My thoughts on the Priv... for BB Employees

I know BB Employees read these forums so, here is my personal feedback on my experience of being a Priv owner. Please read and pass on to relevant teams or, ignore, as you prefer!

Few of major complaints:

• Why the curved screen? Yeah it looks good but it’s annoying when reaching across to tap a screen item to find your palm has rolled on the side screen and done something else (something that doesn’t happen for me on normal square edge screens). To be fair, i've also had the same complaint from people at work with Samsung phones.

• The capacitive keyboard. annoying when it will randomly move the cursor somewhere else when you don’t want it to. Oh, and then when you WANT to slide the cursor around, it won’t.

• BlackBerry Hub. Possible the single biggest failure. As a company that built its reputation around Email, why does my Hub not get random Exchange emails? They show on my PC and OWA but not in the hub (There is an open thread about this on Crackberry – I’m not the only one!). I had to disable this and turn to Nine instead, which just works.

• And FFS! Which person in the design flipped the Alt and Shift keys around on the keyboard design!?!? As a touch-typist this is infuriating me!

Oh yeah, OTHER issues that have appeared since last night when I received a load of updates:

• BB distributed a bunch of BB app updates last night to my Middle East (Qatar)/STV100-4 . I now get repeat messages on my watch (notifications/Polar v800) about how my accounts are not Syncing. I have two options, CLEAR or SYNC, even when I press SYNC and sign in to the phone, there is nothing on the screen. If don't acknowledge on the watch and sign in to the phone there is no notification. ARGHH!!! …..x minutes later I get the message again. Any idea which App is doing this?

• Also, along with last nights updates, when I click the Google Now bar the VOICE prompt comes up and no amount of hitting the X (close) button will close it. WHY? It never used to come up and I liked it that way! Any idea how to set back my preference of the KEYBOARD?

I'm seriously worried about applying the MM update given all the threads I'm seeing and judging by last nights updates!

I soooo missed the days of hardware keyboards, I am faster with them but, seriously, BB screwed this up badly for me. Utterly unimpressed. I’m tempted to see if I can find some mug to buy it and flip back to a Samsung or something….

(Why do reviewers never experience issues like these?)

P.S. Qualcomm Battery Guru, awesome. Get through a day at work with around 40-50% battery remaining.

Thanks for sharing your experiences using the Priv.

Exactly same experience here.... Hopefully this gets attention.

Posted via BlackBerry Priv or Passport SE

Between the hardware design being outsourced and the underlying OS being Android, one has to wonder how much of the Priv experience is actually determined by BlackBerry employees.

Autoloader for BBOS 10....

Posted via BlackBerry Priv or Passport SE

How about you update to Marshmallow and then judge the software? Don't you think that would be prudent considering all those app updates are optimized for Marshmallow?. Many changes and tons of positive reviews for people using MM on Priv.

Priv owner since Nov 6th 2015

I'm actually on MM... yes a big improvement but still issues as mentioned above.

Posted via BlackBerry Priv or Passport SE

Hi,

First off, thank you for providing your feedback on your experience with the phone. I have taken some of your comments and shared with my colleagues.

I shall try to add some color to your feedback where i can...

@Curved screen: Like you said, it looks great... :) It also aids with ease of sliding in/out of pockets (especially with slim pants) We totally get the issue you are facing with the palm rub and we have done a lot of tuning for false touching on the edge to reduce miss-clicks, however it is a very fine balance of being too sensitive and under responsive, everyone has different tolerances, but definitely is something we will look at for future tuning. (inevitably the curse of a device with a curved large screen and users with smaller hands)

@CKB cursor: With our updated M release, the teams have done a lot of work to improve touch points with the cursor. I recommend trying the updated keyboard and let us know if you still find the cursor hopping issue. (Also something we are constantly striving to improve)

@HUB: Appreciate your feedback but don't got any good answers for you, i have shared your feedback to our HUB guru. I will let you know if there is anything that can be done. (If you can share logs, that would be the first step in understanding what you are seeing and why many others are not - and hopefully find a solution)

@ALT and SHIFT KEY: I totally feel you on the keyboard struggles. But you mentioned that you are a touch typist and that is why the alt/shift paradigm is confusing. For physical keyboards on mobile devices(aka BlackBerry) the ALT has always been to the left and shift below. #physicalkeyboard (i am talking since the 1990s) and every physical keyboard made out there has followed that design. - check typo and Samsung keyboard)

@UPDATES: I am not sure what you are seeing here, I have not experience the issues you are seeing on my watch. However if you continue to see this issue, we can work together to capture logs and investigate further.

@GOOGLEBAR: if you are tapping on the bar near the mic icon, it will go into listening mode, if you click on the "Google" icon it will make the listening sound and wait for you to speak or type. If you click anywhere else it will pull up google now and allow you to type your search

I hope i was able to answer/address some of your questions and do keep trying the device and exploring the features. We appreciate your feedback and support.

Cheers,

Dev
Product Manager - BlackBerry

Good morning (Depending on your TZ!),

thank you for taking the time to respond, it's very much unexpected and very welcome!

I should point out that in the context of the response I am a first time BlackBerry user, I guess one of the many new customers you hope to bring on-board whilst you rebuild your devices arm of the business. :)

Originally Posted by DeeJayBB

Hi,
@Curved screen: Like you said, it looks great... :) It also aids with ease of sliding in/out of pockets (especially with slim pants) We totally get the issue you are facing with the palm rub and we have done a lot of tuning for false touching on the edge to reduce miss-clicks, however it is a very fine balance of being too sensitive and under responsive, everyone has different tolerances, but definitely is something we will look at for future tuning. (inevitably the curse of a device with a curved large screen and users with smaller hands)

That's great to hear. I do understand this is a balancing act and to be honest, one of the lesser issues with the phone that I have.

Originally Posted by DeeJayBB

Hi,
@CKB cursor: With our updated M release, the teams have done a lot of work to improve touch points with the cursor. I recommend trying the updated keyboard and let us know if you still find the cursor hopping issue. (Also something we are constantly striving to improve)

I got incredibly frustrated last night so i said "frack it, just download M and give it a go, can't be worse!". First of all, THANK you for making these available on your website, I wish many more manufacturers would do this! I applied M last night, a rather pain free exercise, and at the same time it obviously wiped my phone (probably a good thing). It's just 7am here so, other than spend a few hours running updates and re-installing, i've not had much time to play but, will do today. So far, with the limited interaction i've had, i've not had the same issue with the pointer bouncing around so, initially this looks positive (in a big way) but only time will tell - probably know by the end of today at work!

Originally Posted by DeeJayBB

Hi,
@HUB: Appreciate your feedback but don't got any good answers for you, i have shared your feedback to our HUB guru. I will let you know if there is anything that can be done. (If you can share logs, that would be the first step in understanding what you are seeing and why many others are not - and hopefully find a solution)

http://forums.crackberry.com/blackbe...mails-1051536/

Check out the above link where Ryan and myself discuss this. Having said that, i've just put MM on and of course, it's updated Hub (a lot!) since I last used it so, maybe this bug has disappeared anyway. I'll update you in a few days. Either way, this only seemed to affect some corporate Exchange users so I'm thinking it must be some sort of setting on the Exchange server that some companies use and some don't. For example, it happened with my work email but not my personal Mail2Web hosted server.

Originally Posted by DeeJayBB

Hi,
@ALT and SHIFT KEY: I totally feel you on the keyboard struggles. But you mentioned that you are a touch typist and that is why the alt/shift paradigm is confusing. For physical keyboards on mobile devices(aka BlackBerry) the ALT has always been to the left and shift below. #physicalkeyboard (i am talking since the 1990s) and every physical keyboard made out there has followed that design. - check typo and Samsung keyboard)

Sorry, have to highlight something here. "For physical keyboards on mobile devices(aka BlackBerry)" without wanting to upset you, BB were not the only mobile device with a keyboard. I've personally owned a Toshiba G900, Acer M900 and a Dell Venue Pro, and others I can't remember the names of, ALL of which have the SHIFT and ALT("Fn" or *spot* in some cases) keys laid out with the SHIFT in the upper slot and ALT in lower slot to match the style of a PC keyboard (this is what I mean by touch typist).

Acer M900
Toshiba G900
Dell Venue Pro

All pretty much follow a standard PC layout for this keys. As said, being new to BB I had no idea that the keyboard layout was a standard BB layout and a long running legacy design choice. I'd love to know why the person in the '90's decided to deviate away from a "standard" PC layout though! - I just checked Mac keyboard pictures on the internet and these also have the same layout as a PC, makes the decision even stranger! :)

So, I guess with this point BB are as we say "stuck between a rock and a hard place". Any "new to BB" users, such as myself, will be used to these keys the other way around but of course, you will have many users coming from older BB phones. Not sure what you can do here.... good luck! :) (An optional tickbox to flip them, maybe?)

Originally Posted by DeeJayBB

Hi,
@UPDATES: I am not sure what you are seeing here, I have not experience the issues you are seeing on my watch. However if you continue to see this issue, we can work together to capture logs and investigate further.

I've reverted back to using BB Hub (as long as emails come through! haha) and flashed MM so I doubt i'll see this. If I have to revert back to Nine and it starts happening again, I'll let you know.

edit: Watch Update.

I've a new symptom BUT, I think this related to Polar and it's v800 watch integration ...maybe. If I reboot the phone I get the FIRST message from the BlackBerry Hub appear on my watch but, after that, even if I clear the notification, I get no further messages. The reason I think it's Polar is because further Hub Notifications come through on the Android bar itself but these do not get pushed to the watch. Of course, I could be wrong but I'll try Factory Reset on the watch and re-install of Polar Flow first.

Originally Posted by DeeJayBB

Hi,
@GOOGLEBAR: if you are tapping on the bar near the mic icon, it will go into listening mode, if you click on the "Google" icon it will make the listening sound and wait for you to speak or type. If you click anywhere else it will pull up google now and allow you to type your search

Actually, to expand a little on this, this wasn't just when clicking on Google Now. It started happening whenever the cursor activated in a text field. For example, if I viewed my Evernotes it didn't appear but the moment I clicked on Edit for one of them and the cursor became active, half the screen got swallowed up by the Google Voice prompt, even when I had the keyboard slid down. This happened in many apps and only started after the updates a couple of days ago.

However, this issue has gone since the upgrade to MM. I now don't get this annoying prompt.

Again, thank you for your time and hope this all helps.

Hi Stuza thanks for keep the language clean too..just reminder this is friendly family site :)

Originally Posted by usman_hidayat19

Hi Stuza thanks for keep the language clean too..just reminder this is friendly family site :)

hah - if it's good enough for BSG, it's good enough for me! :)

Originally Posted by early2bed

Between the hardware design being outsourced and the underlying OS being Android, one has to wonder how much of the Priv experience is actually determined by BlackBerry employees.

That's where User Requirements, Detailed Design (Functional/Non-functional design) and Verification/Validation come in to play, among other processes! :)

You don't have to build something to ensure it does what/how YOU want it to do.

Originally Posted by Pinot2015

How about you update to Marshmallow and then judge the software? Don't you think that would be prudent considering all those app updates are optimized for Marshmallow?. Many changes and tons of positive reviews for people using MM on Priv.

Priv owner since Nov 6th 2015

Not really, no. The phone was/is release and, for the vast majority of us, not running MM. And in addition, it was *mostly* OK until the updates a few nights ago which totally foobared it, for me.

(Until i forced the update last night (see previous post))

Yep..hear you...ex-priv owner here...

Posted via CB10

Hey maybe the problem is them dam green men......after all in most of your posts it's the owner not the phone.

No Woof for you.

Originally Posted by usman_hidayat19

Hi Stuza thanks for keep the language clean too..just reminder this is friendly family site :)

really

Hey

I am glad that the M update has resulted in some improvements and hopefully with your further testing it will only get better... :)

quick comments

@HUB stuff, ill pass on the thread and information you shared and see if anythings comes from it. (ill keep you posted if i get something back)

@Keyboard: I guess i should have also clarified, there are a lot of devices out there that have keyboards, MANY of them are the full keyboard when a device is turned on the side, i totally get those devices should be following a PC keyboard layout. (i would imagine if BB ever made a device with a keyboard like that, we would do the same) However, BB is rooted in our keyboard design and I even started to ask around as to why we went with the alt/shift paradigm. the best answer i can provide at this time was that the shift key was not needed as the device was "smart" enough to handle capital letters. (double space would capitalize, software would recognize names/landmarks etc.) However, Alt was used for punctuation, special characters as well as numbers. Higher usage and natural feel must have resulted in the placement and as it became the "iconic keyboard design" for BB we have never changed and if we did now....woooo :) (that totally could be the wrong answer but thats all i got :)) ...for now

Again i appreciate you taking the time to respond and share your feedback. I hope your experience with PRIV makes you a on-going BlackBerry user :)

Cheers

Dev
Product Manager - BlackBerry

Originally Posted by early2bed

Between the hardware design being outsourced and the underlying OS being Android, one has to wonder how much of the Priv experience is actually determined by BlackBerry employees.

A more open, vocal, and honest public presence would do BlackBerry a world of good. Consumers want verbal confirmation of commitment. That said, BlackBerry seems to have done an awfully good job with keeping the Priv up to snuff in terms of security. I just hope they're quicker this time with Andoid N.

I just love my priv!period.

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

Thank you for being on the forum. Are we going to have the option for resized email view? I don't see a reason to open an email and it's zoomed in too much. Also, are we ever going to get all notification in the hub? I get some massaging apps will need integration,but a lot of notification are simple in nature. Thanks in advance

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

I love the priv. The only feedback I have on the hub is please include automatic email resizing like on BB10. Genuinely miss that feature!! Also would appreciate some more work on speed, heat and battery life. Pretty good now but not as perfected as the passport.

In terms of hardware...the back plate is too big, causing creaks and squishy spots on the back. I fixed this by putting some black post-it note cuts into the very small gaps caused by he backplate. Overall I love the materials...the factory tolerances just need tightened up.

Great job and keep up the good work!

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

Originally Posted by mcne2001

I'm actually on MM... yes a big improvement but still issues as mentioned above.

Posted via BlackBerry Priv or Passport SE

It's Android! It'll always have issues. No one seems to remember how Android and Apple were slammed her for years. It only stopped when BB became Android

Originally Posted by StuzaTheGreat

So, I guess with this point BB are as we say "stuck between a rock and a hard place". Any "new to BB" users, such as myself, will be used to these keys the other way around but of course, you will have many users coming from older BB phones. Not sure what you can do here.... good luck! (An optional tickbox to flip them, maybe?)

I am new to BlackBerry with the Priv. Regarding the BlackBerry keyboard: Think of the variation in the Keyboard from what you are used to from before, in the same manner as a musician learning to play a new instrument. A little practice and it can be mastered. We also own two different brands of automobiles. They have their shifts placed differently. I drive them both. In different countries they drive the opposite direction on the left side and the right than we do in the US. go with the flow and grow.

I love the physical keyboard. I had the attitude of learning something new and fun. Fun it is!

I would be very angry if you did anything different with the shift and alt keys. Just saying.

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

Originally Posted by DeeJayBB

..
@Keyboard: I guess i should have also clarified, there are a lot of devices out there that have keyboards, MANY of them are the full keyboard when a device is turned on the side, i totally get those devices should be following a PC keyboard layout. (i would imagine if BB ever made a device with a keyboard like that, we would do the same) ...

Did you look at the Dell Venue Pro? Sorry, but you ain't the first at a vertical slider. In fact, the Dell was a great phone, sadly, let down by the immature O/S and more importantly, application library.

Originally Posted by DeeJayBB

..
However, BB is rooted in our keyboard design and I even started to ask around as to why we went with the alt/shift paradigm. the best answer i can provide at this time was that the shift key was not needed as the device was "smart" enough to handle capital letters. (double space would capitalize, software would recognize names/landmarks etc.)

And how do you use abbreviations and acronyms? Double space doesn't work with things like NASA, this is what fracks me off and when i get MOST frustrated. Yeah it's easy to say "double tap the shift key" but when the shift key isn't there?!?! Like you, I work in IT, and like you (Priv Prod Manager?) I've delivered some world famous projects but as they are IT they revolve around acronyms and abbreviations, all of which are a nightmare, for me, on the Priv. I remember working on T5 at Heathrow (didn't fail for the reasons you were spun by the press) and creating minutes of meetings as they happened on my Toshiba, no issues with abbreviations there!

Originally Posted by DeeJayBB

..
However, Alt was used for punctuation, special characters as well as numbers. Higher usage and natural feel must have resulted in the placement and as it became the "iconic keyboard design" for BB we have never changed and if we did now....woooo :) (that totally could be the wrong answer but thats all i got :)) ...for now

Again i appreciate you taking the time to respond and share your feedback. I hope your experience with PRIV makes you a on-going BlackBerry user :)

Cheers

Dev
Product Manager - BlackBerry

I guess the use case is different to sitting at a desk for most people. Ya know, all those billions of people sitting at a computer screen every day. Of course,that doesn't make it correct but it does make millions of people used to a certain format.

Any chance you can get a developer to help us computer users out and give us an alt/shift swap application?


BBHUB/typing
MM has reversed many odd things that came on my last update, thank you! (Thanks for correcting errors?)