[jope28]

Productivity is low on US mobile user priority list as gaming and social networks dominate | ZDNet

The linked article basically is in line with the mentality that no matter how you look at it, BlackBerry users are not average consumers. The fact that BBOS is still king (in terms of sales and user base) among BlackBerry users shows that even if we consider ourselves normal consumers, the reality is that we aren't.

I use my Q10 very differently than the "normal" consumers as specified in that article.
Game would be less than 5 percent.
Email, messaging, communication in general take up 55 percent of my use. CB10 app and general browsing probably 15%. Productivity apps (creation, viewing, editing of files, organizing info and preparing info to share) takes up probably 30%).

I'm just guessing at these percentages for me, obviously, but I just wanted to make the point that no matter how much we complain about the company faltering, that maybe the ppl like us are a dying breed.

Edit: the fact that I can pick up my old 7.1 device and still function just as well or maybe even better than my Q10 in some things throughout my day, just goes to show that at least my use case is very different from the ppl who are the attractive customers for smartphone companies. I imagine I'm not alone.


Posted via CB10

[Iggy City]

I don't mean to offend or generalize, but I find it childish when I see a grown man playing Fruit Ninja on his phone. Just seems off to me haha.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

What make BBOS more productive than BB10? Personally I think BBOS sales are higher because of the markets where they are being sold rely on BIS type communication (cheap plans). Or you have the corporate world that has not moved on the whole update process to BB10.

But I will say that most people are using their smartphones as either a communications device via Social Networks or they are playing a games. It has gotten to the point where email and other communications is irrelevant, because all devices have it and are about the same as far as connections go. Granted the HUB on BB10 is much more useful to me than trying to check several different accounts... but no one knows that because BlackBerry never really spent much time promoting that feature.

[MAJ009]

What make BBOS more productive than BB10? Personally I think BBOS sales are higher because of the markets where they are being sold rely on BIS type communication (cheap plans). Or you have the corporate world that has not moved on the whole update process to BB10.

But I will say that most people are using their smartphones as either a communications device via Social Networks or they are playing a games. It has gotten to the point where email and other communications is irrelevant, because all devices have it and are about the same as far as connections go. Granted the HUB on BB10 is much more useful to me than trying to check several different accounts... but no one knows that because BlackBerry never really spent much time promoting that feature.

All the more reason for BlackBerry to come up with devices that attract general consumers and fully explore their awesome OS. Keep making Qwerty only and the writing is on the wall.

Posted via CB10

[jope28]

What make BBOS more productive than BB10? Personally I think BBOS sales are higher because of the markets where they are being sold rely on BIS type communication (cheap plans). Or you have the corporate world that has not moved on the whole update process to BB10.

But I will say that most people are using their smartphones as either a communications device via Social Networks or they are playing a games. It has gotten to the point where email and other communications is irrelevant, because all devices have it and are about the same as far as connections go. Granted the HUB on BB10 is much more useful to me than trying to check several different accounts... but no one knows that because BlackBerry never really spent much time promoting that feature.

You raise a good point.
To be fair, maybe I just "feel" that I can do some things more efficiently on my BBOS device than on my Q10. I grant you that maybe it's that after so many years of getting used to it, everything has become second nature to me on the old OS. Maybe I just need to really get used to the contacts app, figuring out how to separate certain email account inboxes and just little things.
In no way would I give up my Q10 now, but to be honest, I would be fine and get by without feeling that I couldn't get my "mobile fix" if I had to send in my Q10 for repairs and had to use my BBOS phone for a couple of weeks.

I love the screen of the Q10, the HDMI cable to connect to TV or projectors along with many other things.

Posted via CB10

[Troy Tiscareno]

If you take emerging markets out of the picture, I'd guess that most BB users are BB users because they are carrying a corporate-issued BB. In mature markets, CONSUMER BB users are the exception (enterprise customers being the norm), and I'd guess a good number of the consumer BB users are also strongly business-focused; either small-business owners or corporate employees who can BYOD and chose a BB for that purpose. I'd guess that most of these users are 25-50 years old. Even among this group, BBs are the exception and not the rule - Apple and Android still own most of that market. BB's niche today is quite small.

iOS and Android don't operate in niches, or rather, operate in virtually every niche. iOS & Android customers are 6 years old, and they are 96 years old. They are pre-teens and bus drivers and CEOs and garbage men and realtors and teachers and scientists and law enforcement and college students and athletes and doctors and on and on. They have ecosystems that are both wide and deep, and they provide a complete, targeted experience to ALL of these different groups of people. BB only provides a near-complete experience to a few small niche groups, and even then, it relies on Android for a good deal of that completeness.

So, yes, obviously, the BB user is different, because the BB user is in one of a few small niches, while the competition's users are both part of a niche AND a part of a huge number of dissimilar niches that still share an ecosystem that works for all of them. That difference is why BB is in the situation that they are in today.

[jope28]

If you take emerging markets out of the picture, I'd guess that most BB users are BB users because they are carrying a corporate-issued BB. In mature markets, CONSUMER BB users are the exception (enterprise customers being the norm), and I'd guess a good number of the consumer BB users are also strongly business-focused; either small-business owners or corporate employees who can BYOD and chose a BB for that purpose. I'd guess that most of these users are 25-50 years old. Even among this group, BBs are the exception and not the rule - Apple and Android still own most of that market. BB's niche today is quite small.

iOS and Android don't operate in niches, or rather, operate in virtually every niche. iOS & Android customers are 6 years old, and they are 96 years old. They are pre-teens and bus drivers and CEOs and garbage men and realtors and teachers and scientists and law enforcement and college students and athletes and doctors and on and on. They have ecosystems that are both wide and deep, and they provide a complete, targeted experience to ALL of these different groups of people. BB only provides a near-complete experience to a few small niche groups, and even then, it relies on Android for a good deal of that completeness.

So, yes, obviously, the BB user is different, because the BB user is in one of a few small niches, while the competition's users are both part of a niche AND a part of a huge number of dissimilar niches that still share an ecosystem that works for all of them. That difference is why BB is in the situation that they are in today.

Nice post. Really like the way you broke it down.
Kudos.

Posted via CB10

[anon(6038817)]

I've always said that the reason I prefer BlackBerry devices is because they are designed with communication and productivity as the main focus, whereas their competitors are focused on content consumption (iTunes, Google Play, etc.) with communication and productivity secondary to that.

I enjoy having apps like Netflix and Candy Crush on my Z30, but I consider them nice to have, not absolutely essential to my desired smartphone experience.

Sent from my BlackBerry Bold 9930 via Tapatalk

[Apollo_IV]

Whatever makes you sleep at night, I guess.

��

[badiyee]

I thought the one time they made a similar poll, or was it a study, and found out that BlackBerry users were very capable of doing multiple things on multiple OS platforms, and are very comfortable with getting things done as opposed to those who subscribe to singular platform users?

New findings I guess.

Posted via CB on BB10

[anon(5876743)]

I agree. I use my z10 for my photography business. Spend 90% in the Hub making things happen in real life. I don't want to get lost and play on my phone.

I find blackberry perfect for business and like how notifications are handled.

Hoping blackberry can build upon and improve bb10 for small and large businesses.

Rooting for them.




Posted via CB10

[tharrison4815]

I think I've got pretty much the same ratios for use as you do.

The thing is the rest of my I.T. department at work all have Android / iPhones and make fun of BlackBerry, but I'd say most of their phone usage is probably on par with us.

I think at this point it is people who just aren't educated at what BlackBerry 10 can do, and they aren't interested in hearing about it.
They just assume it can't do as much based on the fact that it doesn't have all of the games that they can get (but barely use) on their platform.

Posted via CB10

[skstrials]

I take pride in the fact that I never play games on any of my phones.

It is not only a waste of time, but the battery it takes is really not worth it.

Posted via CB10 using Blackberry Q10

[jcordova2819]

My phone should be focused, just like I am. The Q10 meets that criteria, and that's why it's the perfect tool for making things happen.

Posted via Q10

[quest877]

OP, you are just a normal guy, and are just in a pseudo impression that you are currently being tracked by NSA, CIA, etc etc.
No you aren't. Get a life, go out more often, maybe then you'll realize that nobody gives a damn about which phone or OS you actually use.
I've learned it the hard way. We are customers, we don't depend on companies, companies depend on us.
You've already did your part by paying it money for a phone, no need to pay more. BB already sells overpriced phones, you don't need to pay more to it. Survival of the company?, that's their headache, not yours.

[Bbnivende]

If you take emerging markets out of the picture, I'd guess that most BB users are BB users because they are carrying a corporate-issued BB. In mature markets, CONSUMER BB users are the exception (enterprise customers being the norm), and I'd guess a good number of the consumer BB users are also strongly business-focused; either small-business owners or corporate employees who can BYOD and chose a BB for that purpose. I'd guess that most of these users are 25-50 years old. Even among this group, BBs are the exception and not the rule - Apple and Android still own most of that market. BB's niche today is quite small.

iOS and Android don't operate in niches, or rather, operate in virtually every niche. iOS & Android customers are 6 years old, and they are 96 years old. They are pre-teens and bus drivers and CEOs and garbage men and realtors and teachers and scientists and law enforcement and college students and athletes and doctors and on and on. They have ecosystems that are both wide and deep, and they provide a complete, targeted experience to ALL of these different groups of people. BB only provides a near-complete experience to a few small niche groups, and even then, it relies on Android for a good deal of that completeness.

So, yes, obviously, the BB user is different, because the BB user is in one of a few small niches, while the competition's users are both part of a niche AND a part of a huge number of dissimilar niches that still share an ecosystem that works for all of them. That difference is why BB is in the situation that they are in today.

I think there are still many consumer owners in Canada and in the UK. Unfortunately, what is true in the USA will be our situation in a year from now.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using CB Forums mobile app

[iN8ter]

This made sense 5 years ago, but it doesn't hold water today.

Every platform is decent for productivity. This isn't 2006, wake up.

In some cases, service setups completely shut out devices like Blackberries and Windows Phones (i.e. Google Apps use) in comparison to Android and iOS devices; so the productivity argument doesn't hold water.

Secondly, it is not impossible to develop games and Social Networking Apps for Blackberry 10. The only reason why this is an issue to BB10 users here is because the developers aren't supporting the platform. If they were, I doubt anyone would be crying about "grown men playing Fruit Ninja" or anything similar.

The reason why Blackberry is hurting is because their timing was terrible.

They were about 4+ years late going cross-platform with BBM.
They were about 2 years late getting BB10 out the door.
They have no decent services, and are apparently terrible at partnering because Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, and even HTC have been doing a better job at that since forever.
They release devices at pretty bad times - after too many competitors have already come in and swooped up a ton of sales.

People can talk about BIS all day. BIS is good in developing markets with bad infrastructure. By the time 2010 rolled around BIS was a bad thing in markets like the USA where data speeds were moving to HSPA+ and LTE was right around the corner. BIS basically downgraded the internet experience on their devices. It was great when most of the content being consumed on smartphones was textual, but the market was already moving towards more visual media by then (Pictures and Video) never mind the onslaught of "the Cloud." For all of that, BIS was *bad.*

Issue for Blackberry is the market flip-fopped around the 2008/2009 timeframe. Back when BB was king, business users dominated the smartphone market. Those people cared about things like "can I easily attach multiple files to an email." Consumers didn't care because the consumer market had already moved to IM and other mediums to share content. What consumers hadn't done, en masse, until then was move from dumb and feature phones to smartphones. Once the smartphone market boomed, it was primarily due to consumer smartphone purchases and those people didn't need a Blackberry because a Blackberry didn't really offer much value over an iOS, Android, or Windows Phone devices for those users. In fact, they seen it as inferior because those devices were setup better to take advantage of the changes in the market, internet, advertising, and yes... even communications.

Blackberry's eggs were all in one basket, and they didn't have a Plan B nor did they pivot fast enough to react to it. Microsoft did, and has a lot more assets to aid in pushing their platform, but look how hard they have it because they had themselves in a vulnerable position similar to Blackberry (they were simply more agile than Blackberry to react to it after all of this happened in the market).

Business users used to BE the market. They went from being the market, to being a small part of the market in a pretty fast timeframe. This was faster than the PC boom and it was hugely disruptive to companies like Blackberry who simply didn't move fast enough or act proactively (and was very disruptive to mobile divisions in companies like Microsoft). Palm is dead, because of this. Nokia is, practically, dead because of this... Companies that used Symbian or Windows Mobile were forced to either Adopt another solution or die (Sony, Samsung, HTC, etc.).

Palm, Blackberry (Pre-OS10), Windows Mobile, and Symbian were all the "productivity" OSes of yesteryear. The reason why they're all practically gone (either out of development for smartphone use, driven to super niche markets, or replaced by more consumer-friendly successors) is because the requirements of the average user is completely different than it was before when business users dominated the market. BYOD was not disruptive because it gave users a choice in which smartphone to bring to work. It was disruptive because it gave huge weight to Consumer-Oriented Use Cases and Requirements, whereas an employer-owned device would be purchased based on business requirements only (where Blackberry was, or is, strongest). This meant Blackberry would have to compete with Android, iOS, Windows Phone, etc. in the consumer market, by default, even if they never intended to - because the devices being purchased were being purchased by consumers with that line of thinking dominating the purchase process (not deals with corporate execs filled with business-targeted talking points and advantages).

There are certainly users out there who demand what Blackberry has, and has always had, to offer. But the proportion of the total market that those people make up is now miniscule as opposed to the majority they used to be. That's the biggest difference.

Apps aren't the root of the issue. Developers go where the users are, as Android has so elegantly displayed. They simply had the wrong priorities, and were too damn slow to do what they had to do to mitigate the damage (there was bound to be some, but it didn't have to be as much as it has been).

IMHO.

[AthenaSmith]

I'm inclined to agree. I don't have a single game app on my BlackBerry. My apps are for productivity (listmaking, note-taking, photo editing, writing/drafting), communicating (Facebook and Twitter; I don't have Instagram), and a couple of practical apps (flashlight and calorie counter).

Posted via CB10

[FrankIAm]

Take a look at Troy's and n8ter's posts, well thought and executed; now look at the guy who said games are childish, more likes..

Wake up, crackberry.. that mentality will only further sink the brand.

I'll just keep saying, "tools, not toys" doesn't sell.

BlackBerry 101 - Help Channel

[Apollo_IV]

Seriously, this thread is like guys comparing you know what sizes when none of them can even use it properly. Just stop kidding yourselves.

[jope28]

OP, you are just a normal guy, and are just in a pseudo impression that you are currently being tracked by NSA, CIA, etc etc.
No you aren't. Get a life, go out more often, maybe then you'll realize that nobody gives a damn about which phone or OS you actually use.
I've learned it the hard way. We are customers, we don't depend on companies, companies depend on us.
You've already did your part by paying it money for a phone, no need to pay more. BB already sells overpriced phones, you don't need to pay more to it. Survival of the company?, that's their headache, not yours.

Wow.
You really need some reading comprehension skills. Nowhere did I say or insinuate any of the nonsense you're referring to (NSA???, CIA???, depend on companies, giving a crap about blah blah blah??). And if you actually read, I said "normal" according to what the linked article establishes as "normal".

Man, you're just something special, aren't you? Part of me thinks that maybe you responded to the wrong thread by accident.
Get off that high horse of yours.

I would try making funny faces and slow motion hand gestures, so that maybe you could understand. But here it goes:
The idea was that I can function just fine with a feature set that I happen to find useful (and physical keyboard) and the majority of the customers that are buying smartphones are looking for something different.


Posted via CB10

[jope28]

Double post

[Tre Lawrence]

Whatever makes you sleep at night, I guess.

This LOL.

[donnation]

Oh god, another one of these threads? The problem with this logic is that there is constant posts here about games, games, and more games. Its regularly on the front of the Crackberry home page and the Blackberry World is filled with them. If no one is playing them then why do they have them? If no one cares about games or movies and social media then why does everyone celebrate access to Android apps?

Uproar over no instagram, uproar over no netflix, uproar over missing game selections. Having a game on your phone doesn't make you any less productive than not having a game on your phone. I have games on my personal iPhone and never play them. But I let my kids play them if we are in a doctors office, long drive, etc. Having them is a luxury, not a detriment to productivity.

If you are productive then you are productive. If I have a game on my phone I'm not going to sit around and play it because its not who I am. Its not like I'm going to stop what I'm doing to get to a new level or something on a game. I'm either productive or I'm not, and no phone is going to change that. People were productive long before phones came along and they will continue to be no matter what platform they are using.

How is it that we are all so productive but still have time to post constantly on Crackberry? I mean some of you guys who are "super productive" have 10 times the amount of posts I have and I've been here 7 years. I guess it counts as productivity posting on Crackberry all day.

[--TommesJay--]

Survival of the company?, that's their headache, not yours.

Actually it isn't. If BlackBerry goes belly up some day I'll have to go out and purchase a phone as a supposed "upgrade" I wouldn't have purchased otherwise. A 5"+ touchscreen device made of aluminum running Android for example while I'd much preferred a smaller QWERTY phone made of more durable plastic running an OS like BB10 with something like the HUB and a removable battery.

Not kidding, I see very tough times for me personally if this company goes down the drain.