on my phone...and with USB mass storage it's just quicker and I don't have to install Link or anything for that.
Partially it is also because of bad personal experience.
iCloud sync messed up ("corrected") a very huge number of edited songs on my computer once and after that experience I switched to MusicBee (blocked by my firewall) and do everything strictly locally.

I am using BBM Video on a daily basis, completely free, it actually replaces phone calls...so it's my main messenger, though I agree there are plenty cheap alternatives cross-platform.

Sure, if we assume that more and more people use more cloud services from Google and Microsoft and if we further assume that the user experience of these two clouds is becoming better on Android, iOS or W10 but not BB10, then BB10 would be getting behind.

Until now I just have no issues here to complain about. Exchange 2013, Box and Onedrive (via Boxcryptor no issues) for private are fitting my needs on BB10 completely.

Don't know about Google Docs, but sure can imagine the Priv is a way better device for your use case.


Posted via CB10

[lfcohen]

The last production run of any BB10 phone was the Passport Silver Edition, which was originally a variant ordered by a carrier, much as AT&T ordered a custom variant, and was subsequently canceled. BB went ahead and completed the production run and sold it as the "Silver Edition". These phones were manufactured in June and July of 2015, and are the same internals as the original Passport but in a different case. Prior to that was the Leap, designed and built by Foxconn and with manufacturing in January of 2015. None of these phones are "in production" - there are no production lines building new ones - rather BB had a run of them made and holds the unsold phones in inventory.

If you buy a standard PP today, you are indeed getting one that was manufactured in 2014. Don't be fooled by the date on the box either - that's not the manufacturing date, but rather the packaging date. Because of the low sell-through rate and subsequent long inventory life of these phones, they aren't packaged during manufacturing, but shipped to BB in bulk packaging, and are only put into retail packaging when BB receives an order. That way, if the box artwork or inserts or whatever need to be changed, they won't have to throw away old packaging and repackage phones. This is an incredibly common practice when manufacturing goods that have a relatively long inventory life, and gives the casual buyer the appearance that the item was only recently manufactured, when often it wasn't.

The only BB phone in production at all is the Priv, which had an initial production run of around 150-200k devices, and has since had a second production run ordered, which may already be complete by now. BB doesn't have the demand to have continuous production of their phones; you'd have to be selling about 5M phones a quarter continuously for that.

No, no, there are definitely no BB10 phones in production now, and there were none in production in the second half of 2015.

That is true. This is exactly how it happens and is happening. BlackBerry is not a dual OS manufacturer per se but it Is a dual OS company with products on the market with this dual OS strategy. If they run out of core BB10 inventory, they will produce more to cover the demand. They are ow in an almost "built on order" status for BB10 phones.

The Passport SE background history is interesting. Makes sense. Is that 100% confirmed by reliable sources?

Best regards

Posted via CB10

[lfcohen]

Why?

Well, they do not need to "avoid at all cost" per se, of course. They need to if BB10 is to remain a viable platform related to its core applications like Web browser and etc and not being obsolete and unusable.. that would lead to the final end of BB10.

One thing is the "app gap" that for some might be irrelevant, another thing is your core BB10 functionality to stop by working with modern standards and options, such as email systems, browser, etc etc

:-)

Posted via CB10

[DrBoomBotz]

Well, they do not need to "avoid at all cost" per se, of course. They need to if BB10 is to remain a viable platform related to its core applications like Web browser and etc and not being obsolete and unusable.. that would lead to the final end of BB10.

One thing is the "app gap" that for some might be irrelevant, another thing is your core BB10 functionality to stop by working with modern standards and options, such as email systems, browser, etc etc

:-)

Posted via CB10

Perhaps you conflate the best interests of BlackBerry with the best interests of the BB10 users?

[crackberry_geek]

Perhaps you conflate the best interests of BlackBerry with the best interests of the BB10 users?

Give it about another year and it will be painfully obvious that the last great chance for Blackberry WAS BB10.

This whole software Chenanihan will be a complete failure.

[DrBoomBotz]

Give it about another year and it will be painfully obvious that the last great chance for Blackberry WAS BB10.

This whole software Chenanihan will be a complete failure.

Am I to understand that if the Priv experiment fails, somehow BB10 is redeemed?
I don't see how that logically follows.

[Chuck Finley69]

Well, they do not need to "avoid at all cost" per se, of course. They need to if BB10 is to remain a viable platform related to its core applications like Web browser and etc and not being obsolete and unusable.. that would lead to the final end of BB10.

One thing is the "app gap" that for some might be irrelevant, another thing is your core BB10 functionality to stop by working with modern standards and options, such as email systems, browser, etc etc

:-)

Posted via CB10

If they were concerned about BB10 irrelavancy, they would have never laid off the BB10 staff. There's like 5 guys in a cubicle supporting BB10. They spend half their waking hours updating their resume and going on job interviews.

Posted via CB10

[brookie229]

Reviewing the title of this thread, is it not time to shut this one down? NO NEW BB10 devices. Maybe it could be revived again in 2017.

[lfcohen]

Perhaps you conflate the best interests of BlackBerry with the best interests of the BB10 users?

Don't you believe that we are talking about the same stuff? Why the interest of millions of BB10 users would not be the best interest of BlackBerry?

But the future will show us......

Posted via CB10

[lfcohen]

If they were concerned about BB10 irrelavancy, they would have never laid off the BB10 staff. There's like 5 guys in a cubicle supporting BB10. They spend half their waking hours updating their resume and going on job interviews.

Posted via CB10

Is this solid info? Five guys in a cubicle working on BB10? Just to clarify the statement / assumption.

Regardless if it is 5 or 500 it is clear that BB10 is not a successful product and is now a niche market item, if our metrics are market share and overall usage across the board. The biggest problem is that this niche market and ecosystem has to live and integrate with the rest of the world and not on its own island of perfection, and this is why it's core functionality has to be maintained or it will just die, not for lack of performance or hardware issues but lack of compatibility and integration....

Posted via CB10

[Powdah]

Well, as a matter of fact most people never came in contact with BB10.

No doubt, whenever I feel tempted to switch completely to Apple it is mainly because of the free and feature rich iCloud package.

However I am using cloud services on BB10 which do mostly the same.
But some files, like selected music for instance, or very important documents, I prefer to have (also) stored locally on my phone...and with USB mass storage it's just quicker and I don't have to install Link or anything for that.
Partially it is also because of bad personal experience.
iCloud sync messed up ("corrected") a very huge number of edited songs on my computer once and after that experience I switched to MusicBee (blocked by my firewall) and do everything strictly locally.

I am using BBM Video on a daily basis, completely free, it actually replaces phone calls...so it's my main messenger, though I agree there are plenty cheap alternatives cross-platform.

Sure, if we assume that more and more people use more cloud services from Google and Microsoft and if we further assume that the user experience of these two clouds is becoming better on Android, iOS or W10 but not BB10, then BB10 would be getting behind.

Until now I just have no issues here to complain about. Exchange 2013, Box and Onedrive (via Boxcryptor no issues) for private are fitting my needs on BB10 completely.

Don't know about Google Docs, but sure can imagine the Priv is a way better device for your use case.


Posted via CB10

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought BBM Video was a paid feature. Also, it is only available to other BB users. Therefore it is very limited. I am the only BB user I know. I have convinced my wife to install BBM on her Android phone, but she prefers to just use txt. I could not BBM video her, so the use is very limited.

[fschmeck]

BBM video is free, but not cross platform. I've had the same experience with BBM: have convinced 1 friend to use it, but I am his only contact on it. For everything else, he texts.

Posted via CB10

[DrBoomBotz]

Don't you believe that we are talking about the same stuff? Why the interest of millions of BB10 users would not be the best interest of BlackBerry?

But the future will show us......

Posted via CB10

There are not that many active BB10 users left
My WAG for the number of active BB10 users is between 1.5-2.5 million
Say ~%50 of those users would purchase a new BB10 device. 0.75-1.25 million
Say ~%50 want vkb 0.375-0.625 million
and ~%50 want pkb 0.375-0.625 million

So now you have a choice
make 1 device and ignore one set of customers
or make 2 devices to cover both groups
or make a slider and hope both groups are satisfied (many will see this as a bad compromise)

Now you have the expense of developing 1 or 2 new devices

And you want some additional effort on software to keep it from being irrelevant(this will be the most expensive part)
And you have to support those users for 18-24 months

If I am JC, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole
Would you?
If you don't like my numbers plug in your own and see what makes sense to you

[lfcohen]

There are not that many active BB10 users left
My WAG for the number of active BB10 users is between 1.5-2.5 million
Say ~%50 of those users would purchase a new BB10 device. 0.75-1.25 million
Say ~%50 want vkb 0.375-0.625 million
and ~%50 want pkb 0.375-0.625 million

So now you have a choice
make 1 device and ignore one set of customers
or make 2 devices to cover both groups
or make a slider and hope both groups are satisfied (many will see this as a bad compromise)

Now you have the expense of developing 1 or 2 new devices

And you want some additional effort on software to keep it from being irrelevant(this will be the most expensive part)
And you have to support those users for 18-24 months

If I am JC, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole
Would you?
If you don't like my numbers plug in your own and see what makes sense to you

No, your numbers are solid and quite logic. I agree with them. And probably as does JC. And this is why he is not spending anything on BB10 hardware for 2016.

And whatever is left to invest, maintaining BB10 until he might have a better financial situation to either improve the OS, hardware or both. Or in the end, nothing....and we will live with Android Blackberries.....

Posted via CB10

[DrBoomBotz]

No, your numbers are solid and quite logic. I agree with them. And probably as does JC. And this is why he is not spending anything on BB10 hardware for 2016.

And whatever is left to invest, maintaining BB10 until he might have a better financial situation to either improve the IS, hardware or both. Or in the end, nothing....and we will live with Android Blackberries.....

Posted via CB10

This never happens.
I'm celebrating.



Cheers!

[Kurdis Blough]

That will also depend on the success of the Priv.

I think we have just two different opinions about the word "improvement"?

Can I easily access the data on sd card of my iPhone with USB mass storage mode now? Is iMessage cross-platform? Oh, wait...no.
Or is this the improvement :
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7372732?tstart=0

Android has the full BB10 experience and security now?

Now, don't get me wrong, I have no problem with iOS or Android, I actually like the things on iOS when they are working, but these OSes are evolving in directions which are not interesting for me.
I need and want the things that BB10 can do (and which I don't get from the others) and I have all apps I need from BBW fully functional.
There are some shortcomings, but the same is true for iOS and Android.


S6+ slippery AF!
Inadvertent post.



Posted via CB10

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

[Superdupont 2_0]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought BBM Video was a paid feature. Also, it is only available to other BB users. Therefore it is very limited. I am the only BB user I know. I have convinced my wife to install BBM on her Android phone, but she prefers to just use txt. I could not BBM video her, so the use is very limited.

It is quite easy.

Two years ago I convinced a handful of friends and family members to use BB10 for four reasons:
1) Easy and intuitive GUI, short learning curves for beginners
2) Less malicious apps (no Brain Tests in BBW)
3) They contacted me in the first place to solve their phone problems.
4) Most important: The apps they really need (WhatsApp etc) are available in BBW.

Now the rest of friends and family is mostly using iOS but wants to stay in contact with the BB10 users.
BBM is a good, secure and capable option for that, though many prefer WA.
Some of us have videochats others only text/calls.


But in general I agree, the vast majority of my friends and relatives are rather using Threema, WA or Skype and not BBM.

I think overall, my experience is nearly the same as yours, only that the very few people who I convinced to use BB10 are actually people I contact almost every day and then preferably by videochat.



Posted via CB10

[mas_quemex]

Yes there will be BlackBerry Priv Proper