[Carjackd]

Reading this has given me an idea.
I think we need a forum for CB fan fiction.

A forum? We need therapists here. There are some serious issues.

[glwerry]

Wanted to write these words long time ago.. but it seems that the anger wasn't yet ready to explode.. it did now..
Never seen a company leave out its' loyal customers like BlackBerry.. first the Play Book then OS 6,7 and recently the OS10 clients..
Facebook, Dropbox, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and even BBM... these are among what I use that have gone till now... don't know if there are other apps that joined the party.. how could they do that??? Even BBM : not even a notice pushed to BB10 users with their lousy migration rules???!!!!!!
And to their surprise: we customers are still clinging to our beloved OS BB10 and trying to work around this fight against us with all what we can think of... everyone is thinking of a way to still manage to operate these apps one way or another!!!! And again : to their surprise: some are succeeding and sharing their work- around ideas with others..
Not even backstreet companies have done that harm to their customers like BlackBerry did.. to these officials of the company that I once loved: YOU ARE GOING DOWN NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES...HISTORY SAYS THAT...

Posted via CB10

Actually, I don't see how BB will go down as a result of their abandonment of BB10. Why?
Well, BECAUSE THEY ARE NOW A SOFTWARE COMPANY, not a phone handset company.
People could stop buying BB phones completely and the corporation would still survive!

I think also that if you look around a bit you'll find other cases where customers have been "abandoned". One of my favourite examples is GM (General Motors). Have you tried to buy an Oldsmobile or Pontiac car lately? That's right, THEY NO LONGER EXIST.
GM was facing bankruptcy in 2007-ish and they cut ENTIRE CAR LINES OUT, along with may dealerships.

So, if you're a dude in a small town who liked to buy Pontiacs, then you are completely out of luck! They terminated both the Pontiac and your local dealership.

You'll notice that GM is still in operation. It didn't go bankrupt. People still buy GM vehicles. One adorns my driveway.

So, I understand your angst, to a degree. However, you won't be able to kill BB with your anger. The only person you'll kill is yourself.

[rthonpm]

I think also that if you look around a bit you'll find other cases where customers have been "abandoned". One of my favourite examples is GM (General Motors). Have you tried to buy an Oldsmobile or Pontiac car lately? That's right, THEY NO LONGER EXIST.

So, if you're a dude in a small town who liked to buy Pontiacs, then you are completely out of luck! They terminated both the Pontiac and your local dealership.

A bit of a strained analogy since Pontiac was nothing more than a badge on the same GM frame as their other models. The closest example for BlackBerry is the DTEK devices, which were re-badged Alcatel handsets. In both instances, the same physical product is still available, with the exception of the name.


Posted via CB10

[Chuck Finley69]

A bit of a strained analogy since Pontiac was nothing more than a badge on the same GM frame as their other models. The closest example for BlackBerry is the DTEK devices, which were re-badged Alcatel handsets. In both instances, the same physical product is still available, with the exception of the name.


Posted via CB10

Stop. TransAm in Smokey and the Bandit would never be confused with Camaro.... Blasphemy!!!!

[glwerry]

A bit of a strained analogy since Pontiac was nothing more than a badge on the same GM frame as their other models. The closest example for BlackBerry is the DTEK devices, which were re-badged Alcatel handsets. In both instances, the same physical product is still available, with the exception of the name.


Posted via CB10

No, it's not a stretch at all.

If you go back to, say, 1970, each of the GM brands had their OWN engines, for example.
The Chev, Pontiac and Olds 350s were all UNIQUE engines.

Somewhere around the late 1970s or early 80s, likely due to the extreme costs of making the engines conform the the smog / gas mileage regulations, GM DROPPED the Pontiac and Olds engines and everything used the Chev engines.

In terms of the Pontiac being just a "re-badging" - that's simplistic. The suspensions were often very different - for years, tests in car magazines showed that Trans Ams had superior cornering performance compared to Camaros, for example.

My brother also has a 2009 G8 Pontiac - mid-sized car with 4 doors, all-aluminum 6 l v-8 that goes like a scalded dog - I'm not aware of any Chev equivalent.

The point of my analogy was that BRAND LOYAL CUSTOMERS WERE STRANDED.

[DrBoomBotz]

My brother also has a 2009 G8 Pontiac - mid-sized car with 4 doors, all-aluminum 6 l v-8 that goes like a scalded dog - I'm not aware of any Chev equivalent.

Though not equivalent, this one is close.
2017 SS 4-Door Sports Sedan | Chevrolet

[glwerry]

Though not equivalent, this one is close.
2017 SS 4-Door Sports Sedan | Chevrolet

Ohhhhh - want me one of those!
Somewhat similar, yes - the Pontiac had the 6l, rated 365 hp. That 6.2 with 415 hp would be an ANIMAL.

I drove a 2014 Camaro SS with the same engine, and it was NUTBAR. In that 4 door, complete sleeper ... holy COW!

Good thing I don't have one - our speeding laws are getting rather draconian and I couldn't afford the fines ...

[kvndoom]

A bit of a strained analogy since Pontiac was nothing more than a badge on the same GM frame as their other models. The closest example for BlackBerry is the DTEK devices, which were re-badged Alcatel handsets. In both instances, the same physical product is still available, with the exception of the name.


Posted via CB10

Saturn's weren't rebadged Chevy's. Nor were Hummers. They all got the axe.

[kvndoom]

Though not equivalent, this one is close.
2017 SS 4-Door Sports Sedan | Chevrolet

The G8 and the SS were manufactured by Holden in Australia. Sadly Holden is no more. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a well-treated 6speed SS one day though. What a sleeper!

[anon(9710967)]

Developers leave - not much BlackBerry can do about that.

BB10 lost billions of dollars, and frankly, was supported a lot longer than I thought it ever would be.

It's true the OS cost BlackBerry billions and if they had continued with support of that OS chances are there would have not been a BlackBerry to support it. so either way you look at it BlackBerry 10 was doomed

[JSmith422]

I think most of the boxes could be checked... anything that doesn't require more CPU power than Qualcomm gives us with its incremental updates, so the gaming part wouldn't happen. The phone wouldn't be the smallest thing in the world for sure though, but I like durable bulky phones anyway. The camera, screen, DAC/amp, antenna, microphone, and speaker could all be sourced from top component makers. If I was rich I'd have such a beast built just for me to enjoy, to be honest. And it would take the shape of a 4:3 Passport.

Where would you have this phone built, and how much do you anticipate it would cost?

[kvndoom]

Where would you have this phone built, and how much do you anticipate it would cost?

Wouldnt matter... hence "if I were rich" 🤑

For the right price someone would build it. One-off body, screen, custom internals... it would be a 6 or 7 figure phone for sure.

[eshropshire]

Wanted to write these words long time ago.. but it seems that the anger wasn't yet ready to explode.. it did now..
Never seen a company leave out its' loyal customers like BlackBerry.. first the Play Book then OS 6,7 and recently the OS10 clients..
Facebook, Dropbox, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and even BBM... these are among what I use that have gone till now... don't know if there are other apps that joined the party.. how could they do that??? Even BBM : not even a notice pushed to BB10 users with their lousy migration rules???!!!!!!
And to their surprise: we customers are still clinging to our beloved OS BB10 and trying to work around this fight against us with all what we can think of... everyone is thinking of a way to still manage to operate these apps one way or another!!!! And again : to their surprise: some are succeeding and sharing their work- around ideas with others..
Not even backstreet companies have done that harm to their customers like BlackBerry did.. to these officials of the company that I once loved: YOU ARE GOING DOWN NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES...HISTORY SAYS THAT...

Posted via CB10

First and always buyers should research the companies before a purchase. Some do not, I am sure today you can find someone buying a Chrysler 200 or a Jeep Patriot or a Fiat 500. All cars with terrible reviews and bad resell value and at least two of the cars are ending this year.

Lets also look at other products.
Windows Mobile 6.5 - product killed - no upgrade path for the users.
Windows Mobile 7 - product killed - no upgrade offered to windows 8x.
Windows Mobile 8.x - product killed - about 15% provided official upgrade path to Windows 10, probably worse, since Win 8.x Mobile was more stable and had better app support than Win 10 Mobile.
Windows 10 Mobile - Killed, no official announcement from MS, just the head of the MS Mobile group posted a message he was now using Android and MS would issue no further feature updates to Win 10 Mobile.

WebOS - HP purchase and then abandoned the OS.

Nokia - Symbian dumped for Windows Mobile

Microsoft Windows RT - Expensive device - pushed hard, even had partners building devices. Products killed with no official announcement. A MS PM mentioned in a blog post that RT would not get UWP support and that RT was dead.

IBM OS/2 for consumers - end users and application developers were both left out in the cold when IBM pulled the plug for OS/2. I felt this one, a company I would for spent millions of dollars creating applications for OS/2. IBM kept encouraging development up to the end. The company I was working with pulled the plug getting tired of the useless support statements from IBM.

IBM PS2 machines - IBM pushed these hard before abandoning all of their customers.

Microsoft Zune - Microsoft's pathetic attempt to compete with Apple's iPods.

HTC - just about every Android phone before 2013. Terrible on updates.

These are just a few examples of abandoned tech. Tons of examples exist, I could go on for pages about tech products abandoned by major companies. I don't know how anyone can say BlackBerry is the worst for this trend

I don't see any reason for BBOS customer to complain - BlackBerry announced EOL of development for 2014, but phones can still be used until at least the end of 2019.

BB10 - Pretty good support through Spring of 2016 - three years is not bad, compared to many Android phones that do not get support for more than one or two years. Plus the supporting infrastructure will be in place until end of 2019.

The Playbook - a device that should never have happened - Created by the same people who destroyed BlackBerry through their egos. BlackBerry had zero business getting into the tablet business - best guess is they delayed BB10 by at least 12-16 months by diverting resources to build a tablet - whose only marketing slogan was that it ran Flash. I kept seeing stupid ads on TV about the Playbook and how it supported FLASH - problem was there were a lot of good 10 inch Android tablets on the market at the same time that supported flash and had good application support and cost less. I know the stupid argument they made that the Playbook was a test bed for BB10, right, this was a test bed for their egos. Cost BlackBerry tons in unsold inventory, but worse precious time needed for BB10.

I have bought Samsung phones since 2013. I started my Android journey in 2011 with HTC, but their terrible support policy lost me. Samsung, starting in 2012 started to standardize their flagship phone offerings. New S phone in the Spring and Note in the Fall. We have both S phones and Notes. During the time we have been buying Samsung all of our phones have each received two major Android updates. Our phones since 2014 have received about 3 years of security updates (not every month like Google, but regular updates). I choose Samsung because I know I can get the support I want. We have used all of our Samsung phones for 2.5 - 3+ years with no problems.

If more frequent updates are what I want I could go with Google or move to iOS. Google phones generally get 1 more major updates than Samsung's flagship phones. Pixels also get monthly security updates. Because all three companies are financially sound and have great market share I don't worry about my immediate and near term support.

BlackBerry's financials and BB10 problems by the Summer of 2013 were very public. Buying from a company in turmoil is always a risky proposition. Same goes with buying from a startup. If you don't mind Risk and like to try new things then go for it. I have been in the tech world for over 30 years. Until my last move (finally cleaned out the stuff), I had lots of fun old tech that never made it past the 1x version. Some of it very exciting and fun, some very expensive, but I know and accepted the risk when I purchased the product.

[Invictus0]

Microsoft Zune - Microsoft's pathetic attempt to compete with Apple's iPods.

The Zune was great! Objectively, it was quite innovative for its time and built with music lovers in mind. It was essentially exclusive to the US which killed the device.

[bb10adopter111]

The Zune was great! Objectively, it was quite innovative for its time and built with music lovers in mind. It was essentially exclusive to the US which killed the device.

The Zune wasn't very good business, but it was a good little player. I've never been much of a fan of MP3 files due to the compressed, lossy sound.

Posted with my trusty Z10

[eshropshire]

The Zune was great! Objectively, it was quite innovative for its time and built with music lovers in mind. It was essentially exclusive to the US which killed the device.

The first Zunes where built like the first generation iPods at the time Apple was building metal iPod 3s. Worse Microsoft wanted to force you to enforce copyrights when you added your MP3s. Very had when people like me had converted my cds to MP3s.

I was in the market for a new device when the first Zunes hit the market. I am not an Apple person so I was more interested in a Dune, but MS made it useless for my needs. Microsoft's initial restrictions killed the device. Microsoft eventually removed all the restrictions, by then the market had moved on. Sony tried to do the same thing with their first several attempts to create digital media devices. Same results as MS.

The point of talking about the Zune is not about the quality, but how Microsoft abandoned the device leaving Zune users abandoned.

[Invictus0]

The Zune wasn't very good business, but it was a good little player. I've never been much of a fan of MP3 files due to the compressed, lossy sound.

Posted with my trusty Z10

Me neither, everything on my Zune was in a WMA format.

The first Zunes where built like the first generation iPods at the time Apple was building metal iPod 3s. Worse Microsoft wanted to force you to enforce copyrights when you added your MP3s. Very had when people like me had converted my cds to MP3s.

I was in the market for a new device when the first Zunes hit the market. I am not an Apple person so I was more interested in a Dune, but MS made it useless for my needs. Microsoft's initial restrictions killed the device. Microsoft eventually removed all the restrictions, by then the market had moved on. Sony tried to do the same thing with their first several attempts to create digital media devices. Same results as MS.

True, I had actually forgotten about the initial DRM issues. IIRC it wasn't that different from what Apple was doing at the time but they obviously had the userbase and momentum to survive complaints.

[eshropshire]

Me neither, everything on my Zune was in a WMA format.



True, I had actually forgotten about the initial DRM issues. IIRC it wasn't that different from what Apple was doing at the time but they obviously had the userbase and momentum to survive complaints.

I bought my first iPod in 2006 and you could put any mp3 file on the iPod. Apple only enforced drm on files bought through the play store. Everything else was easy to add and remove from the iPod, as long as you manually managed the device. The original Zune wanted to enforce drm on everything you wanted to add to the device.

[Bbnivende]

To get a little back towards BlackBerry phones. I do not think that CrackBerry BB10 users are really representative of BB10 users as a whole. There is a large group of BB10 owners who seldom use there phones except for the odd email or text. They are not on social media. What binds them to their old phone is inertia .

[iled]

Inertia and most likely lack of problems with the phone.

[bb10adopter111]

Inertia and most likely lack of problems with the phone.

There are a lot of business users that can easily get by with email, calendar, tasks, and the other built-in native apps. Heck, I work in a very technical environment running stock BB10 apps and only need my lovely KEYone Android phone once or twice a week.

For most organizations, connection to email is still the most essential mobile requirement because it is still the communications channel.or record.

Posted with my trusty Z10

[glwerry]

There are a lot of business users that can easily get by with email, calendar, tasks, and the other built-in native apps. Heck, I work in a very technical environment running stock BB10 apps and only need my lovely KEYone Android phone once or twice a week.

For most organizations, connection to email is still the most essential mobile requirement because it is still the communications channel.or record.

Posted with my trusty Z10

This is a very good point.

If I had been able to get a couple of Google apps working correctly on my Classic then I may well have still been in the BB fold - I don't have that many apps that I rely on, even with the 'Droid.

[Invictus0]

This is a very good point.

If I had been able to get a couple of Google apps working correctly on my Classic then I may well have still been in the BB fold - I don't have that many apps that I rely on, even with the 'Droid.

It's the ecosystem effect all over again. If a business was invested in BlackBerry services (BBM Enterprise, WatchDox, Docs to Go, etc) instead of their Google or Microsoft alternatives I'm sure BB10 would still be more than viable for them.

[bb10adopter111]

It's the ecosystem effect all over again. If a business was invested in BlackBerry services (BBM Enterprise, WatchDox, Docs to Go, etc) instead of their Google or Microsoft alternatives I'm sure BB10 would still be more than viable for them.

Blackberry's products are a supplement to, not a substitute for, Microsoft Office or Google Docs, and they work with Apple and Android as well or better than they do with BB10.

Anyone who wants to edit documents on their phone in their native file format is better served on an iOS or Android phone using the official apps, IMO.

In 2018 BlackBerry phones are best for the basic smartphone features related to email and PIM functions, supplemented with available apps as needed. That's plenty for many people at work, but not enough for most who either need more apps for their jobs or who want to use more apps for personal use.

Posted with my trusty Z10

[Bbnivende]

It's the ecosystem effect all over again. If a business was invested in BlackBerry services (BBM Enterprise, WatchDox, Docs to Go, etc) instead of their Google or Microsoft alternatives I'm sure BB10 would still be more than viable for them.

Pretty strange to use a phone that will not run your company website or that of a competitor. In many companies that previously used BlackBerry phones, the employees themselves wanted out.