- A line from the classic British comedy "Yes, Prime Minister " , "It is true that it is rumoured", there's always rumours about everything!
BlackBerry got stung big time with the delay of OS10 roll out, a year I think it was. They've had to play catch up ever since which is a shame because their products are of excellent quality. I can't see them dropping BB10 support for the rumoured "BlackDroid" as too much of their resources have gone into it.
I'm thinking that BlackBerry should work on product placement ads with TV and film studios with the current stock of BB10 devices to embed them into popular consciousness again, maybe that would lead to a BlackBerry Revival, then hopefully the increase in sales will cause them to keep improving the OS?
Z10STL100-2/10.3.2.2639
Posted via CB1009-04-15 05:28 AMLike 0 - Richard Gere has had a pretty successful career, gerbil rumours or not. Said by many publicists, you don't ever comment on it, just ignore it and don't give it any measure of credibility. It has never gone away, but the Hollywood publicists do this for a living and know far more than us on handling public image.
Ha, then there is the Barbara Streisand effect.
If Richard Gere's career continues to be successful, no need for comments on rumors, fine.
If his success begins to stall because of rumors, he should better begin to comment. Providing he wants to stay in business.
If the rumors are false, he might be able to successfully fight them.
If they are right and/or too strong, he might fail (take OJ Simpson as a case example).
Posted via CB1009-04-15 05:36 AMLike 0 - The truth of the matter is we just don't know the future of BB10 OS, as BlackBerry has not said. We can certainly make some guesses based on the sales of BB10 and on the evidence (leaks) of a BB Android device, but again we just don't know for sure. Other vendors have been known to support multiple operating systems, HTC, Nokia, even Samsung have all supported multiple systems, Android, Windows and back in the day Symbian & Palm. So BlackBerry could well support BB10 and Android, OR they could switch over to Android. The bottomline is we just don't know as they have not made those future plans known to us!Dunt Dunt Dunt likes this.09-04-15 08:04 AMLike 1
- Sure would be nice if they did a Q&A session with investors at all Earnings Reports....
But then, I doubt anyone they pick to ask questions would even ask Chen about the future of BB10....
OP you want to worry about rumors and possibilites.... what if they are about to do away with BES too ....09-04-15 08:24 AMLike 0 -
And in case you are curious I also develop for Qt 5.
In the sense that a road leading out of my city does not yet connect to the highway is a dead end, I suppose. People still use that road to get to where they want to go, traffic is quite high anyway. Will it be higher when they do connect it to the highway? Will it be high enough to make the merchants with stores on that road happy? Who the hell knows, but they are going to do that. No one knows what that connection is going to look like though, because they haven't completed those plans yet. Once they are completed they will be publicly announced. There is speculation, but not nearly as rampant as on CB about BB10.09-04-15 08:59 AMLike 0 - The question is: what does "continue work" mean? BB10 needs at least something like 1 big update a year. Android runtime and Cascades need overhauls to be competitive. Something like a 10.3.3, 10.3.4 etc. is not sufficient to keep the platform alive. It's just a delay of its death.
That's why Chen will have a lot of things to explain when the Android Slider arrives. The switch to Android isn't necessarily a savior for Blackberry.
Because the market doesn't want BB10 devices or more precisely: not enough. Why waste good money and keep a platform alive that has failed?
Success is obviously not one of them.
At least devs have to know what's going on in the near future. Why? No dev has to fear that iOS or Android are EOL at some point in the next years, Blackberry is clearly the loser of the smartphone wars. If they had a roadmap to save BB10 they'd better present it instead of telling devs to switch to Android.
Yeah, I think 10.3.3 will be out at some point.
But: Do you really think another small update is enough to save BB10s future?
You really think devs would be interested in supporting another new platform by Blackberry which is most likely DOA?
It can't be more foolish than telling devs to switch to Android and leave the future of BB10 completely in the dark. If BB10 had a future this behaviour wouldn't make sense at all because it urges devs and (potential) customers to leave the platform aside.
One of the biggest problems with the speculation here on CB is that people keep bringing up these events, like the Android development encouragement, but don't give them the depth of analysis they deserve. No developers were pushed away from BlackBerry development. They were told they could expand their potential market and their marketable skills, if they wanted to, and offered free assistance and training to do so. Pretty shabby way to treat people isn't it?09-04-15 09:31 AMLike 5 - We'll see...
It's good that guys like you are still supporting BB10. Problem is, that the big first party apps are missing, not the ones of a few engaged devs.
Being a developer I received all the direct mailing around that move. They didn't tell developers to switch to Android. They said that by developing Android applications they could still bring their applications to BlackBerry World and BlackBerry customers, but they could also sell their products into the much larger Android market. And they made arrangements for developers to get assistance from Amazon to make entering that market easier. I know some deves to that as a slap on the face, some of the were pretty vocal about it. But having watched some of the most vocal interact with their customers they are not going to do very well in what ever market they try.
OS7.1 is still supported officially. Does this change the fact that the newest OS 7.1 out there is about 2 years old?
One of the biggest problems with the speculation here on CB is that people keep bringing up these events, like the Android development encouragement, but don't give them the depth of analysis they deserve. No developers were pushed away from BlackBerry development. They were told they could expand their potential market and their marketable skills, if they wanted to, and offered free assistance and training to do so. Pretty shabby way to treat people isn't it?Last edited by Maxxxpower; 09-04-15 at 10:54 AM.
Dunt Dunt Dunt likes this.09-04-15 10:35 AMLike 1 - Well have you seen that video of ants running in circles around iphones? guess it works on humans too.09-04-15 11:41 AMLike 0
- I dont see it dying off anytime soon. The android market will allow them to keep the BB10 development going. That's what I feel.09-04-15 11:43 AMLike 0
- I heard that BlackBerry is working with Google on a time machine so John Chen can go back in time to 2008 and plant virus code in QNX so that BlackBerry won't buy them and will just go Android directly in 2010. That's what I heard.09-04-15 01:23 PMLike 0
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Will it be developed as strongly as it has been in previous years? Perhaps not when the entire company has shifted gears to focus on their cross-platform Enterprise needs. They have had a massive internal re-organization and focus on supporting their competitors products in the Enterprise environment and integration with BES12. In fact the amount of integration and customization that is now available has actually made Samsung KNOX and Android for Work finally usable even though both have been available for years now on Android, but it took a player like BlackBerry to step in to integrated it into their MDM to showcase how capable it actually is! I'll give you a hint-almost the same level of degree of security and separation that BlackBerry Balance offers or even customization similar to an Work Only Perimeter in some cases.
Is BlackBerry 10 as a platform going away? No way! Will it continue to be developed? Sure! Will it be as consumer focused as it was when it was launched? Probably not - That isn't where they've been making money or gaining market share... but their bread and butter-Enterprise has been and will continue as it's only going to grow as Mobile technology continues to improve constantly and the push for having a more active, engaged, and mobile workforce has now become the norm.
They've been returning to their roots of targeting their core market, IMO! I'm not saying that they didn't target consumers in the past or make bucket loads of money off of them, but they were never an consumer focused company at their core-they've always been focused on what their corporate clients needed and it just so happens that consumers liked what they saw for a period and they got swept up in the process and... didn't transition past that mentality.
Based upon all the "leaked" information about the Slider I don't know what to believe-but it doesn't matter at the same time. It will happen very soon now and we'll have a lot of questions answered and perhaps a lot of new questions instead about the direction they are going to go in the future. But I still personally and professionally believe the BB10 platform will be around for years to come. But they have been severely distracted for the past year on expanding their cross platform support and that will probably shift over to their IoT initiative thereafter.
Although it may not seem like it, this is a very small and focused company compared to the other giants in the industry, there is a lot of given and take and sacrifices do get made... maybe they are making some big ones in the interest of long term growth with the Slider now.
You could take this post as saying that they are completely abandoning their consumer users - That isn't what I'm saying, I believe their products will still be available in one form or another, you just have to realize that it's a niche market now outside of Canada. It's still normal (a bit more rare then before, but still normal) to own an BlackBerry up here, can't say the same anywhere else in the world.
TLDR; BB10 isn't going away given how embedded it is at work. They have been focusing on their Corporate client needs and requests to support third party platforms and devices. If they are shifting gears we'll know soon enough with the Slider launch.Richard Buckley and Superfly_FR like this.09-04-15 02:35 PMLike 2 -
- Yes I have. I have several apps in BB World and more in private distribution all written in Cascades.
And in case you are curious I also develop for Qt 5.
In the sense that a road leading out of my city does not yet connect to the highway is a dead end, I suppose. People still use that road to get to where they want to go, traffic is quite high anyway. Will it be higher when they do connect it to the highway? Will it be high enough to make the merchants with stores on that road happy? Who the hell knows, but they are going to do that. No one knows what that connection is going to look like though, because they haven't completed those plans yet. Once they are completed they will be publicly announced. There is speculation, but not nearly as rampant as on CB about BB10.09-04-15 03:56 PMLike 0 - Superfly_FRRetired ModeratorIs that where I may share my thoughts thinking out loud ... again?
(warning, they change pretty often, depending of the wind direction, as all we have is rumors and funny speculations)
- BB10 will stand an will be upgraded. But kiss the Android runtime bye-bye. This is for enterprises and prosumers. The BES secured device of choice.
- Android will appear (no idea how they will enhance security, kernel, hypervisor, magic powder, maybe nothing more than dedicated apps a la BBM, ...) for "secure enough" target. GPS and Goggle PLAY aboard. Last round for 'Joes' win or go.
In fact, all this is a mix of different approaches I had previously. Still, the only one I found matching the 'possibles'. At least if we believe the launch of an Android device may occur before the end of the year.
And overall, I must confess I'd be pretty happy with that.
FWIW...
Posted via CB1009-04-15 05:04 PMLike 0 -
Ever since the PlayBook you have been able to write applications for QNX based BlackBerry devices using Qt. BB10 introduced Cascades but you can still write strait up Qt.
The problem with Cascades is it uses a different application model than Qt, to the point that certain things either don't work or just crash. Go to Stack Overflow and read the comments and answers to questions from new BlackBerry developers that are naive enough to tag their questions with Qt. You will often see posts from knowledgeable Qt developers just trying to help giving advice that works on Qt, even the right version, but doesn't work for Cascades. It is roughly analogous to Java mavens trying to help BBOS development but not knowing BBOS was a J2ME system.
TAT came up with the beautiful UI and all the snazzy stuff (much which never made it to the public) by creating their own basic UI objects that inherited from quite low levels. This means that a view objects from MVC patterns in Cascades don't actually inherent from the Qt equivalent, maybe not even the same basic class as the Qt equivalent. The same holds for many model and controller classes as well. This means that bringing Cascades up to date with Qt 5 isn't a simple matter of minor tweaks to adapt to changes between Qt 4 and 5 object models. The Cascades objects have to be rewritten to parallel the evolution from Qt 4 to 5.
All this is why there is no easy way to do a lot of things in Cascades that one can do very simply in Qt 4. But if you know as much about the state and evolution of BB10 as you claim, then you know this already. Ironically if BlackBerry does go to a standard Android distribution for their handsets developers will be able to use the Qt development environment to write applications using the latest version.
Z10STL100-3/10.3.2.2252 SR 10.3.2.2168CmdrStraker likes this.09-04-15 07:58 PMLike 1 - Seriously that's how you judge the state of a development system, the size of the unique library and whether the other libraries are stock?
Ever since the PlayBook you have been able to write applications for QNX based BlackBerry devices using Qt. BB10 introduced Cascades but you can still write strait up Qt.
The problem with Cascades is it uses a different application model than Qt, to the point that certain things either don't work or just crash. Go to Stack Overflow and read the comments and answers to questions from new BlackBerry developers that are naive enough to tag their questions with Qt. You will often see posts from knowledgeable Qt developers just trying to help giving advice that works on Qt, even the right version, but doesn't work for Cascades. It is roughly analogous to Java mavens trying to help BBOS development but not knowing BBOS was a J2ME system.
TAT came up with the beautiful UI and all the snazzy stuff (much which never made it to the public) by creating their own basic UI objects that inherited from quite low levels. This means that a view objects from MVC patterns in Cascades don't actually inherent from the Qt equivalent, maybe not even the same basic class as the Qt equivalent. The same holds for many model and controller classes as well. This means that bringing Cascades up to date with Qt 5 isn't a simple matter of minor tweaks to adapt to changes between Qt 4 and 5 object models. The Cascades objects have to be rewritten to parallel the evolution from Qt 4 to 5.
All this is why there is no easy way to do a lot of things in Cascades that one can do very simply in Qt 4. But if you know as much about the state and evolution of BB10 as you claim, then you know this already. Ironically if BlackBerry does go to a standard Android distribution for their handsets developers will be able to use the Qt development environment to write applications using the latest version.
Z10STL100-3/10.3.2.2252 SR 10.3.2.2168
https://wiki.qt.io/Qt5_on_Blackberry10
The fact that you can write pure Qt4 applications and they will run on BB10 without adding libraries means that Cascades isn't the tentacled beast you think it is.09-04-15 08:29 PMLike 0 - ThunderbuckRetired ModeratorI'm a BES admin who speaks with Tech Support on a regular basis.
On a recent call, the BlackBerry representative stated that there were rumors that BlackBerry will stop supporting BB10. He strongly denied any rumors and mentioned work on BB10.3.3 and beyond.
With that stated, I was curious if anyone had info on these rumors.
Thanks!
- 00 via z10
If this is true, I think it could paradoxically be good for BB10; the handsets will sell better (because they will no longer be perceived as "dead ends"), and the adventurous will have a chance to try BB10 with little penalty. In theory, you could select BB10, use it for a month, and if you don't like it you can just wipe it and switch to Android.
I believe the company when they say they're committed to BB10, because there are a lot more BB10 devices out there now than Playbooks. BlackBerry has a bigger obligation to BB10 owners than they did to Playbook buyers.
Now, we've seen very little in terms of developer support lately, and that's definitely a concern, but it doesn't automatically mean the platform is doomed, either.Allanon89 and RyanGermann like this.09-04-15 08:30 PMLike 2 - Take a look at the file structures and what Qt libs are stock. There is a lot of APIs that are still Qt. Cascades was designed as a UI framework. The libraries are part of the native SDK. It isn't as much work as you think to migrate this to Qt5. BlackBerry just doesn't want to. That is obvious when they stopped support the BB10 pure Qt5 development.
https://wiki.qt.io/Qt5_on_Blackberry10
The fact that you can write pure Qt4 applications and they will run on BB10 without adding libraries means that Cascades isn't the tentacled beast you think it is.
You can write pure OpenGL applications on BB10 as well. There are a few impressive applications that aren't games but are written in a very similar way. But that doesn't mean anything for the average BB10 native developer.
I didn't say it was a tentcled beast. If you want to have this conversation read what I write rather than trying to put words in my mouth. Cascades inherits from too low a level to take advantage of development at higher levels of the Qt object model. Getting Qt 5 development and libraries on BB10 is great if you want to write a Qt 5 application. You might even get the Cascades library to link with the Qt 5 libraries, though I doubt it would be easy. But the Cascades objects would be the same, and have the same features as they do on the current install base. If Cascades had inherited higher in the object model, or if BlackBerry had decided to use standard Qt to implement the UI for BB10 the situation would be different.
One of the issues with adopting a UI framework and modifying it to get a distinguished product is that changes to the underlying framework can make all your work to differentiate your product obsolete. Since the release of X version 11 I've seen this happen more times than I can count. BB10 is not a dead end. Qt on BB10 is not a dead end. Cascades is unless BlackBerry decides to continue development of Cascades. Getting Qt 5 up on BB10 is the first step in that process, but only the first step. It doesn't have to be the end of the world. Although abandoning BB10 would be one solution, it isn't the only one. Stopping development on Qt 5 on BB10 is not a good sign for Cascades, but this is just the UI framework. There are lots of those that are as good or better than Qt.
EDIT:
This took some digging but for example the inheritance tree for the Cascades ListView is
QObject
(all the rest bb::cascades)
BaseObject
UIObject
VisualNode
Control
ListView
So the only Qt stuff it inherits is the QObject and QDeclarativeParserStatus.
In contrast the Qt 4.8 QListView is:
QObject and QPaintDevice
QWidget
QFrame
QAbstractScrollAre
QAbstractItemView
QListView
So the QListView automatically gets all the updates to all of its superclasses that were changed between 4.8 and 5. The Cascades ListView gets none until someone writes them in.
Z10STL100-3/10.3.2.2252 SR 10.3.2.2168Last edited by Richard Buckley; 09-04-15 at 09:33 PM.
mania626 likes this.09-04-15 09:14 PMLike 1 - Sure, that is Qt 5. Not Cascades. So you can write and deploy a Qt 5 application on BB10. You could do the same with Qt 4 if you want to. But people don't want Qt applications on BB10, they want Cascades applications.
You can write pure OpenGL applications on BB10 as well. There are a few impressive applications that aren't games but are written in a very similar way. But that doesn't mean anything for the average BB10 native developer.
I didn't say it was a tentcled beast. If you want to have this conversation read what I write rather than trying to put words in my mouth. Cascades inherits from too low a level to take advantage of development at higher levels of the Qt object model. Getting Qt 5 development and libraries on BB10 is great if you want to write a Qt 5 application. You might even get the Cascades library to link with the Qt 5 libraries, though I doubt it would be easy. But the Cascades objects would be the same, and have the same features as they do on the current install base. If Cascades had inherited higher in the object model, or if BlackBerry had decided to use standard Qt to implement the UI for BB10 the situation would be different.
One of the issues with adopting a UI framework and modifying it to get a distinguished product is that changes to the underlying framework can make all your work to differentiate your product obsolete. Since the release of X version 11 I've seen this happen more times than I can count. BB10 is not a dead end. Qt on BB10 is not a dead end. Cascades is unless BlackBerry decides to continue development of Cascades. Getting Qt 5 up on BB10 is the first step in that process, but only the first step. It doesn't have to be the end of the world. Although abandoning BB10 would be one solution, it isn't the only one. Stopping development on Qt 5 on BB10 is not a good sign for Cascades, but this is just the UI framework. There are lots of those that are as good or better than Qt.
BlackBerry has made a choice to dead end native development on BlackBerry 10. You can still program for the Playbook, but why bother? Soon it will be the same with BlackBerry 10. BlackBerry is going no farther with the platform other than provide fixes and some changes using the same framework as currently exists.09-05-15 06:47 AMLike 0 - EDIT:
This took some digging but for example the inheritance tree for the Cascades ListView is
QObject
(all the rest bb::cascades)
BaseObject
UIObject
VisualNode
Control
ListView
So the only Qt stuff it inherits is the QObject and QDeclarativeParserStatus.
In contrast the Qt 4.8 QListView is:
QObject and QPaintDevice
QWidget
QFrame
QAbstractScrollAre
QAbstractItemView
QListView
So the QListView automatically gets all the updates to all of its superclasses that were changed between 4.8 and 5. The Cascades ListView gets none until someone writes them in.
Z10STL100-3/10.3.2.2252 SR 10.3.2.216809-05-15 06:49 AMLike 0 - I don't think they'll kill BlackBerry 10, not now. They need to see if a modified Android is secure enough to sell to Fortune 100 companies that their last ammunition, perception of being secure, is not lost.
They still need BlackBerry 10 as fall back point at this time.
Z10STL100-1/10.3.1.257609-05-15 07:02 AMLike 0 - BB10 is a dead end unless BlackBerry continues development of Cascades and Qt5. The GUI is cascades and right now the BlackBerry designed apps and most native applications use Cascades. That means that Qt support is stuck at 4.8 which is EOL in December.
BlackBerry has made a choice to dead end native development on BlackBerry 10. You can still program for the Playbook, but why bother? Soon it will be the same with BlackBerry 10. BlackBerry is going no farther with the platform other than provide fixes and some changes using the same framework as currently exists.
Z10STL100-3/10.3.2.2252 SR 10.3.2.216809-05-15 08:58 AMLike 0
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