[Allgoodnicknamesaretaken]

So it would seem that this long awaited update is turning into something of a disaster, or at least a black eye for Blackberry. Given the official launch of Blackberry's latest and greatest in the US this week, I'm inclined to think it a disaster. How many people are going to get interested, google blackberry passport, and end up seeing thread after thread of people complaining that their phones have been made worthless by the update. How many lost sales?

And a few people here have claimed that this is for them the last straw. Certainly a lot of temper tantrums being thrown (and rightly so!) and great frustration. I think many people are absolutely incredulous that Blackberry was unaware of this flickering issue (and the volume issue) despite it being widely discussed on this forum through many months of leaks.
People here seemed to assume "It's just a leak, they must know about it and surely will fix it in the official update." And clearly Blackberry's QA team dropped the ball because they were apparently without a clue.

The real problem, it seems to me, is the total lack of communication between Blackberry and the community of blackberry users. Now, I'm relatively new to Blackberry, but many of you have been on team blackberry since its halcyon days and all through the darker times and the company's hopefully continuing recent turn around. You guys are the company's greatest evangelists and also a great resource.

The problem is that Blackberry doesn't value or make use of the blackberry community. In many ways it still acts like it's the market leader. Blackberry will never be able to please everyone, but it should be possible for them to engage with the community. Imagine if every month or so crackberry hosted a Q and A from someone within the company. People posting questions and the moderators picking the dozen or so best questions to pass on.

That simple act could create such good will within the community, and it would also serve Blackberry's economic interests as well.
Imagine if this had been asked to someone in the know from within blackberry:
"Are you aware of this horrible flickering issue on some of the leaked OS versions?"

That simple question 3 months ago could have saved them all this grief.

I know, probably a foolish wish that will never happen. But clearly they need to do something different. I hope they find something that works.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

I don't know how widespread the "issues" are... we pretty much always have issues with every software update - don't know that this one is any worse or better than a past one. For every one users with issues there maybe 500 without them.

I do agree that BlackBerry should do more testing... think there are plenty of CrackBerry users that would be happy to do some free beta testing (already are as many have been using 10.3 for over six months). But we are past the point were any software glitches are going to hurt sales.....

[AnimalPak200]

I don't know how widespread the "issues" are... we pretty much always have issues with every software update - don't know that this one is any worse or better than a past one. For every one users with issues there maybe 500 without them.

I do agree that BlackBerry should do more testing... think there are plenty of CrackBerry users that would be happy to do some free beta testing (already are as many have been using 10.3 for over six months). But we are past the point were any software glitches are going to hurt sales.....

The screen flicker issue was pretty much standard with every Passport running any 10.3.1 leaked build. Those that didn't experience it are definitely in the minority. But that doesn't really matter. It's a very visible issue, while it may not be fatal (just close all apps and it will go away), it's definitely very noticeable when it happens and severely detracts from whatever effort they placed into making the Passport feel like a premium device.

There are issues that you can sweep under the rug for a while, but this is just too visible. I can't see whatever work they did to improve some underlying process,.. but I can definitely see that they didn't do their work when it comes to this issue. And now to hear that they may have not been aware? How is that even possible. Are they even still using BlackBerry devices in Waterloo?

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[Jack Chan1]

Well, it doesn't hurt the sales figure no more cause the market is small enough.
But what it does hurt is the loyalists, like most of us here. Say, the flickering thing has been known to most of us who have installed the leaks months ago. Yet, not a thing is done by the firm even tho some have sent the emails reporting the issue.
I have noticed BlackBerry has less interest in the hardware, probably is pivoting away to software. And Imo, whatever is happening now surely doesn't help the firm to build the reputation.

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[anon(2325196)]

What BlackBerry needs are fans and critics who can actually spell their name correctly. It has two capital B's, like this: BlackBerry, and this: BlackBerry.

If you're incapable of spelling BlackBerry properly, I become incapable of reading your posts.

It's so easy to learn. Are you posting from a BlackBerry handheld? Then all you need to do is type bb(press space bar here...) for this result: BlackBerry.

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