[bb10adopter111]

Someone asked about how I segregate and coordinate my use of a BB10 phone with a modern smartphone (in my case an iPhone SE). I've posted about this before, but my usage has changed a bit over the past year, and will likely change again before 2022, so here's a brief overview of what I'm doing now.

I double carry a WiFi only BB10 device (no SIM card or mobile carrier number) tethered via a personal WiFi hotspot to an iPhone that is provisioned by my mobile carrier.

- I use BB10 for my work (email, calendar, contacts, tasks and notes). I run no Android and only a couple of legacy BB10 apps that aren't stock on my BB10 device.

- I use the iPhone for my personal email, Web browsing, and modern apps.

For phone and SMS, I prefer to use a VOIP service (MySudo) , but if I were to use my carrier-issued number I'd do that on the iPhone.

Benefits:
1. I only pay for service for a single device. The BB10 phone uses very little data for my limited services.
2. Battery life and responsiveness. I have much faster download speeds on the newer phone. And WiFi is very fast, so my BB10 performs much better than it did with its own SIM.
3. Longer battery life on my BB10 phone with the cell antenna turned off. I regularly get 12-16 hours on my Z10!
4. Fewer distractions. During the work day, I only check my iPhone every couple of hours, as most of my critical communications comes to the BB10 device.
5. I can use any modern app I need. I never have to fiddle with my phones to get an app to work. The iPhone has pretty much any app I might want.

Weaknesses:
1) Having to carry two phones (That's a benefit for me per point #4 above.)
2) Occasionally having to email or otherwise transfer information from one devuce to the other.

Posted via CB10

[FortressBB10]

Great summary. I'm still able to single carry but I keep an Android phone for a few things. I can leave it at home as I do more often now. (Never got the G store going on my BB10 device.)

When I dual carry the BB10 is a wifi Hotspot for the Android phone.

Posted via CB10

[spARTacus]

Someone asked about how I segregate and coordinate my use of a BB10 phone with a modern smartphone (in my case an iPhone SE). I've posted about this before, but my usage has changed a bit over the past year, and will likely change again before 2022, so here's a brief overview of what I'm doing now....

So for your work phone needs and use, you like and are content with the capabilities of what native BB10 can provide (minus calls and SMS). Then, for your personal phone needs and use you enjoy the more comprehensive benefits of apps available from a current day iOS device, plus you also have some work use of that personal phone for calls (VOIP) and SMS.

I hear what you say about BB10 for work. The existing native BB10, including calls, would be more than sufficient for my work needs.

[bb10adopter111]

So for your work phone needs and use, you like and are content with the capabilities of what native BB10 can provide (minus calls and SMS). Then, for your personal phone needs and use you enjoy the more comprehensive benefits of apps available from a current day iOS device, plus you also have some work use of that personal phone for calls (VOIP) and SMS.

I hear what you say about BB10 for work. The existing native BB10, including calls, would be more than sufficient for my work needs.

Yes. Though I'd add I'm much more than "content" with native BB10. I find it AMAZING and effortless compared to the mashup of apps needed to accomplish the same tasks on Android or iOS. That's why I am willing to go to the extra trouble vs. Just using an iPhone or my KEYone.

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[FortressBB10]

Yes. Though I'd add I'm much more than "content" with native BB10. I find it AMAZING and effortless compared to the mashup of apps needed to accomplish the same tasks on Android or iOS. That's why I am willing to go to the extra trouble vs. Just using an iPhone or my KEYone.

Posted via CB10

I still use Blend a lot to manage my work and other emails. I can't imagine working without it. I also use a USB connection to manage my calendar via Outlook.

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[conite]

I still use Blend a lot to manage my work and other emails. I can't imagine working without it. I also use a USB connection to manage my calendar via Outlook.

Posted via CB10

Why do you need Blend for email? Do you not have IMAP clients on your other devices?

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Why do you need Blend for email? Do you not have IMAP clients on your other devices?

I get the desire for Blend, it's the need to use LINK to sync Outlook via a USB that a little hard to get in 2021. Have too many home and work devices that I interact with to not have a fully synced "account" today.

One failing with my iPhone is it's not compatible with Microsoft's "MY PHONE" solution for Android.... combined with OneDrive syncing of files, it's kind of a Blend like solution.

[conite]

I get the desire for Blend, it's the need to use LINK to sync Outlook via a USB that a little hard to get in 2021. Have too many home and work devices that I interact with to not have a fully synced "account" today.

One failing with my iPhone is it's not compatible with Microsoft's "MY PHONE" solution for Android.... combined with OneDrive syncing of files, it's kind of a Blend like solution.

But Blend and Link are different products.

[bb10adopter111]

Why do you need Blend for email? Do you not have IMAP clients on your other devices?

Personally, I detest every desktop email client I've used since Lotus Notes in the early 2000s. That includes all of the Web clients, Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. So I understand people who use Blend not wanting to switch.

Most local clients are performance nightmares, and most Web clients lack the keyboard shortcuts needed to make them efficient.

For the past 18 years, I've handled 90% of my email volume on my handheld to avoid having to use my desktop. Blend was at least quick and light.

Posted via CB10

[conite]

Personally, I detest every desktop email client I've used since Lotus Notes in the early 2000s. That includes all of the Web clients, Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. So I understand people who use Blend not wanting to switch.

Most local clients are performance nightmares, and most Web clients lack the keyboard shortcuts needed to make them efficient.

For the past 18 years, I've handled 90% of my email volume on my handheld to avoid having to use my desktop. Blend was at least quick and light.

Posted via CB10

But Blend is just another desktop client - only it syncs to the phone instead of directly to the source. It just adds another complicated layer of communication to manage.

[bb10adopter111]

But Blend is just another desktop client - only it syncs to the phone instead of directly to the source. It just adds another complicated layer of communication to manage.

Very true. However, I remember Blend as being VERY lightweight compared to either a Web browser or a full email client. I can understand edge cases where someone running CPU and memory intensive tasks who needed email available on their desktop screen might want it.

Personally, I prefer to keep it simple and just use my handheld device in that scenario, but I understand the appeal of Blend for people who don't want a Browser or email client open but who want to use a full-size KB.



Posted via CB10

[conite]

Very true. However, I remember Blend as being VERY lightweight compared to either a Web browser or a full email client. I can understand edge cases where someone running CPU and memory intensive tasks who needed email available on their desktop screen might want it.

Personally, I prefer to keep it simple and just use my handheld device in that scenario, but I understand the appeal of Blend for people who don't want a Browser or email client open but who want to use a full-size KB.



Posted via CB10

If you say so.

I just can't see how you can compare a clunky desktop-to-phone interface with a full-blown dedicated email environment.

Nor can I think of many things lighter than a browser.

[curves2000]

Just wondering about the SMS client you said your using? Is that an app on Blackberry World or is it something else?

I'm a call, text and email guy. The email part of your strategy and using the iPhone for apps etc makes sense, I'm trying to figure out how to continue to use the SMS text feature? I could continue to have 2 SIM's in the phones which isn't an issue.

Your overall use of BB 10 has always been intriguing to me and I agree that for email BB 10 is great!

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[conite]

Just wondering about the SMS client you said your using? Is that an app on Blackberry World or is it something else?

I'm a call, text and email guy. The email part of your strategy and using the iPhone for apps etc makes sense, I'm trying to figure out how to continue to use the SMS text feature? I could continue to have 2 SIM's in the phones which isn't an issue.

Your overall use of BB 10 has always been intriguing to me and I agree that for email BB 10 is great!

Posted via CB10

On BB10, you can only use the HUB for sms.

[curves2000]

On BB10, you can only use the HUB for sms.

Sorry Conite I think I used the wrong terminology on that. The OP had mentioned using a VOIP services for sms text messages since he doesn't have a SIM card card in the BB10 device. I was wondering if that VOIP feature was something on Blackberry World or how that whole process set up.

The BB 10 Hub has always been a great feature for a lot of things and even users who switched from other platforms have all loved it. The Android version for BlackBerry, for a lot of well known reasons, just wasn't as functional and feature rich and degraded over time.

Thanks again

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[bb10adopter111]

If you say so.

I just can't see how you can compare a clunky desktop-to-phone interface with a full-blown dedicated email environment.

Nor can I think of many things lighter than a browser.

I just loaded Chrome with one tab open containing my Gmail and one open draft message response. That uses almost a GB of RAM! Why? God only knows. Feature bloat, I assume. If I also open a calendar tab and a contacts tab, to replicate what a desktop program like Outlook would provide, that number jumps up by 1/2 a gig.

It also sends dozens of thread requests to one or two CPU cores while idle, which, in my experience, will largely prevent them from being employed by certain CPU intensive processes.

You're absolutely right though that a browser is much lighter than a program like Outlook, which is a resource hog.

Very few office laptops have more than 32 GB of RAM, and many have only 16 or even 8. While using browser tabs for Smartphone functionality is obviously very common and popular, there have been many times when doing so might add 10%+ to the time required for complex, multi threaded tasks.

You're obviously right that Blend is old and overly complicated for most uses, but I know many data science people who don't want open browsers or bloated programs running on their laptops. A lighter program that offload most of the work to the handheld might be preferable in those cases.

I can't remember much about Blend, but, for example, my Signal desktop app is very lightweight and efficient compared to either my browser or Outlook.

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[spARTacus]

Yes. Though I'd add I'm much more than "content" with native BB10. I find it AMAZING and effortless compared to the mashup of apps needed to accomplish the same tasks on Android or iOS. That's why I am willing to go to the extra trouble vs. Just using an iPhone or my KEYone.

Posted via CB10

Understood. Yes, "content" was the wrong word.

[passportowner]

About mail client: if you ever used a gui based solution, check out Haiku's mail_daemon.
There is no gui, there is no window with list view, you get only a simple text editor like gui editor to write your emails. It doesn't sends anything, it just creates and shows emails. If you send a mail, it just creates a file in the outgoing folder, the mail_daemon sees it and does the heavy lifting and sends it.
If you get an email, it shows up just like an ordinary file. Haiku however uses extra attributes extensively, so you can set up the file Manger to show the From/To/Topic/When/etc columns.
You can create a file system query based "Smart Folder" according to this attributes, like list me every mail from every disk which have the Status=Unread, which gets updated in real time.
So your file manager is your mail client.
I used many different clients, web/gui/cli, but this is the cleanest wax from my point of view.

[passportowner]

Maybe you can't imagine this way of doing things, but since it extremely efficient (type ahead filtering in the filemanager reduces the listed files on the fly) I can't imagine to return to classical email client anymore, all of them is a feature-freak behemoth.

[bb10adopter111]

Maybe you can't imagine this way of doing things, but since it extremely efficient (type ahead filtering in the filemanager reduces the listed files on the fly) I can't imagine to return to classical email client anymore, all of them is a feature-freak behemoth.

That sounds very useful, IMO. I was using email back in the mid 1980s and remember how simple it used to be. I certainly appreciate all the new features, but 90%+ of my emails are simply text and attachments.

Posted via CB10

[spARTacus]

Maybe you can't imagine this way of doing things, but since it extremely efficient (type ahead filtering in the filemanager reduces the listed files on the fly) I can't imagine to return to classical email client anymore, all of them is a feature-freak behemoth.

Purely basic bones functional. However, I assume you're doing this on a PC, not on a phone?

[FortressBB10]

I just loaded Chrome with one tab open containing my Gmail and one open draft message response. That uses almost a GB of RAM! Why? God only knows. Feature bloat, I assume. If I also open a calendar tab and a contacts tab, to replicate what a desktop program like Outlook would provide, that number jumps up by 1/2 a gig.

It also sends dozens of thread requests to one or two CPU cores while idle, which, in my experience, will largely prevent them from being employed by certain CPU intensive processes.

You're absolutely right though that a browser is much lighter than a program like Outlook, which is a resource hog.

Very few office laptops have more than 32 GB of RAM, and many have only 16 or even 8. While using browser tabs for Smartphone functionality is obviously very common and popular, there have been many times when doing so might add 10%+ to the time required for complex, multi threaded tasks.

You're obviously right that Blend is old and overly complicated for most uses, but I know many data science people who don't want open browsers or bloated programs running on their laptops. A lighter program that offload most of the work to the handheld might be preferable in those cases.

I can't remember much about Blend, but, for example, my Signal desktop app is very lightweight and efficient compared to either my browser or Outlook.

Posted via CB10

Blend is perfect for running all my emails AND texting without fumbling for my phone.

For serious emailing, my main work machine runs Outlook 2007 (not that cloud BS). When working remotely, I use Blend for work email as well as the usual Blend use for texting and other email accounts.

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[conite]

For serious emailing, my main work machine runs Outlook 2007 (not that cloud BS).

With a more recent verizon of Outlook (the last decade), you wouldn't know if you were synced to the cloud or not, apart from being able to seamlessly move between computers and devices, and the additional data security that it provides.

[passportowner]

Purely basic bones functional. However, I assume you're doing this on a PC, not on a phone?

That's true, but OP was talking about desktop clients too.

[The_Disembodied]

Blend is perfect for running all my emails AND texting without fumbling for my phone.

For serious emailing, my main work machine runs Outlook 2007 (not that cloud BS). When working remotely, I use Blend for work email as well as the usual Blend use for texting and other email accounts.

Posted via CB10

What is your setup with Blend? Is it on your wifi network or do you plug ypur phone to your pc via usb? I can't get Blend to work with my pc like I think it should. For example, sending an sms from my pc (with blend) takes at least 2mins for it to actually send it. The loading logo spins for 2 min. This horrible lag is there whether the phone is usb plugged or connected to my wifi.

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