[Bilzac]

You work at Google eh?

[dbmalloy]

Thanks to the OP for taking the time to give us your experience on the BB10 from an IOS user....would be interesting if the OP could continue with posting as the OS matures..... It is refreshing to start seeing some balanced comments from other platform users...... I always find it interesting that until you switch from IOS you do not realize what a walled garden it actually is... Google itself is not that much better if you look at the controls they are staring to put on users not using Android....

[sydsam]

Us Europeans come in different height and hand size. And what might be good for you not necessarily is good for Europeans. I'm 6'2 and iPhone is near to unusable to me in terms of ergonomics. 5 is even worse as it has a wrong proportion of height vs width. But, hey, that's just me, maybe them Europeans feel different.

Posted via CB10

[MrPat]

Thanks jack918. Well written review.

Like it was said before HDMI over anything else, covers more scenarios.

At work, i manage our BES 10 server, and ActiveSync never gave me a syncing problem (10 different mobiles). Sometimes, it might take 1 minute max, but never more than that. We are still using an old Exchange 2003, so i'd check with Office 365, if the syncing delay cannot be tweaked.

[rexxenex]

I don't get why people say things like:

For me, I'm back to carrying iPhone 5 as my daily driver. Why? Most of my friends in Dublin are carrying iOS devices, and the lure of iMessage (even with its cronic bugs) and FaceTime is just too much for me. With the Z10, I just felt that bit more isolated. No Path, no WhatsApp, no iMessage, no spotify apps.

This is a BlackBerry device, not an Apple device - BBM is what BlackBerry uses!

[anon(5639363)]

I don't get why people say things like:



This is a BlackBerry device, not an Apple device - BBM is what BlackBerry uses!

Yes, but as was said, the person's friends are on Apple devices. Thus the person feeling isolated from them...

[Omnitech]

If I'd change anything, I think, I'd ask them to chase quality and not quantity in the App World store. Don't approve junk apps, beta apps, and apps that seem like beginners wrote them. Be different there, be bold. If I was them, I'd seriously think about limiting the number of apps in each category. That may not be practical, but who wouldn't prefer 1000 quality apps in each category then whats currently there?

I will chime in with the couple of other people who mentioned that the marketplace pretty much dictates this because all the one-celled pundits and loudmouths and short-covering "investment analysts" are always fixating on that figure.

You can't really "magically" force all the top app developers to support you. I get the feeling that Blackberry has liberally spread monetary incentives around and it still isn't a magic cure-all.

The saving grace there I would think, is that over time the reviews system, if managed properly, and if combined with a decent influx of quality apps, would render the garbage apps more or less invisible in Blackberry World unless you really sought them out.

Thanks for a thoughtful/balanced read.

[SlcCorrado]

Seems a few posters either didn't read the whole post or just missed the point. Either way, thanks for the write-up OP. Hope you continue to develop for BB10. And if you have thoughts/suggestions about the build tools, you should send them to the dev team at BlackBerry.

[xamdam]

Well BlackBerry App developer why not make an app to what your missing like something imessage could be used/integrated to BlackBerry device where users can use imessage some how with the z10.

You do realize the z10 has a video chat option

Posted via CB10, BB10, Z10

[el_excelsior]

You work at Google eh?

Google isn't a fruit company but has operating systems that taste like deserts

[CrackBerry Kevin]

Yes, the situation will improve over time. But right now BB10 does not offer me enough to abandon all those app eco-systems. Maybe if I knew someone on BBM, but I don't!

I'll add you to my BBM list if you go back to the Z10!

Good post. Honest feedback. Agree that there's work to be done, but that it's also pretty damn impressive for v1. I think as you see the US launch hit, you'll see more and more of the bigger name apps roll out too. What's App coming soon, for example.

Totally disagree on the size of the phone - the width of the Z10 is perfect... it's what makes two thumb typing on it soooo good. iPhone is too tight to be comfortable for two thumbs, and BlackBerry people need to type w/ two thumbs.

Looking forward to using your BB10 apps and blogging them up on CrackBerry!

[mset]

Ummm ok. So you don't like the phone and you returned it because you felt alone. Fair enough. Thanks for posting. Enjoy your iphone

Posted via CB10

Congratulations for totally missing the point. Retire this username and start again.

To the OP, I am definitely not a programmer. I just want to add that for me (and for many amateurs who are still reasonably tech savvy), the lack of apps isn't an issue. I can use the web versions in most cases. I do recognize the marketing need for the 'number' of apps.

What I'm waiting for is the platform to settle down, and for the designers to work out the many little kinks in basic functioning of the device. Lots of people here say they are having no issues...but there's no lack of multiply-reported little (or not so little) issues.

What sucks the hardest for me? Blackberry's official line is that they aren't involved in the warranty support for their devices, instead leaving this to the 'Point-of-sale' entity. Yes, like I want to deal with Telus. They should have taken their cue from AAPL in this.

[T_Touch]

I use the native DLNA on the Z10 for my wireless streaming. The "Play On" option in music/video/pics is seamless.

Posted via CB10

\
This is so true. After seeing so many reviews on the Z10, I can't figure out for the life of me why so many reviewers leave this wonderful function out. Apple's AirPlay is a really good feature, but it's so proprietary. You must have an AppleTV device. The Z10 plays it's content from any DLNA certified evice. And more specifically to the OP, the HDMI is a really neat and convenient thing to have because the output "over the air" technology is not as abundant we may think - certainly not as abundant as HDMI input devices. Blackberry offering both is a good thing great thing.

[anon(4314875)]

Thanks for your perspective, it was refreshing.

Question, which App did you make on your spare time?

"PicStroom - Feeding inspiration", which got picked up by Ireland's Dragon's Den and morphed into an app called Image2Talk to help children suffering from Autism. Which if you look at the support group that has built up around it, has been picked up by family members of people who have suffered from strokes and lost power of speech.

The app has taken a long journey from its origin to help find images when decorating a new living room!

[Thunderbuck]

Thanks very much to the OP for providing some thoughtful insight.

One point to consider: Cascades/C++ isn't the only development option. I'm not nuts about the Momentics environment either, and while it's due to be updated to the latest version of Eclipse later this year, there are still the WebWorks and Adobe Air environments available. WebWorks in particular is an interesting one; consider that the Z10's browser was written in WebWorks.

[helopilot06]

My exchange server is hosted by Microsoft Online Services, so you're good experience with ActiveSync has prompted me to check out the settings again and maybe open a support call with them.

They do support DNLA over wifi. I mentioned Airplay as an example, couldn't remember what the more "open" DNLA was called at the time. Its a great initial feature of BB10. If I was BlackBerry, I wouldn't have bothered to include the HDMI port and just pushed DNLA. Not a biggie, either way.

DNLA is great but for those of us who dont have a DNLA capable device on hand its nice to have the option for the Micro HDMI port. I know I use it all the time on my Play Book and hated not having it on my last phone. All in all though I really enjoyed your perspective from the developers POV. Great post

[BergerKing]

Yikes, I just realised that I kinda quoted a truly awful past advertising campaign.

When I was an employee, they forced us to collect a t-shirt with those superheros on them. Cringe :-)

When RIM realised I hadn't collected my shirt, they UPS'd it directly from Waterloo to my home in Dublin! What a waste of cash that was. I hear, things have improved enormously since then.

I definitely remember that showing up here at CrackBerry, and it was not met with any enthusiasm.

[BergerKing]

I'll add you to my BBM list if you go back to the Z10!

Good post. Honest feedback. Agree that there's work to be done, but that it's also pretty damn impressive for v1. I think as you see the US launch hit, you'll see more and more of the bigger name apps roll out too. What's App coming soon, for example.

Totally disagree on the size of the phone - the width of the Z10 is perfect... it's what makes two thumb typing on it soooo good. iPhone is too tight to be comfortable for two thumbs, and BlackBerry people need to type w/ two thumbs.

Looking forward to using your BB10 apps and blogging them up on CrackBerry!

You nailed my comments about iPhone's size. Just too narrow, for my tastes. I know some like it, but I had a Motorola that was fairly close to Z10s screen size, and I enjoyed the experience. But since my carrier doesn't seem to give a whit for the Zed, I'll have to see what enters the pipeline.

[Thunderbuck]

"PicStroom - Feeding inspiration", which got picked up by Ireland's Dragon's Den and morphed into an app called Image2Talk to help children suffering from Autism. Which if you look at the support group that has built up around it, has been picked up by family members of people who have suffered from strokes and lost power of speech.

The app has taken a long journey from its origin to help find images when decorating a new living room!

Cool app! Are you planning a BB10 version?

[TheMarco]

This is really nice and balanced review. I agree with most of it.

The biggest issue right now is the dire app situation. It's true, BlackBerry World is littered with CRAP apps. I know BlackBerry is playing 'the numbers game' right now and man, it shows. It's really hard to find apps that are actually worth downloading and many AAA apps are missing. I absolutely love BB10 as an OS but it's in dire need of quality apps.

About Momentics: I'm quite OK with it. I've done some iOS development as well and I absolutely despise XCode. An absolutely horrible and confusing environment. While Momentics isn't perfect I certainly didn't find using Momentics worse than using XCode.

[ardiri]

i felt i had to chime in here - as a developer evangelist for BlackBerry; but also as a "cross platform" developer.

BlackBerry has taken a number of steps to make sure that development for BlackBerry 10 utilizes as much as possible "bring what you have, not learn something new" principle. if you've developed using C/C++ with openGL, openAL and POSIX based API's - your apps may just work out of the box with very little or no modification at all. the challenges with mobile development is typically around the user interface experience, thats where the majority of the work will need to be done. BlackBerry has gone to such lengths to even post "porting" guides for developers:

Porting iOS apps - Cascades for BB 10 - BlackBerry Developer
Port your Android app from BlackBerry PlayBook OS to BlackBerry 10 OS - Runtime for Android apps - BlackBerry Developer

these are very helpful resources; the main caveat that I have seen most iOS developers fall into is the fact they start developing for iOS as their first platform and get forced down the Objective-C programming language route - so porting may end up being a complete rewrite because Objective-C is a language specific to the iOS platform. what you can do, if you are considering writing mobile applications is separate your application base and user interface to the specifics of the platform (objective-C, QML, cascades et al) and write all your business logic in C/C++ which has been proven to be portable across many platforms. you can then have 20% UI, 80% business logic and adding a new platform is just a matter of migrating some UI/platform specific features - not a complete rewrite.

another big point is that you have freedom of choice when it comes to what desktop platform you can use, there are no annual developer fees and the SDK's are available completely free. signing and publishing is also free - so the only thing you can possibly lose is your own time. the Z10 is launching well, applications are selling - it is up to you as a developer now to get on board and bring those "missing" applications genre's to the platform.. (but please, no more fart apps) :P

// Aaron

[anon(4314875)]

Cool app! Are you planning a BB10 version?

Thanks Thunderbuck. Not sure yet, leaning in a different direction for BB10.

[pfluger]

(...)
- Mini-USB port is really nice, but I think its location on the side is poor. It makes the phone difficult to hold when tethered to a computer while developing/debugging.
(...)

Quick tip that might make your life a little easier. In Momentics go to Target Navigator, Right click and then "New BlackBerry Target". Add the Z10 via its Wifi IP. No more tethering while developing/debugging. And you get exactly the same functionality as tethered via USB (logs, debugger, breakpoints, watches etc).

Haven't seen any other platform that makes wireless developing/debugging so easy and seamless.

[Djlatino]

I didn't even think Momentics is supported for Mac OSX. Boot camp it brah

[belfastdispatcher]

Ireland has never been a big BlackBerry country, possibly due to prices, but cross over to the North and it's a completely different story. From what I can see the irish prefer the iphone.