[toobs623]

"I don't have a BES email so my life isn't busy/worthy enough for this feature." is what I'm getting from this thread. Pretty ignorant.

@chrisjaam

No one came even close to saying that, the only person that said anything remotely like that is Baird but if you read our conversation I would say that he understands where we are coming from, and I personally understand where he is coming from as well.

What you should be getting from this thread is that it was a feature originally planned only for corporate customers to create a secure sandbox like environment but that due to positive feedback from others, including myself, BlackBerry is considering bringing it to their non BES side as well. If you like the idea of it I suggest you tell BlackBerry. Get involved. The beta zone is a great place to communicate with the guys that can and will implement change. BlackBerry.com/betazone

Posted via CB10

[aboldcurve]

I've done so, but most are finding no reasons for general people to use
It, which is a little ignorant. All I'm saying is it was Advertised as a main feature. A bit deceptive
@chrisjaam

[wg7]

I agree. Hopefully BlackBerry will let balance be user configurable unless connected to BES, which will then then be locked down by the corporation. My wife want to use balance for her work but they don't have BES and never will.

Posted via CB - AT&T Z10 * 10.1.0.2019 * STL100-3

[Richard Buckley]

It will be interesting, if they do release it for non BES, to see what it is like. Based on what I known of the underlying structures, I don't see why anyone not on a BES will use it for very long. But if that's what you want, by all means ask for it.

Posted via CB10

[Raestloz]

Yeah, I was expecting Balance to work with personal usage. Too bad it only works with BES for now, but who knows? Let's hope we get to get Balance for non-BES soon

STL 100-1 10.1.0.273

[Kayatoca]

I don't see how this would be "a cool feature to have" if you're not on an enterprise server. If you want the ability to lock down part of your phone, are you looking for something like custom profiles? For PC's, when you set it up you are logged in as the admin but you can set up profiles like if your kids use it and you don't want them on an unrestricted web browser. So a custom profile on a phone would be like where you would keep messages from your girlfriend and keep them secure. For the current Balance, your work side phone can be remotely wiped if you lose the device. If you have a phone with these custom profiles, it would all be your personal data so wouldn't you want to wipe the whole thing (not just the protected part) if you lost it? How exactly would you use Balance if you had it?

[Raestloz]

I don't see how this would be "a cool feature to have" if you're not on an enterprise server. If you want the ability to lock down part of your phone, are you looking for something like custom profiles? For PC's, when you set it up you are logged in as the admin but you can set up profiles like if your kids use it and you don't want them on an unrestricted web browser. So a custom profile on a phone would be like where you would keep messages from your girlfriend and keep them secure. For the current Balance, your work side phone can be remotely wiped if you lose the device. If you have a phone with these custom profiles, it would all be your personal data so wouldn't you want to wipe the whole thing (not just the protected part) if you lost it? How exactly would you use Balance if you had it?

You do realize that BlackBerry Balance was advertised as "separate your work device with your personal device", so any BlackBerry with BlackBerry Balance enabled could theoretically have personal data too? Rendering your post moot?

If you have to wipe everything and not just the balance, then what's the point of having balance in the first place?

Well, for one, I can separate my work files with personal files, so maybe I have a few pics for work, and hundreds of pics for personal. I'd rather not have to wade through all the personal pics to find the work pics.

Balance is not only about locking down parts of your phone. It's NOT a custom profile, your storage space literally gets divided into two, and the apps behave accordingly as well. For custom profile as you describe it, see: parental controls

STL 100-1 10.1.0.273

[Anonymous23400]

This is the reason I rushed out to get my phone. The ability to separate work and personal. One question I have though, do your contacts get separated as well or are they all accessible through both sides?

Posted via CB10

[mode_m]

There is no reason why BlackBerry cannot enable all BB10 devices to have this ability. As others have stated you should be able to turn balance on activating your alternate work space (for work, or kids, whatever) and you should be able to separate Calendar, Contacts and Email this way. I use my personal phone to receive work emails therefore do not have BES and I would like to separate work from personal. I had this division with multiple user profiles on my Android so this is nothing new and revolutionary from a mobile phone perspective, the annoying part is that it appears that the effort creating the software was already done by BlackBerry but the execution is poor.

[Old Ag]

Balance really doesn't separate all the work content from the personal content. What is does is enforce IT policy on the work side of the phone and makes certain data inaccessible from the personal side of the phone when the work side is locked. When unlocked, the work accounts are integrated into the hub, just like any other account. The work calendar is integrated into the calendar as well. When locked, no work emails appear in the hub and while work appointments appear, they are all labeled "Work Event (Locked)".

So its not really a true segregation where you could turn work "On" and "Off". In fact, you can work with any open application in either the work or the personal space. But you can only launch work applications from the work side. The work side is essentially a duplicate of a stripped down OS with just basic applications. You can only install applications from "Blackberry World-Work" which only contains applications approved by your company. The Android player is not implemented on the work side either, so Android ports, be they from BB World or side loaded, can't be installed on the work side and personal side applications can't access certain work side data nor can personal side apps access the work side data connection (your corporate VPN). As well, documents saved from work emails, or otherwise downloaded from a work source (i.e Blackberry Work Drives, work browser) can only be viewed when the work side is unlocked. It is only with the latest versions of 10.2 that work files now receive their own sub-directory. Previously they were all lumped together.

There are some other little tricks too. You can't cut and paste from a work document, contact or email into anything on the personal side. Android ports can see work contacts, even though they can't access the work side data connection. This means apps like Skype can't be installed on the Work side. But Skype on the personal side can see your work contacts.

A minor frustration for some is that you'll receive the blinking light and notifications for Work side emails even if the Work side is locked. Several folks had hoped that you had an option to turn work "Off" not just lock it.

Contacts can all be seen in the "All Contacts" view of the Contacts app as long as the work space is unlocked. Contacts are either Personal or Work, depending how they are loaded into the phone. For instance, downloading a .cvf file from my work side browser puts the contact in the work side.

In the end, its really a unified experience. 99% of the time I'm in my Personal side with the Work side unlocked, unless I need to launch a work specific application. If a work application is already running, and I'm in my personal side, I don't need to go to the work side to use it. Work specific applications like BB Enterprise Messenger can run headless on the personal side even if the work side is locked (i.e you'll receive notifications etc.). If you set a device password identical to your Work side password, both unlock whenever you unlock the phone.

There are a million other nuances to it, but basically if you are looking for a Balance implementation that turns your email account that you use for work off, Balance, as it is now, is not the solution.

However, I certainly can see a non-enterprise version of Balance that lets the end user turn features, accounts and notifications on or off. I think that is what BlackBerry was evaluating in the Beta Zone survey. But that would be a totally different animal than Balance as it is now.

And there's more: The Playbook has its own version of Balance which is almost completely different than the OS10 version of Balance.

Old Ag

[imz]

I have personal email account and...
A work email account.

I would happily pay for balance, because it would fit my needs.

There's plenty of small one man bands and small businesses who this would benefit as they don't have IT support or a windows server with bes on it.

Posted via CB10

[DivideBYZero]

I've been using balance for 6 months, and it really isn't a big deal for me, in fact, the copy paste restriction can be a ball ache sometimes.

Obligatory "I'm more businessy than you as I have a BES10 account".

Posted via CB10

[Old Ag]

If you don't have a work VPN or any work applications that require access to a work VPN, then there is really no point to having a work partition (i.e. Balance) on the phone.

What I think people want is a simple way to turn off non-BES work e-mail notifications and accounts, and a way to differentiate work contacts from personal contacts.

or a "Weekend" button, if you will. Turn it off and its like the work side of you phone goes away. Turn it back on and the work side comes back. Of course options would be nice as well to control what turns off and what turns on.

the option to segregate personal from work files would be nice too.

Old Ag

[toobs623]

Thanks for your posts Old Ag. I agree think what they were evaluating is if sometime in the future it would be worth putting in a consumer separation ability.

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