[dastillero1975]

... of what BB should have done to bring the BB OS 10 to Android.
Sweeping left to right brings up an screen (Google Now like) were you can put any widget you want. If you put Hub's widget there you have the best BB OS 10 like experience I've seen on Android. And you have gestures!

Video here:

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Yes...

But BlackBerry was "sorta" rushed into bringing Android to their devices and they had limited resources to devote to it. And their focus was on the security/privacy aspects and not in the making it work like their failed BB10 OS.

Oppo is a huge company that has been working with Oxygen for a good while now. Their OnePlus line has been very successful and sells millions of phones a year. If BlackBerry ever see a real revenue stream out of these three licensee... maybe they be able to put more effort into it.

But so far two haven't done much of anything and I'm not sure the BBMo has real done... it takes money to pay for development.

[naijab0y]

Yes...

But BlackBerry was "sorta" rushed into bringing Android to their devices and they had limited resources to devote to it. And their focus was on the security/privacy aspects and not in the making it work like their failed BB10 OS.

Oppo is a huge company that has been working with Oxygen for a good while now. Their OnePlus line has been very successful and sells millions of phones a year. If BlackBerry ever see a real revenue stream out of these three licensee... maybe they be able to put more effort into it.

But so far two haven't done much of anything and I'm not sure the BBMo has real done... it takes money to pay for development.

That's a cop out mate.

The PRIV was released November 2015. Before that they had been experimenting with android on BlackBerry 10. They've had 3 years to do it at the very least. Nova is just a launcher that was able to do it with google now and much less resource at their disposal than BlackBerry. Microsoft have done it with their launcher.

Instead, what we have is that ugly productivity tab. Why they changed it from the original design that came with the priv baffles me.

It's not resource issues. It's their developers and design priorities which are misplaced in my opinion. And frankly.. They suck.

[skrble]

That's a cop out mate.

The PRIV was released November 2015. Before that they had been experimenting with android on BlackBerry 10. They've had 3 years to do it at the very least. Nova is just a launcher that was able to do it with google now and much less resource at their disposal than BlackBerry. Microsoft have done it with their launcher.

Instead, what we have is that ugly productivity tab. Why they changed it from the original design that came with the priv baffles me.

It's not resource issues. It's their developers and design priorities which are misplaced in my opinion. And frankly.. They suck.

Well, they have very different priorities. EoT, automotive, maybe some software solutions for companies... That's what BlackBerry is today. Their smartphone division is not that important. We're quite lucky that they haven't fully abandoned it a couple of years ago!

Ever worked in a corporate sphere?

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Well, they have very different priorities. EoT, automotive, maybe some software solutions for companies... That's what BlackBerry is today. Their smartphone division is not that important. We're quite lucky that they haven't fully abandoned it a couple of years ago!

Ever worked in a corporate sphere?

That's the thing.... this has always been an experiment. Phase one with the PRIV and DTEKs failed. Fans should be happy they found "someone" to do the licensing and give that at try. Now if Optiemus has released their original two phones last year and sold a few million. If BB Merah Putih had sold the millions the were are geared up to produce. And if BBMo had sold a few million phone.... BlackBerry Android Secure and the Suite of Apps might be a bigger priority for BlackBerry. As it is, I don't know if they broke even... much-less made a profit. My guess is they put the licesee on notice, you haven't meeting minimum sales number... if that doesn't change we end this. Might be why Optiemus has tried to get something going...

Sadly... be happy with what you have, as it might not always be there.

[conite]

I don't think they wanted to use gestures.

They were more interested in pushing a more stock Android experience, and I for one, am glad.

Add gestures if you want - plenty of apps for that.

[Troy Tiscareno]

It also needs to be remembered that every change from stock Android means more to rebuild back in with every OS release and more to test and debug. BB isn't exactly rushing updates out as it is - more work load means even later releases because they aren't going to hire more people to work on it when they are making so little money on it already.

Frankly, they aren't trying to replicate BB10 anyway. Potential new buyers expect an Android phone to work like Android and to have perfect compatibility with Android apps, which means limitations from the start. Then consider that Google is bringing more stock gestures to Android anyway, which will conflict with BB10-style gestures. Finally, you have to consider that phones are no longer a priority for BB - they have rebuilt the business to make money in other non-related lines of business and phones are now a relatively low priority with a very limited budget for the BB Android division.

Obviously you are entitled to your opinion of what BB should have done, but at this point, it should be clear that what they are doing now is as much as they are willing to do.

And if this licensing experiment doesn't work out, BB isn't going to worry much about shutting it down. Heck, it might even improve their financials to do so.

[naijab0y]

Well, they have very different priorities. EoT, automotive, maybe some software solutions for companies... That's what BlackBerry is today. Their smartphone division is not that important. We're quite lucky that they haven't fully abandoned it a couple of years ago!

Ever worked in a corporate sphere?

Typical excuses of a BlackBerry apologist with smarta$$ comments.

Yes I do work in the corporate field as a data analyst and app developer albeit with analytic tools like QLIK Sense and Tableau. I do understand how to code. I do it everyday with SQL and VBA.

BlackBerry already have the tools and platform to improve design. It's called android. Google have done it themselves ages ago with google now and now with Android Pie. Nova replicated that. OnePlus have done it. Microsoft launcher has done it. Tons of other launchers have been doing it for ages.

A good example is the swipe down for notifications. See how long it took them to do it. U think that was a limited resource thing? How hard is a swipe up to view the apps? Even swiping up on the ugly app grid thing opens up the apps area. Why not just remove it? It's ugly and dated. This is all their design philosophy and again.. It sucks.

All sorts of third party apps and launchers to give u swipe gestures on android phones and then u all sit here claiming "oh remember it's so expensive and BlackBerry can't afford to do it". Rubbish.

They don't have to deal with the cost of manufacturing anymore.. Just write the damn code and stay up to date with the times and give the people what they deserve.

I do like the BlackBerry launcher but it could be a whole lot more if only they'd adopt an improved and more modern design approach to how they do things.

The productivity tab for me is very useful.. Just update the fonts, get rid of the blue and just give it a bit more of a modern feel.

Remove the grid to access apps. Allow a swipe. Lets have both options instead of one dated one.

Allow us to change the fonts on the whole system. A simple font style change goes such a long way to changing the appearance of a phone.

I don't think any launcher out there is better than the BlackBerry launcher but.. they definitely do show me that it can be a whole lot better.

[conite]

I don't think any launcher out there is better than the BlackBerry launcher but.. they definitely do show me that it can be a whole lot better.

You espouse all the virtues of other launchers, and wrap BlackBerry on the knuckles for making poor choices - YET, you go on to say BlackBerry has the best launcher.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At least they are apparently doing more things right than anyone else.

[dastillero1975]

I don't think that adding some gestures is more complicated than adding a capacitive keyboard.

I don't think they wanted to use gestures.

They were more interested in pushing a more stock Android experience, and I for one, am glad.

Add gestures if you want - plenty of apps for that.

[skrble]

Typical excuses of a BlackBerry apologist with smarta$$ comments.

Yes I do work in the corporate field as a data analyst and app developer albeit with analytic tools like QLIK Sense and Tableau. I do understand how to code. I do it everyday with SQL and VBA.

BlackBerry already have the tools and platform to improve design. It's called android. Google have done it themselves ages ago with google now and now with Android Pie. Nova replicated that. OnePlus have done it. Microsoft launcher has done it. Tons of other launchers have been doing it for ages.

A good example is the swipe down for notifications. See how long it took them to do it. U think that was a limited resource thing? How hard is a swipe up to view the apps? Even swiping up on the ugly app grid thing opens up the apps area. Why not just remove it? It's ugly and dated. This is all their design philosophy and again.. It sucks.

All sorts of third party apps and launchers to give u swipe gestures on android phones and then u all sit here claiming "oh remember it's so expensive and BlackBerry can't afford to do it". Rubbish.

They don't have to deal with the cost of manufacturing anymore.. Just write the damn code and stay up to date with the times and give the people what they deserve.

I do like the BlackBerry launcher but it could be a whole lot more if only they'd adopt an improved and more modern design approach to how they do things.

The productivity tab for me is very useful.. Just update the fonts, get rid of the blue and just give it a bit more of a modern feel.

Remove the grid to access apps. Allow a swipe. Lets have both options instead of one dated one.

Allow us to change the fonts on the whole system. A simple font style change goes such a long way to changing the appearance of a phone.

I don't think any launcher out there is better than the BlackBerry launcher but.. they definitely do show me that it can be a whole lot better.

See how long it took for them to implement these things you mentioned? Doesn't it remind you "typical" situation in certain companies where the job for whole team is being done by just two guys? Well, that's almost certainly it.

I worked for some time as a software tester right with the guys like you, developing apps in our case. I remember that it took them forever to implement anything we called for, some issues unsolved after numerous efforts etc. In their case, they often agreed that the code was old and bad just from the beginning. No time to rewrite it entirely as the team had been kept small to cut the costs down. They also wanted to create new apps or add new features to the already existing apps - it fulfils noone to patch other's code forever!

You might be underlining the fact that you'd just wanted small improvements, but even they take time to code, test and fully clear out of bugs. It's not priority, company doesn't probably see any major potential in Android development, so they'll hardly make the team twice as big. Thankfully, at least some bugs are adressed over time.

If they decided to shrink the team, it's their choice. I don't see a lot to discuss here. And really think you are among the most capable users at this forum to understand these situations, as you said you work like programmer too.

[conite]

I don't think that adding some gestures is more complicated than adding a capacitive keyboard.

I don't think it was complicated at all. I believe it was an intentional design choice NOT to include them.

[naijab0y]

You espouse all the virtues of other launchers, and wrap BlackBerry on the knuckles for making poor choices - YET, you go on to say BlackBerry has the best launcher.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At least they are apparently doing more things right than anyone else.

I never said it was the best. U can try to twist my words to please yourself. Luckily for me I can respond and clarify.

I never said BlackBerry has the best.. I said I don't think others are better. If u don't understand.. it means it has stuff it does better then others.. But others have stuff they do better than it. If BlackBerry adopted those Simple things.. I..e swipe to access apps, modernise fonts and allow gestures for varied actions.. Only then would it be better.

That's my opinion and what Im saying. Don't try to be a smarta$$.

[conite]

I never said BlackBerry has the best.. I said I don't think others are better.

Ok. Tied for the best then.

[naijab0y]

Ok. Tied for the best then.

I have no idea what the best is/are. All I know is it just could be a whole lot better if it adopts a more modern design and some basic functions that others have been doing for ages.

[Bbnivende]

Yes, the Oxygen OS seems to be ideal for those who like a gesture based OS. I agree with Conite, gestures were not a priority. Maybe Chen associates gestures with his bad BB10 experience.

Still, I do not think that BlackBerry buyers should pay extra for software provided by the OEM.

[Crisdean]

I know I'm pedantic here. But please say BlackBerry Mobile. It ain't BlackBerry anymore. We do software now.

And from my opinion. I love the nearly vanilla Android on the Key2 etc. Oxygen is nice on OnePlus.

[Bbnivende]

I know I'm pedantic here. But please say BlackBerry Mobile. It ain't BlackBerry anymore. We do software now.

And from my opinion. I love the nearly vanilla Android on the Key2 etc. Oxygen is nice on OnePlus.

We? You should have said they.

The gesture based OS probably suits all touch devices better. You probably paid a hundred dollars extra for your nearly vanilla android OS.

[dastillero1975]

Thing is that with iPhone, Xiaomi, OnePlus and others using gestures to navigate through the OS and to remove navigation bars in order to make better use of available display space, probably BB will have to adopt and adapt their software to something they invented and where they had advantage.

I hope they are not too late again...

Yes, the Oxygen OS seems to be ideal for those who like a gesture based OS. I agree with Conite, gestures were not a priority. Maybe Chen associates gestures with his bad BB10 experience.

Still, I do not think that BlackBerry buyers should pay extra for software provided by the OEM.

[conite]

I know I'm pedantic here. But please say BlackBerry Mobile. It ain't BlackBerry anymore. We do software now.

And from my opinion. I love the nearly vanilla Android on the Key2 etc. Oxygen is nice on OnePlus.

We are actually discussing the app suite - which is 100% BlackBerry.

[howarmat]

Thing is that with iPhone, Xiaomi, OnePlus and others using gestures to navigate through the OS and to remove navigation bars in order to make better use of available display space, probably BB will have to adopt and adapt their software to something they invented and where they had advantage.

I hope they are not too late again...

BB doesnt have to do anything and can leave navigation the way it is. Many options exist for adding navigation with gestures that can be added if a user wants that. Not sure what you mean by invented or have an advantage with since BB came into the android game fairly late

[dastillero1975]

Just try BB OS 10 and you'll see what I mean.

BB doesnt have to do anything and can leave navigation the way it is. Many options exist for adding navigation with gestures that can be added if a user wants that. Not sure what you mean by invented or have an advantage with since BB came into the android game fairly late

[howarmat]

Just try BB OS 10 and you'll see what I mean.

i did use bb10 and they carried over good portions of it with their version of android but that doesnt mean they have to replicate everything from BB10 into android themselves

[dastillero1975]

Agreed. But gestures navigation was one of the things that made BB OS different. The other was the Hub that was ported the wrong way IMHO as it should have been part of the launcher and not a separated app.

i did use bb10 and they carried over good portions of it with their version of android but that doesnt mean they have to replicate everything from BB10 into android themselves

[stlabrat]

i rather pay less for current BB suite... knowing droid phone is out there as bench mark for credit rating, add on cost is not good thing (I am sure Gool-berry is better credit rating than standard droid users - knowning how many professional still hanging here... oxygen? what is going to impact your credit rating? I guess it remain to be validated... more pricy droid type? not very good...IMHO).
If you do any of these things online, you could hurt your credit