[FF22]

They are both 24 to 30 months old...what did you expect?

Posted via CB10

For the 9930 - nothing. It is fine.

For the PB, I had hope that the CEO would keep his promise. I doubted it but still hoped. Like others I wanted access to the new apps for bb10. I would have liked a browser that had the features that my older 9930, prior bold, tour and 8830 had. I would have liked a version of docs-to-go like my tour and 9930 have. I would have liked a pdf reader that actually did something besides showing me a page of words but lacks the features like my 9930 has. I would like to have taken a picture with the as I did with my 9930 yesterday and while looking at the picture had a Menu offer me a choice of SEND. I sincerely expected BRIDGE to continue in its FULL edition rather than the CRIPPLED version mated with bb10 devices, oh, and yes, something in the Bridge Folder besides a README file saying nothing of any substance.

In other words it would have been nice if they finished the damn thing. Instead they FINISHED it off!

And like others, I don't completely buy the line that they tried. Maybe they did but they did not appear to have the talent, and yes, I believe talent could have accomplished it.

Color me disappointed but not entirely surprised.

[dazzleaj]

I won't buy a new BB phone until or unless the Bridge works. Don't care at all if BB10 comes to PlayBook.

[kraschute]

I was only a recent BB defender and ambassador of B10 because I came from NOKIA and was excited about them using QT, etc.
I was also advertising BB10 to friends and colleagues and made my family also to buy Playbooks - Sems I've been totally wrong as their last hope, BB10 turns out to be a ressource hungry bloatware and the company isn't capable of communicating things - they just hide heads in the sand or come up with the most stupid excuses. yes, I can forgive some things, but especially the latter communication issues lead to no other conclusions that you can't trust this company. I was planning to go for a Z10 and maybe also some Z10s for my family (as all of them have no smart phones yet)...

Now I won't ever invest in any of their products!!! Me and my family are lost customers, so at least 5 + friends (I allready posted warnings on our internal channels) and at work I also told my colleagues do not go for BB10...You might me let down like a hot potato and your investments are lost...I hate to say it but better go for IPhone, Android or WP. I for myself ordered now a Sailfish phone from Jolla (I have no problems with supporting underdogs, as long as they're sympathic)

In overall it's hard to count lost customers due to the BB10 debacle, but my estimation would be at least 1+ million people, many of them loyal or hardcore fans. Alone myself already has a negative multiplying effect of 10+ people and in a situation where BB would need any customer trusting on their new BB10 platform they cant afford this behaviour...

[kraschute]

Most people would never expect a device to get updates and be considered reverent after a certain point.

We live in a world of constant updates where products get finished "at the customer". It's quite ridiculous to read that line - maybe only the members of the throw-away-society expect a electronic product to last only 2 years. Also many preople just recently bougth the playbook with a promised update on the horizon!

[Angus_CB]

I'm not seeing it as a lie per say. It is how you treat your loyal customers.
As an analogy, you go to a restaurant that you've been to many times and order a steak. The order is taking a long time because the restaurant is busy serving a large wedding party. The owner comes by and apologizes for the delay and said your steak is coming very soon and it will be perfect. Three hours later, you receive a burn hamburger patty instead of your steak which all went to the wedding party. What should the owner do to keep you as a loyal customer and protect the reputation of the restaurant?

Yes it was a lie. Worse than that, it shows that the guy running the company has no idea what his products are.

Your analogy is a bit flawed.
It would be more like going to a restaurant that advertises a 20 ounce steak. After an hour wait the owner of the restaurant comes out to tell you that they have discovered that they don't have plates large enough to hold the steak. Rather than giving you a steak that is less than what they promised he would prefer to serve you nothing at all.

[jarviser]

They are both 24 to 30 months old...what did you expect?

Posted via CB10

I would expect os update support until the likely physical life of the last one sold is at least three years old, based on li-ion battery life. That's 2016 or later. Not two years after the first one sold for 600 bucks.

Ok car analogies suck, buy what if car makers decided to stop selling spares for your model because it was costing too much, and anyway it's tbree years old, so tough?

[piquepoc]

I think that now BB will not sell anymore playbook.
I still use mine and will continue, but why to buy a new one now ?

[RubberChicken76]

Base on the comments here at Crackberry and the unscientific poll on who will abandon BB, it is a safe conservative estimate to guess that 1 million playbook customers are very unhappy with the playbook situation.

Don't agree with this. For starters, you're making the assumption that all PlayBook users are like CrackBerry readers interested in tech. I look at my own social circle of PlayBook owners and none of them can be bothered to come onto a tech blog. Many wouldn't know what BlackBerry 10 is or why it would benefit. And quite a few (surprisingly) don't own BlackBerry phones.

These are people who got their PlayBooks because they saw a cheap tablet, not because they were some early adopter who paid full price and one day dreamed of the benefits of BlackBerry 10.

If each of those unhappy customer tells 10 people, BB stands to lose 11 million customers.

You mean potential?

Unhappy customers are not a good thing, but I doubt the PlayBook has any kind of that level of influence on defections. There just aren't enough out there. Subtract the ones that aren't in use, aren't working or were bought at steep discounts by non-tech nerds who could care less ...

[victorshikhman]

As I've mentioned on other threads, I've been purchasing bb products since 2005, and promoting them to my friends, family, classmates, coworkers... My plan was to upgrade to a q10, and three of my family members have upgrades coming due before the new year. I have already convinced a friend to get the z10 and was working on three or four other Android fanboys. No one was paying me to do this, but now even if they paid me I wouldn't feel right recommending bb products, knowing that the company has so little regard for its customers.

They've punished their biggest promoters, early adopters, best fans... And for what? To save some peanuts?

Now we're finding out that bb10 doesn't pagefile/manage memory, so even 2GB devices will be obsolete by next year and they will have to bump minimum specs to 4GB. This is not a one product issue. This is not an engineering issue because iOS and Android solved the same problem. It is a company culture and leadership issue, where they simply don't care and only focus on selling the next unit, not supporting existing customers.

[RubberChicken76]

Ok car analogies suck, buy what if car makers decided to stop selling spares for your model because it was costing too much, and anyway it's tbree years old, so tough?

Aren't car manufacturers legislated to keep the parts available for 20 years, due to the longevity of car use. Outside of classic computer collectors, no one is still using their Commodore Amiga in 2013. :-)

[RubberChicken76]

And like others, I don't completely buy the line that they tried. Maybe they did but they did not appear to have the talent, and yes, I believe talent could have accomplished it.

It's a question of whether or not they wanted to put those talented engineers on a project (which I hate to say it, was a huge money loser) for a long period of time at the expense of projects that keep the lights on (like the phones).

[RubberChicken76]

Now we're finding out that bb10 doesn't pagefile/manage memory, so even 2GB devices will be obsolete by next year and they will have to bump minimum specs to 4GB.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. This is one developer's assessment of the situation. You made up the "next year it will have to be 4 GB". This is how discussions turn into "facts" on these forums (said in quotes deliberately). How do you know "advanced memory management" isn't in their roadmap for BlackBerry 11? How do you know what future OSes will or won't run on future devices? Yes, PlayBook did not get a BlackBerry 10 update as planned. The 9700 cut a BlackBerry 6 update as planned. It does happen.

In the cast of memory management, I would posit that the cost benefits of solving this problem would be of interest to Thorsten to get on their rear ends about and fix. Whether you like his decision with PlayBook or not, he's obviously a bean counter ... and a good one!

Let's say RAM costs $10 a unit for 1 GB. (I'm using this as a benchmark but it may vary a bit due to price fluctuations and volumes).

Then lets say RIM sells 30 million BlackBerry 10 devices over 18 months with 2 GB of RAM, with the ram costing $20 a unit (probably a reasonable assumption with a full product line).

If Thorsten Heins has the opportunity to save $300 million in costs by only putting 1 GB of RAM in the devices, pushing for them to solve this issue is in his interest.

What probably transpired here is that the memory management needed was going to be a huge development effort that would have delayed the launch even further than it was. Even though eating the RAM was an unwanted expense, doing so was probably far worse than delaying BlackBerry 10 further.


All we can do is wait and see...

Appreciate the frustration with the PlayBook being abandoned, and the concern that things *COULD* continue, but let's not push the rumour mill here ...

[bambinoitaliano]

Don't agree with this. For starters, you're making the assumption that all PlayBook users are like CrackBerry readers interested in tech. I look at my own social circle of PlayBook owners and none of them can be bothered to come onto a tech blog. Many wouldn't know what BlackBerry 10 is or why it would benefit. And quite a few (surprisingly) don't own BlackBerry phones.

These are people who got their PlayBooks because they saw a cheap tablet, not because they were some early adopter who paid full price and one day dreamed of the benefits of BlackBerry 10.



You mean potential?

Unhappy customers are not a good thing, but I doubt the PlayBook has any kind of that level of influence on defections. There just aren't enough out there. Subtract the ones that aren't in use, aren't working or were bought at steep discounts by non-tech nerds who could care less ...

Still I would not discount the number of pizz off customers. Look at the main forum regarding this subject. Over 900 comments and there's not even a prize give way. We are not talking about Apple and Samsung. Black Berry is not in the most secure position to say the least. The media, the analyst and some of the carriers are not on their side. The last thing they need are customers who owned BB devices and some of them long time customers start bad mouthing the company. I'm at the phase of not promoting BB right now. Should I being ask about BB products, you can rest assure I will tell the individuals not to purchase BB products because the company has a reputation of unreliability, and commitment issues. What ever devices they purchase just like buying from Craig list as is. There's no guarantee of updates or support in the future. Either get a cheap made in China device or for the same amount of money get an Apple or Samsung.

[kabelace]

What BB has to realize that in the market with it being so competetive and fast paced/changing customer service and loyalty are key. There are so many products out there that are similar. You want to keep your customers and grow your customer base, KEEP THEM HAPPY, as the old saying goes "there are lots of other fish in the sea". You don't show loyality and have questionable customer service do you really think I'm going to spend money on you. I'll leave a penny on the table when I leave.

[RubberChicken76]

Still I would not discount the number of pizz off customers.

We're saying the same thing. I just don't believe for a second that a million plus people are mad about this based upon CrackBerry's reaction. The whole concept is fundamentally flawed because it assumes all PlayBook owners are tech nerds that would bother to spend time on a tech forum, discussing tech products. In my experience, a lot of the PlayBook owners I know are people who bought a cheap tablet. End of story. They don't know (or care) what BlackBerry 10 is.

As I said in my opening line ... making customers mad is not a good thing.

[bambinoitaliano]

What BB has to realize that in the market with it being so competetive and fast paced/changing customer service and loyalty are key. There are so many products out there that are similar. You want to keep your customers and grow your customer base, KEEP THEM HAPPY, as the old saying goes "there are lots of other fish in the sea". You don't show loyality and have questionable customer service do you really think I'm going to spend money on you. I'll leave a penny on the table when I leave.

Considering the company is launching a new platform, it's mostly loyal BB customers that has faith in the company that took the leap of faith. You will have to pry the Apple and Samsung devices out of the others cold dead hands to convince them to cross over. BB10 is has good potential. Z10 and Q 10 are good phones but by no means way ahead of it's competitors. Similar with playbook, it's a good tablet with great potential. It's the company inability to capitalize on the potential to make their products superior is what worries me.

[bambinoitaliano]

We're saying the same thing. I just don't believe for a second that a million plus people are mad about this based upon CrackBerry's reaction. The whole concept is fundamentally flawed because it assumes all PlayBook owners are tech nerds that would bother to spend time on a tech forum, discussing tech products. In my experience, a lot of the PlayBook owners I know are people who bought a cheap tablet. End of story. They don't know (or care) what BlackBerry 10 is.

As I said in my opening line ... making customers mad is not a good thing.

For these customers, It's the basic checkered board browser. It's a need of more language just like their legacy phone. It's opening up the opportunity for developers to bring more apps and games. I think at least they would care about such things.

[axeman1000]

I wonder how many customers BB is going to lose and can afford to lose as a result of no BB10 on the playbook?
Base on the comments here at Crackberry and the unscientific poll on who will abandon BB, it is a safe conservative estimate to guess that 1 million playbook customers are very unhappy with the playbook situation. If each of those unhappy customer tells 10 people, BB stands to lose 11 million customers. Can BB really afford that?
I'm sure BB had already crunch the numbers to assess the risk of their decision on the Playbook. The question is what mitigation strategy will they deploy to win back the 1 million customers in order to reduce the 11 million potential lost.

If 11 million people follow other people because of a phone company then the world is full of 10 999 999 losers who can't think for themselves and 1 person who needs to grow up and get over it! Promised or not the company had multiple projects in the works and the playbook got left behind to roll out the amazing bb10 to the phones!!!!! How hard is that concept to understand? Grow up people stop being whiny sucks and armchair ceos and find better things bro do with your time. If your all so damn smart solve world hunger or something! Gheezz!

Posted via CB10

[axeman1000]

Time passed is irrelevant to whether or not a product should receive support. iPad was released on March 25, 2011 while the PlayBook was released on April 19, 2011. Apple decided to release iOS 7 for iPad even though it is quite old, and BlackBerry cannot even pull its act together to fix some highly visible bugs on the PlayBook.

I don't think the management team really thought this through. They have killed off word-of-mouth advertising, and made it difficult for even the best sales-person to promote BB products - similar to a car sales-person working at a GM/Chrysler dealership around the automakers' collapse. I honestly find it difficult to believe that the management knew NOTHING about this long ago.

This is relevant, os7 WILL NOT run on that old ipad it will only run on newer versions. Just like os6 would nit run on ipod touch 2nd gen models. So using that theory I guess all the fanboys should go to imore and freak out like everyone here? Nope just praises for a company that does the same thing but without the us media death call!

Posted via CB10

[BoloMKXXVIII]

Blackberry keeps losing senior management. I would think that would worry people more than Blackberry losing Playbook customers. When even the best fed rats are jumping ship it is time to stop putting your money on that ship.

[bbfan1040]

I own two Samsung tv's. Samsung is much larger & stronger than Blackberry. They have a variety of tablets available.
I purchased and gave away 5 Playbooks based on Thors promise of BB10 Playbook update. They aren't being used.
I lost a lot on my BB stock - twice.
I love my Z10. But the learning curve is substantial. That. is what is hurting BB sales. And that is why carriers aren't pushing BB10 sales.
I have been forced to load a leaked Z10 update. Both ATT and Verizon have been forced to stop update releases due to BB programming problems.
I am "bbfan1040" for a reason. But my patience is growing thin!
Now I can't trust BB promises :-(

[BB-04]

Really? This is about personal security issue? How about a business decision? If I'm not satisfy how I'm being treated as a customer by a company and I decide to end my business relationship with said company I am being insecure? Too bad, BB do not have lots of customers like you, otherwise the shares would not have sitting on a single digit today.

The stock price has nothing to do with the PB that has to with analysts purposely setting estimates high so when BB didnt meet those exceptations the shorts will cover. Just so you know all major mobile phone companies have lied to customers so good luck picking one that won't lie again.

[parbrook]

Ignoring tablets, phones, computers, etc., how many other things in life do people buy because of what they might be at some point in the future, or because it is made by a specific manufacturer regardless of functionality?

Don't people buy things based-on their suitability of purpose ?

Maybe, I am from another planet ?

On the other hand, how many husbands/wives/partners would like their other half to not have upgrades and remain in the same state as when they got-together ?
Or a restoration project (thinks - could this also apply to husbands/wives/partners?)

[bambinoitaliano]

The stock price has nothing to do with the PB that has to with analysts purposely setting estimates high so when BB didnt meet those exceptations the shorts will cover. Just so you know all major mobile phone companies have lied to customers so good luck picking one that won't lie again.

My implication that you make the assumption of playbook users who abandon the company because they are insecure. That's a very simplistic view of their behaviour. If majority of the investors view of the company is so gullible perhaps the stock would not have drop to single digit. No way did I state the debacle of playbook is the reason. I do not even think it was the reason at all. However, the after announcement, a ripple effect might for the Q2 result. We'll just have to see.

[bambinoitaliano]

Ignoring tablets, phones, computers, etc., how many other things in life do people buy because of what they might be at some point in the future, or because it is made by a specific manufacturer regardless of functionality?

Don't people buy things based-on their suitability of purpose ?

Maybe, I am from another planet ?

On the other hand, how many husbands/wives/partners would like their other half to not have upgrades and remain in the same state as when they got-together ?
Or a restoration project (thinks - could this also apply to husbands/wives/partners?)

You comparing companies public relationship with customers versus personal relationships is irrelevant to this debate. Though I'm sure it does exist that people do treat their love one like it's a business transaction.