[Eupathic Impulse]

Count me in as a Q10 owner as someone who would definitely buy (when next I upgrade) a BB10 phone with a trackpad. Happily, enthusiastically!

I mean, I can't even believe we're having this argument. For Heaven's sake, there's a REASON people invented computer mice. They are actually an irreplaceable part of the computing experience. The layer of abstraction they introduce is a GOOD thing. Have people been entirely brainwashed by the Emperor's Clothes of Apple's featureless boxes?

Touchscreens do not (cannot) cut it. The BB10 selector circle and other features are the BEST solution to the mouselessness problem I have ever seen, and they're just not good enough. Everyone else hates BB anyway, certainly all the tech reviewers do. There's nothing to lose by stopping the endless pandering to them.

[sheailewis1]

It would be a good idea if they found more ways to make it useful. Bring more functionality to the table and impress people.

If they implemented the track pad the same way it was for BBOS devices then it would be a step back if used for BB10 Devices.

Posted via CB10

[RJB55]

I'm amused at all the doom and gloom responses but it is nice, assuming this indeed is the direction Chen is heading, that he's recognizing that in some ways BBRY did not listen to their customers. Yes I'm one of the much maligned BBOS 7 dinosaurs still digging my 9930.

When the Q10 was announced I felt it had too many take aways from what I love about the 9930, and yes the track pad was one of them, there are of course many others but I won't go into those. My view was/is that for qwerty fans especially BB10 and the Q10 were half baked at release so I never felt compelled to upgrade. I just couldn't get why BBRY thought customers would appreciate loss of functionality/features as a trade off for an OS/device upgrade but what do I know.

I will however be upgrading shortly to a new Q10 but that's only because 10.2 seems to have brought back some of what was lost and I believe with new leadership BBRY isn't going the way of the dodo anytime soon. Obviously my opinion is that offering a model or two that have the track pad is a good thing and don't see how this would negatively affect anyone who doesn't want one. To me its no different than using a Windows 8 touch screen notebook or what have you with a mouse. Heck I do that everyday and also use the touch screen when it makes sense.

[belfastdispatcher]

It would be a good idea if they found more ways to make it useful. Bring more functionality to the table and impress people.

If they implemented the track pad the same way it was for BBOS devices then it would be a step back if used for BB10 Devices.

Posted via CB10

More functionality? I bet you can't think of one function that the trackpad could do that hasn't been already implemented in BBOS.


Sent from my iPhone using CB Forums

[RyanGermann]

End call button is the Home button, always has been.

On my Torch 9810... I'd just quick press the Back button 3 or 4 times and I'd be back at home no matter where I was (well, except in an app). I didn't have to look at the device I just press it a few times in a fraction of a second and done.

I don't recall, but wasn't a long-press on the menu also a "back to home" button? With the combination of press / long press and for heaven's sake if you have a keyboard too, nothing is more efficient for text editing and navigating around the device than a Belted BlackBerry, especially if you are interested in one-handed operation.

Assign apps to launch at the long-press of a letter key on the keyboard? Nirvana.

[sushistew]

track pad should have fingerprint scanner, oh wait ios has that.

[Eupathic Impulse]

I'm amused at all the doom and gloom responses but it is nice, assuming this indeed is the direction Chen is heading, that he's recognizing that in some ways BBRY did not listen to their customers. Yes I'm one of the much maligned BBOS 7 dinosaurs still digging my 9930.

When the Q10 was announced I felt it had too many take aways from what I love about the 9930, and yes the track pad was one of them, there are of course many others but I won't go into those. My view was/is that for qwerty fans especially BB10 and the Q10 were half baked at release so I never felt compelled to upgrade. I just couldn't get why BBRY thought customers would appreciate loss of functionality/features as a trade off for an OS/device upgrade but what do I know.

I will however be upgrading shortly to a new Q10 but that's only because 10.2 seems to have brought back some of what was lost and I believe with new leadership BBRY isn't going the way of the dodo anytime soon. Obviously my opinion is that offering a model or two that have the track pad is a good thing and don't see how this would negatively affect anyone who doesn't want one. To me its no different than using a Windows 8 touch screen notebook or what have you with a mouse. Heck I do that everyday and also use the touch screen when it makes sense.

Yep basically. BBRY thought that they could please two masters: the tech reviewers and their so-unfashionable, outmoded base. The tech reviewers live in California and already envy their friends who work at Google or Apple. The right answer would have been to pander to the base.

I like BB10, but I still don't believe that BBOS, at least as a front end, was a dead end. There were some very good design decisions there that IMO ought to have been kept.

[Thunderbuck]

@Thunderbuck - does the trackpad on some devices and not on others lead to "fragmentation" for bb10 devices? Will this affect devs at all in your opinion?

It depends on the implementation. I think the OS can support these controls without having to specifically point to them (i.e. the trackpad would use the same api as the touchscreen navigation itself), so it doesn't have to complicate developers' lives much.

The biggest impact is in device complexity. More physical controls adds to the cost to design the device, build it, and support it, and the margins in the business are murder. But if making this change helps customer retention (because I don't see it attracting users from other platforms, particularly), I guess it's worth it.

[xanadome]

I am hoping that some new BB10 device with the belt of the function keys/trackpad be announced tomorrow, or at least a roadmap.
I am sure that it was so obvious to the new management that loss of those BBOS functions (not the BBOS itself. These BBOS functions will be on the BB10), and decision to bring those back must have been made very early on. I suspect that even a prototype of two already exist.
I believe the ne management simply chose to wait until Barcelona to formally announce this.

[Bbnivende]

[QUOTE=tomsobon;10046988]

I'm on Q10, and really dont want any trackpad nor action buttons to eat my real estate




you still needed to hold shift with the trackpad on BB legacy devices!!

OK look at your Q10 . Can you see it getting wider ? Maybe a little. Can you see it getting taller ? Sure the Q10 is shorter than most phones. There is room to grow vertically not so much horizontally. A Q with a belt would have at the very least a 3.1 inch screen.

I do not need a trackpad. I do not do a lot of cutting and pasting. I use it to check boxes etc. I can cut and paste on my 9900 just fine without the trackpad.

I think this move is aimed primarily at the Enterprise market. I would need something with a bigger screen to stay with a Q.

[RyanGermann]

It depends on the implementation. I think the OS can support these controls without having to specifically point to them (i.e. the trackpad would use the same api as the touchscreen navigation itself), so it doesn't have to complicate developers' lives much.

I'd say that the Trackpad can work like the already-optional-but-supported Bluetooth mouse works... when paired with a Bluetooth Mouse, there is a little mouse pointer on the screen accurate to single-pixel precision. It doesn't have to do anything other than what's already built-into the device, but some of the gestures near the screen edges aren't properly supported in Landscape mode... but improvements to landscape mode functionality with BB10 is a all-round WIN, Belt or no Belt.

The biggest impact is in device complexity. More physical controls adds to the cost to design the device, build it, and support it, and the margins in the business are murder.

Now, you've said this before, but I've never seen you back this up with figures, and I'd accept a WAG (wild a** guess). Come on: how much more over the entire lifecycle of the device do you estimate the cost to BlackBerry to be to design, develop, produce, and support Belted devices (which they have 6 years of experience at). Percentages, hard dollars per device, ANY figures.

My WAG? $50. Total. All in. Period.

I also guess that whatever number you come up with that would keep BlackBerry from bearing the differential cost (so that the cost would be borne by the customer, not BlackBerry) a customer (like me) would pay double and not complain.

[sheailewis1]

More functionality? I bet you can't think of one function that the trackpad could do that hasn't been already implemented in BBOS.


Sent from my iPhone using CB Forums

If you weren't so narrow minded maybe you could. You don't need me to explain it to you.

Posted via CB10

[MobileMadness002]

That seems stupid and strange. How on earth are we going to use those on BlackBerry 10.

The hard buttons will keep the cry babies from asking for the up/down swipe or the other cry babies asking to keep the left/right swipe.

As for the track pad, I could fund whatever I was looking for within seconds using that. No different than gestures now but I welcome it all back.

Posted by my device of choice. Might be a BlackBerry, might not be. It is of no concern to you.

[afl777]

In today's world of tech where only the best will do, the one thing no one thinks about is how to answer a phone while walking when one hand is taken up with a walking stick.

Ok....most will say shuffle about with an ear piece in.

But it's a certain fact a button phone is a lot easier to deal with.

[Zenith_Inferno]

I for one look forward to it. I doubt they would put them on an all touch device, but I don't see what harm it would do on a physical keyboard model. Using a physical keyboard already has you using a smaller screen. I don't think a small addition will make that much difference. Even if they just made it a bit taller. Options aren't a bad thing. I would prefer a trackpad, if nothing else but for text selection, web browsing, and solitaire. I could take or leave the rest of the buttons.

[belfastdispatcher]

If you weren't so narrow minded maybe you could. You don't need me to explain it to you.

Posted via CB10

The trackpad has more functions then most people think, why don't you tell me what function you'd like and il tell you if it's already there.


Sent from my iPhone using CB Forums

[systemvolker]

Track pad is fine, just the track pad... BlackBerry, just don't make lots of it please.

Posted via CB10

[sheailewis1]

Who knows? Use your imagination?

Posted via CB10

[Im Mo Green]

[QUOTE=Bbnivende;10047270]

OK look at your Q10 . Can you see it getting wider ? Maybe a little. Can you see it getting taller ? Sure the Q10 is shorter than most phones. There is room to grow vertically not so much horizontally. A Q with a belt would have at the very least a 3.1 inch screen.

I do not need a trackpad. I do not do a lot of cutting and pasting. I use it to check boxes etc. I can cut and paste on my 9900 just fine without the trackpad.

I think this move is aimed primarily at the Enterprise market. I would need something with a bigger screen to stay with a Q.

and that's exactly what you are going to get. The "belt" is going to allow for a bigger screen on the qwerty models, not lose "valuable screen real estate"

[xanadome]

I believe this is the single most important decision that the new management made. It was ludicrous to abandon millions of enterprise users from the Fortune 500 right down to one person freelancers, who used their BB to discipline their daily grind of the business life, which is quite different from the average consumer use of smartphones. Enterprise oriented users care much less about smaller screen size, technicolour display wizardry or a bunch of useless entertainment apps etc. They wanted super efficient, no-noncense, business oriented, and utilitarian devices, yet very secure, and nobody except BBRY was providing it. When previous management got obsessed with consumer devices (i.e., Apple/Android clones) and abandoned/axed those enterprise oriented functionalities, it almost killed BBRY.
By bringing back what millions of users cherished will at least stop or slowdown the exodus of enterprise users, giving Chen & Co, much needed breathing space.
Q10 with its straight line keyboard indicated to me that Heins & Co. never really understood how the keyboard worked best in conjunction with other buttons (including the trackpad), and just slapped a simple typing pad to quell those who opposed to the Z series only idea.

Anyway, I see a glimmer of hope under Chen, but time may be running out.
OTOH, those who were abandoning the BB might stop to think for a moment, even out of courtesy, to see where the new BBRY might be going. Let's hope so.

[Thunderbuck]

I'd say that the Trackpad can work like the already-optional-but-supported Bluetooth mouse works... when paired with a Bluetooth Mouse, there is a little mouse pointer on the screen accurate to single-pixel precision. It doesn't have to do anything other than what's already built-into the device, but some of the gestures near the screen edges aren't properly supported in Landscape mode... but improvements to landscape mode functionality with BB10 is a all-round WIN, Belt or no Belt.

Agreed, there's already a set of OS events to trap. From a software perspective it should be completely transparent.

Now, you've said this before, but I've never seen you back this up with figures, and I'd accept a WAG (wild a** guess). Come on: how much more over the entire lifecycle of the device do you estimate the cost to BlackBerry to be to design, develop, produce, and support Belted devices (which they have 6 years of experience at). Percentages, hard dollars per device, ANY figures.

My WAG? $50. Total. All in. Period.

I also guess that whatever number you come up with that would keep BlackBerry from bearing the differential cost (so that the cost would be borne by the customer, not BlackBerry) a customer (like me) would pay double and not complain.

I'm not a production engineer, so I don't know for sure what the cost would be. $50 all in might even be high, but considering that BlackBerry devices have a reputation for being overpriced as it is, anything that raises their costs has to be considered very carefully.



Posted from CB10 running on my awesome Z30 2B6927F7

[neoberry99]

No, just no.

I can only think of one person who would really enjoy it if these rumors are true.

Posted via CB10

If you're talking about me...You're correct!

And if you're not, I'm happy for the belt return! It's time to "whip" this industry into shape....no more "holding back".

Ok very corny but happy if rumor is true.

Posted via CB10

[kenicolo]

Trackpad is still the most precise tool to select text and correct typos. If they focus on enterprise then they must provide the best tool out there.

My bet is that it will be a virtual "belt" just over the leaked three row keyboard of the q30.

Posted via CB10

[imz]

I don't get these responses.

If you want a touchscreen get a z10/z30

If you want a physical device with tactile feedback get a keyboard+trackpad

Why can't the two co-exist?

The "keyboard" gives that extra precision over a "touch".

The "track pad" gives that extra precision over "touch select + positioning"

If the rumor is true I'm doubtful the track pad will make its way to the full touch devices, and will only make it to the Q's

Posted via CB10

[milo53]

Oh god no, whyyyy

Posted via CB10

The lowest hanging fruit, in terms of easier sales, are the folks with a BB7 in their hands. He wants them to upgrade to BB10, this is the crowd Heins was going for as well.

BB probably did a consumer survey, and found these buttons are important for BB7 users today.

He wants to target these, me, customers, (millions) this would be much easier than converting IOS or android to BB10. Again, lowest hanging fruit.

Maybe a smart move.